A Neolithic Landscape - The 1st Farmers

For almost 30 years archaeologist & historian James Balme has been walking the ancient landscape close to his home in Cheshire. During that time he has revealed and recovered ancient stone and flint implements and weapons left behind by the people of the Neolithic ( the new stone age ) from almost 8000 years ago. The landscape has provided evidence from the hunter gatherers and the first farmers to reach Britain.
The landscape that we see in the countryside today is a legacy that has developed from the earliest farmers who cultivated vast areas of land across the United Kingdom providing grazing for cattle and large areas of open land for the cultivation of the first domestic crops to be grown in the rich and fertile soils of Britain. This was truly the first time that humans had become self sufficient providing food and shelter year on year.

Category:

Film & Animation

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• james
• balme
• neolithic
• new
• stone
• age
• first
• farmers
• archaeologist
• presenter
• historian
• flint
• tools
• weapons

[issareign]

I am so proud of my fertile crescent ancestors!

[NKVism3]

EltonJ: Humans ARE animals. They sure as fuck aren't plants or fungi. Human ingenuity is the result of weaker instincts. If humans were not so fragile, they would not have to be so clever.

[EltonJThe]

Praise the ingenuity of the human spirit. :) For without it, we would be animals.

[Parapon3ra]

Praise technology, for without it we would be nothing (or do high infant mortality rates, constant fear, hunger, and hardship, and an average lifespan of 25-30 years sound like fun to you?).

[jacksawild]

We don't really need to make assumptions. There are primitive people, at various stages, still alive in the world today. Look at the native american traditions, very much old stone age, women hunted too. We only have to look at our isolated populations to get a window into our history.

[tamar848]

Got to agree, websnarf, it's more likely the women who would have been fooling around with seeds. As for animal domestication, introspection tells me that the maternal instinct is apt to glom onto anything cute, and I wonder how much adopting baby goats as pets had to do with keeping them later. Many men have this instinct but perhaps not as many as women. Whichever, I think it's hardwired, and I have enough of it to find it easier to imagine domesticating animals than plants.

[websnarf]

@tamar848 : IMHO, it is *MORE* likely that the first to figure out crop farming were women. They spent a higher percentage of time gathering seeds and likely would have figured out the reseeding strategy even before they discovered the right bulbous grasses that would have eventually gone on to be modern domesticated crops.

However, farms also include the domestication of animals. Quite possibly as a side effect of pastoralism, and that would have been more in the male domain.

[tamar848]

very interesting, but it appears from this video that in neolithic times all humans were male. Not likely to produce a new technology, let alone future humans. I've read that hunter/gatherers rely 80% on gathering, usually the ladies's job. Aren't they at least as likely as the guys to have figured out farming?

[cashmania1]

Well gave me some facts about different things i needed to know. Im doing a project on Paleolithic age to the Neolithic age and i need help doing the timeline any facts u can give me or words of advise when doing this timeline for all of them including Mesolithic ( Im in the 7th grade)

[diogok]

Well done, man, nice produced doc! You can work for History Channel now! I liked specially the song and the edition.