7000-2750 BC Neolithic

The Neolithic, or 'New Stone Age' saw a fundamental shift in the way that people lived across Europe. It is the period when people stopped relying on hunting and gathering and instead took up farming as their main way of procuring food.

The staples of farming consist of cereals such as wheat and barley, and animals such as sheep, goat, pig and cattle. These plants and animals were first domesticated in the Near East, in an area known as the Fertile Crescent which runs through Syria and Jordan.

The earliest farming communities outside the Fertile Crescent were based in south-east Europe. Over the next 3000 years farming spread across the continent into eastern and northern Europe, and across the Mediterranean sea to Italy and on to the Iberian Peninsula. Regional variations in the ‘Neolithic package’ began to appear as each area of Europe adopted farming. However, there are broad patterns that can be seen from the Aegean to Spain and from Italy to Poland. In all these areas, people began to live in permanent village-like settlements; religion and art flourished; long-distance trade networks were developed; and burial of the dead, initially in single graves and later in large communal tombs, became important through much of Europe.