How far along had civilization developed by the end of the Neolithic Age?
The Neolithic is roughly equivalent to the Agricultural Revolution. Pottery and permanent buildings were introduced in the earliest Neolithic. Most people lived a rather sedentary, not nomadic, life (although there were horse nomads in the steppes of eastern Europe).
By the end of the Neolithic in the Near East and Central Europe, there were large, permanent villages with houses constructed of wood and wattle-and-daub, or of mud bricks. There were also many small farmsteads dotting the landscape. Sheep, goats, dogs, pigs, cattle and horses had been domesticated. People still hunted deer, wild pigs and a wide variety of smaller game (turtles, birds, hares, fish, molluscs, etc.). Wild cattle were almost extinct. Farming was widespread and a large number of plants had been domesticated (flax, wheat, barley, peas, etc.). People were making tools and ornaments out of stone, bone, copper, gold and sea shells. Flint, copper ore, gold, and perhaps arsenic or lead were being mined. People were also making clothes of wool and flax (like linen), milking cows and sheep, using ploughs and wagons, and had learned how to smelt and cast copper (the next period after the Neolithic is the Bronze Age and making bronze requires that one understand how to smelt and cast copper). There is evidence for some sort of religion, based on clay figurines, real and fake cattle skulls hung on buildings, and funeral rituals. There is evidence for long-distance trade based on gold, copper, obsidian, sea shells, and flint and other stones from all over eastern and central Europe. It does not appear, at least in Europe, that there was any formal and hereditary political organisation until sometime during the Bronze Age.
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unless you start doing your own research.
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