The Neolithic demographic transition was a period of rapid population growth following the adoption of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

by prehistoric societies (the Neolithic Revolution). It was a

demographic transition In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which refers to the historical shift from high birth rates and high death rates in societies with minimal technology, education (especially of women) and economic development, to l ...

caused by an abrupt increase in

birth rate The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...

s due to the increased food supply and decreased mobility of farmers compared to

foragers A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

. Eventually the

mortality rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of d ...

in farming societies also increased to the point where the population stabilised again, possibly because settling down in one place, in close proximity to animals, encouraged the spread of

zoonotic A zoonosis (; plural zoonoses) or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion) that has jumped from a non-human (usually a vertebrate) to a human. ...

and

waterborne diseases Waterborne diseases are conditions (meaning adverse effects on human health, such as death, disability, illness or disorders) caused by pathogenic micro-organisms that are transmitted in water. These diseases can be spread while bathing, washin ...

. The transition is estimated to have taken about a thousand years on average, although the onset and duration of the transition varied widely in the different parts of the world. Evidence for the Neolithic demographic transition include an increase in juvenile skeletons in prehistoric cemeteries and a general increase in the density of archaeological remains following the start of the Neolithic. It is known to have occurred in

Southwest Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...

(c. 9500–6500 BCE), Europe (c. 7000 BCE),

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...

(c. 6000–2500 BCE),

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

(c. 2500–1500 BCE), and the

American Southwest The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado ...

(c. 1100 BCE – 1000 CE). The Neolithic demographic transition was the inverse of the contemporary demographic transition, a similar episode of population growth that occurred after the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, which began because of decreased mortality and ended due to decreased fertility.

References

{{Reflist Neolithic Demographic history

See also

Further reading

References