Heavy Neolithic Heavy Neolithic Heavy Neolithic (alternatively, Gigantolithic) is a style of large stone and flint tools (or industry) associated primarily with the Qaraoun culture in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon, dating to the Epipaleolithic or early Pre-pottery Neolithic at the end of the Stone Age. The type site for the Qaraoun culture is Qaraoun II. The term "Heavy Neolithic" was translated by Lorraine Copeland and Peter J. Wescombe from Henri Fleisch's term ""gros Neolithique"", suggested by Dorothy Garrod (in a letter dated February 1965) for adoption to describe the particular flint industry that was identified at sites near Qaraoun in the Beqaa
Inside the Neolithic Mind their preface, Lewis-Williams and Pearce explain their approach, and their reasons for comparing megalithic art and archaeology from the Near East and Atlantic Europe. They express their opinion that such comparisons are made possible – despite the cultural and geographical differences – because of the "universal functioning of the human brain" which unites all "Homo sapiens" and leads different societies to develop similar religious and cosmological beliefs. Chapter one, "The Revolutionary Neolithic", explores the background to this period of time, in which humans became increasingly sedentary and developed agriculture. Discussing the various different understandings of the Neolithic advocated within archaeology,