article_snippet: The Neolithic period  - also known as the 'New Stone Age' - spanned from around 4000 to 2,500 BC and was characterised by the adoption of agriculture and a more sedentary style of living.
article_snippet: The preceding period of the last, post-glacial hunter-gatherer societies is known as the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age.
article_snippet: This moment is sometimes referred to as the 'Neolithic revolution' but radiocarbon dating has revealed that the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer was relatively gradual.
article_snippet: the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer was relatively gradual was believed that the introduction of farming into Britain was the result of a huge migration from mainland Europe, but genetic research suggests that the influx  was probably  small - somewhere around 20 per cent of the total population.
article_snippet: These people also brought with These people the first seed grains of wheat and barley, which had been bred from wild grasses that grew in the region of modern-day Iraq.
article_snippet: The people that lived during this period left behind no written records, however, so all that is known  comes from archaeological evidence.