Pre-Pottery Neolithic A

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic is divided into Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA 10000–8800 BCE) and the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB 8800–6500 BCE).^[1][5] These were originally defined by Kathleen Kenyon in the type site of Jericho (Palestine). The Pre-Pottery Neolithic precedes the ceramic Neolithic (Yarmukian culture, 6400 – 6200 BCE). At 'Ain Ghazal, in Jordan, the culture continued a few more centuries as the so-called Pre-Pottery Neolithic C culture.

Around 11000 years ago (9000 BCE), during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), the "world's first town", Jericho, appeared in the Levant,^[6] although the adequacy of this title has since been challenged.^[7]

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  Sculpture of a predatory animal, Göbekli Tepe, circa 9000 BC
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  Urfa Man, c. 9000 BC. Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museum.

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic is divided into Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (10000 – 8800 BCE) and the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (8800 – 6500 BCE).^[1][5] PPNB differed from PPNA in showing greater use of domesticated animals, a different set of tools, and new architectural styles.

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  Head of a statue from Jericho, from c. 9000 years ago (7000 BCE). On display at the Rockefeller Museum, in Jerusalem.
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  Footed bowl in granite, Syria, end of 8th millennium BC.
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  Jar in calcite alabaster, Syria, late 8th millennium BC.
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  Green aragonite tripod vase Mid-Euphrates 6000 BCE Louvre Museum AO 28386
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  Calcite tripod vase, mid-Euphrates, probably from Tell Buqras, 6000 BC, Louvre Museum AO 31551

Pre-Pottery Neolithic C

Work at the site of 'Ain Ghazal in Jordan has indicated a later Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period. Juris Zarins has proposed that a Circum Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex developed in the period from the climatic crisis of 6200 BCE, partly as a result of an increasing emphasis in PPNB cultures upon domesticated animals, and a fusion with Harifian hunter-gatherers in the Southern Levant, with affiliate connections with the cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down the Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into southern Iraq.^[8]

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  ʿAin Ghazal statues: closeup of one of the bicephalous statues, c. 6500 BC.
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  Ain Ghazal statue on show in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
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  Louvre Ain Ghazal statue, frontal

Europe

Carbon 14 dating

Main articles: Neolithic Europe and Indus Valley civilisation

Map of the spread of Neolithic farming cultures from the Near-East to Europe with dates

The spread of the Neolithic in Europe was first studied quantitatively in the 1970s, when a sufficient number of 14C age determinations for early Neolithic sites had become available.^[9] Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza discovered a linear relationship between the age of an Early Neolithic site and its distance from the conventional source in the Near East (Jericho), thus demonstrating that, on average, the Neolithic spread at a constant speed of about 1 km/yr.^[9] More recent studies confirm these results and yield the speed of 0.6–1.3 km/yr at 95% confidence level.^[9]

South Asia

Expansion to South Asia

Early Neolithic sites in the Near East and South Asia 10,000–3,800 BCE

Neolithic dispersal from the Near East to South Asia suggested by the time of establishment of Neolithic sites as a function of distance from Gesher, Israel. The dispersal rate amounts to about 0.6 km per year.^[12]

The earliest Neolithic sites in South Asia are Bhirrana in Haryana, dated to 7570–6200 BC,^[13] and Mehrgarh, dated to between 6500 and 5500 BC, in the Kachi plain of Baluchistan, Pakistan; the site has evidence of farming (wheat and barley) and herding (cattle, sheep and goats).

There is strong evidence for causal connections between the Near-Eastern Neolithic and that further east, up to the Indus Valley.^[14] There are several lines of evidence that support the idea of a connection between the Neolithic in the Near East and in the Indian subcontinent.^[14] The prehistoric site of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan (modern Pakistan) is the earliest Neolithic site in the north-west Indian subcontinent, dated as early as 8500 BCE.^[14] Neolithic domesticated crops in Mehrgarh include more than barley and a small amount of wheat. There is good evidence for the local domestication of barley and the zebu cattle at Mehrgarh, but the wheat varieties are suggested to be of Near-Eastern origin, as the modern distribution of wild varieties of wheat is limited to Northern Levant and Southern Turkey.^[14] A detailed satellite map study of a few archaeological sites in the Baluchistan and Khybar Pakhtunkhwa regions also suggests similarities in early phases of farming with sites in Western Asia.^[14] Pottery prepared by sequential slab construction, circular fire pits filled with burnt pebbles, and large granaries are common to both Mehrgarh and many Mesopotamian sites.^[14] The postures of the skeletal remains in graves at Mehrgarh bear a strong resemblance to those at Ali Kosh in the Zagros Mountains of southern Iran.^[14] Despite their scarcity, the 14C and archaeological age determinations for early Neolithic sites in Southern Asia exhibit remarkable continuity across the vast region from the Near East to the Indian Subcontinent, consistent with a systematic eastward spread at a speed of about 0.65 km/yr.^[14]

In South India, the Neolithic began by 6500 BC and lasted until around 1400 BC when the Megalithic transition period began. South Indian Neolithic is characterized by Ash mounds from 2500 BC in Karnataka region, expanded later to Tamil Nadu.^[15]