Talk:Neolithic Revolution

Linear progression of society

The part of the introduction about the neolithic package and how farming gave rise to hierarchy just isnt true? Hierarchy can exist both with and without hierarchy. The opening also implies that farming, once adopted, was a permanent feature, something that's not always reflected. Amending some of the phrasing here and later on would more accurately reflect the ways that agriculture changed societies, and help resist the idea that history only moves one way. Bookyteeth (talk) 15:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

An amendment made on 28 August 2017 by User:Chiswick Chap removed the statement "Personal land and private property ownership led to a hierarchical society, with an elite social class, comprising a nobility, polity, and military" from the lead section, without an edit summary but presumably because the statement was inadequately supported by citations. The words "hierarchical ideologies" remained, without citation, presumably overlooked then and ever since. I agree that this requires a citation and have flagged it as such. Don't know what User:Bookyteeth means by "Hierarchy can exist both with and without hierarchy". Masato.harada (talk) 16:16, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry about that, meant "hierarchy can exist both with and without farming" Bookyteeth (talk) 00:12, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

BP

Why is BP (a relatively unknown standard) used? 197.234.165.147 (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Because it concerns prehistory. Before Present is standard in such cases. Dimadick (talk) 00:57, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be truer to say it it is often preferred in such cases, further back than some cut-off point. I wouldn't expect to see it used for the European Bronze Age for example. This topic is about at the borderline imo. Johnbod (talk) 03:59, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

While its usage may be common, it is bad practice when multiple chronological are referenced as it requires doing additional mental math using a yearly shifting reference point and is not used in ancient and prehistoric academic chronologies. For example, the chronology of Egyptian dynasties are much easier to understand using the BCE standard. Eulersidentity (talk) 16:45, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Change proposal to chronological era standard

The usage of the BP scale has a yearly shift in reference point that is better suited for geological scale chronologies but poorly suited for the chronology of human histories. The academic standard of using the BCE scale is used to address this by using a fixed reference point to make this chronology easier to intuitively understand, store, and recall from memory.

As a result, I propose keeping BP for references to geological epochs in the article such as the beginning of the Holocene era, but changing the chronological scale for references to human history and its corresponding archaeological record to BCE.

Please let me know your thoughts and declare whether or not you support or oppose this proposal to determine whether or not to accept or reject it by consensus.

Thanks! Eulersidentity (talk) 17:06, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose as proposed The BP (Before Present) scale in fact has a fixed "present" of 1950; "years ago" dates I suppose will need updating in 30 years or so. I agree there are too many of both of these in the article - both involve irritating mental arithmetic for the majority who think in BC/BCE dates. Per WP:ERA we should go back to the original BC scale, which is perfectly fine, and better understood in most parts of the world outside America. It was changed illegally at some point, with no discussion that I can see. Johnbod (talk) 04:21, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

As Johnbod says, Before Present is a well-defined era with a fixed epoch. I also don't agree that it is better suited for geological scale chronologies but poorly suited for the chronology of human histories; BP is widely used by scholars working on (human) prehistory and is the norm for most things Stone Age. Geologists, in contrast, tend to use the SI annum or kya/mya notation. For a general readership I think the most natural way to talk about things that happened a very long time ago is in terms of "X years ago", which for practical purposes is equivalent to Before Present. That is, I think the average person will find it just as easy to parse a statement like "agriculture appeared around 12,000 years ago" as "agriculture appeared around 10,000 BC" so I see no strong reason to prefer one or the other in this article. Consistency would be great, of course. – Joe (talk) 06:33, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

but how many years before christ? ~2026-28233-36 (talk) 09:49, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Added: population increase as effect

I added in the firest and second paragraphs, that population increase was one of the main effects of agriculture. It had been left out. Ttulinsky (talk) 08:29, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Backgrounds section

Hi there! I'm just reaching out because I finished reading through the background section a few mins ago, and noticed some really weird tonal/topic shifts that really didn't feel like the Wikipedia cadence or even relevant to the subject matter at hand. Decided after that I wanted to post here and see if anyone else had the same takeaway?

I should note that by no means am I intimately familiar with the inner-workings of Wikipedia itself- but I still felt even from that stance that it had this odd & unfitting essay-like tone that really clashed with other articles on the website. ~2026-26661-30 (talk) 05:07, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

You are not very specific, but perhaps you are referring to the emphasis on flood myths in the lead? Anyway, that seems strange to me, and the weight given there does not seem to match the weight given in the body.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:32, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

How is it a myth when there are so many separate accounts? I mean I know they don’t cite references in accordance with wiki standards but as a layman i wouldn’t call the flood a myth ~2026-28233-36 (talk) 09:52, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

You’re a myth ~2026-28233-36 (talk) 09:53, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

There’s not even a section about the aliens. This is supposed to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA ~2026-28233-36 (talk) 09:55, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

I would say that the idea that there was one single giant flood which somehow triggered the Neolithic not reflected in ancient myths, but also not really any kind of modern consensus. I think someone needs to prune the lead.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:59, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Göbekli Tepe was built by apes I presume ~2026-28233-36 (talk) 10:04, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Look I wanna know what happened too. That’s why we need time travel. ~2026-28233-36 (talk) 10:07, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Or talk to the aliens. They might know ~2026-28233-36 (talk) 10:09, 10 May 2026 (UTC)