Neolithic agricultural revolution in Greece and Europe 7.000BC

The Neolithic Revolution or Neolithic Demographic Transition, sometimes called the Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, allowing the ability to support an increasingly large population. Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various types of plants and animals evolved in separate locations worldwide, starting in the geological epoch of the
 Holocene around 12,500 years ago. It was the world's first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture. The Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a limited set of food-producing techniques. During the next millennia it would transform the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human pre-history into sedentary (here meaning non-nomadic) societies based in built-up villages and towns. These societies radically modified theirnatural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation (e.g., irrigation and deforestation) which allowed extensive surplus food production. These developments provided the basis for densely populated settlements, specialization and division of labour, trading economies, the development of non-portable art and architecture, centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g.,writing), and property ownership. Personal, land and private property ownership led to hierarchical society, class struggle and armies. The first full-blown manifestation of the entire Neolithic complex is seen in the Middle Eastern Sumerian cities (c. 5,500 BP), whose emergence also heralded the beginning of the Bronze Age. The relationship of the above-mentioned Neolithic characteristics to the onset of agriculture, their sequence of emergence, and empirical relation to each other at various Neolithic sites remains the subject of academic debate, and varies from place to place, rather than being the outcome of universal laws of social evolution. Neolithic Europe refers to a prehistoric period in which Neolithic technology was present in Europe. This corresponds roughly to a time between 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) and c. 1700 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age in northwest Europe). The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the southeast to northwest at about 1 km/year. The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place, its end marked by the introduction of bronze implements: in southeast Europe(Greece) it is approximately 4,000 years (i.e. 7000 BCE–3000 BCE) while in Northwest Europe it is just under 3,000 years (c. 4500 BCE–1700 BCE). Regardless of specific chronology, many European Neolithic groups share basic characteristics, such as living in small-scale, family-based communities, subsisting on domesticated plants and animals supplemented with the collection of wild plant foods and with hunting, and producing hand-made pottery, that is, pottery made without the potter's wheel. Polished stone axes lie at the heart of the neolithic (new stone) culture, enabling forest clearance for agriculture and production of wood for dwellings, as well as fuel. There are also many differences, with some Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe(Greece) living in heavily fortified settlements of 3,000-4,000 people (e.g., Sesklo in Greece) whereas Neolithic groups in Britain were small (possibly 50-100 people) and highly mobile cattle-herders. The details of the origin, chronology, social organization, subsistence practices and ideology of the peoples of Neolithic Europe are obtained from archaeology, and not historical records, since these people left none. Since the 1970s, population genetics has provided independent data on the population history of Neolithic Europe, including migration events and genetic relationships with peoples in South Asia. A further independent tool, linguistics, has contributed hypothetical reconstructions of early European languages and family trees with estimates of dating of splits, in particular theories on the relationship between speakers of Indo-European languages and Neolithic peoples. Some archaeologists believe that the expansion of Neolithic peoples from Eastern Mediterranean into Europe, marking the eclipse of Mesolithic culture, coincided with the introduction of Indo-European speakers,  whereas other archaeologists and many linguists believe the Indo-European languages were introduced from the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the succeeding Bronze Age. Debate exists whether this resulted from an active migratory process from Eastern Mediterranean, or merely due to cultural contact between Europeans and Greeks. Currently, three models summarize the proposed pattern of spread: Replacement model: posits that there was a significant migration of farmers Greece into Europe. Given their technological advantages, they would have displaced or absorbed the less numerous hunter-gathering populace. Thus, modern Europeans are primarily descended from these Neolithic farmers.Cultural diffusion: in contrast, this model supposes that agriculture reached Europe by way of a flow of ideas and trade between the Mesolithic European population and Anatolian Greeks farmers. There was no net increase in migration during this process, and therefore, modern Europeans are descended from the "original" Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. Pioneer model: recognises that models 1) and 2) above may represent false dichotomies. This model postulates that there was an initial, small scale migration of farmers from Greece to certain regions of Europe. They might have enjoyed localized demographic expansions due to social advantages. The subsequent spread of farming technologies throughout the rest of Europe was then carried out by Mesolithic Europeans who acquired new skill through trade and cultural interaction. Some Neolithic cultures listed above are known for constructing megaliths. These occur primarily on the Atlantic coast of Europe, but there are also megaliths on western Mediterranean islands. Circa 5000 BCE: Constructions in Portugal (Évora). Emergence of the Atlantic Neolithic period, the age of agriculture along the fertile shores of Europe.Circa 4800 BCE: Constructions in Brittany (Barnenez) and Poitou (Bougon).Circa 4000 BCE: Constructions in Brittany (Carnac), Portugal (Lisbon), Spain (Galicia andAndalusia), France (central and southern), Corsica, England and Wales.Circa 4000 BCE: Constructions in Ireland (Carrowmore) and elsewhere).Circa 3600 BCE: Constructions in England (Maumbury Rings and Godmanchester), and Malta(Ġgantija and Mnajdra temples).Circa 3500 BCE: Constructions in Spain (Málaga and Guadiana), Ireland (south-west), France (Arles and the north), Sardinia, Sicily, Malta (and elsewhere in the Mediterranean), Belgium(north-east) and Germany (central and south-west). Circa 3400 BCE: Constructions in Ireland(Newgrange), 
Netherlands (north-east), Germany (northern and central) Sweden and Denmark.Circa 3200 BCE: Constructions in Malta (Ħaġar Qim and Tarxien).Circa 3000 BCE: Constructions in France(Saumur, Dordogne, Languedoc, Biscay, and the Mediterranean coast), Spain (Los Millares), Sicily, Belgium (Ardennes), and Orkney, as well as the first henges (circular earthworks) in Britain.Circa 2800 BCE: Climax of the megalithic Funnel-beaker culture in Denmark, and the construction of the henge at Stonehenge.
Πηγή: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_revolution
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Europe