Earth & SkyGreek → English
Neolithic
/ˌniːəˈlɪθɪk/adjective
Belonging to the last phase of the Stone Age, when people farmed, settled and polished their tools.
The Greek roots
νέος
néos
new, young
λίθος
líthos
stone
Literally: “new stone”
The story of the word
John Lubbock cut the Stone Age in two in 1865, calling the chipped-tool era palaeolithic and the polished-tool era neolithic. The dividing line has since moved off the tools altogether: archaeologists now hang the term on farming and permanent settlement. Greek λίθος also gives lithography, which began as drawing on slabs of limestone.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1865
Same family
palaeolithicmegalithlithographymonolith
In a sentence
The field turned up a neolithic axe head, still sharp enough to cut.