The time period is characterized by tiny circular mud-brick dwellings, thecultivation of crops, the hunting of wild game, and unique burial customs in which bodies were buried below the floors of dwellings.[4]
Evolution of temperatures in the Post-Glacial period according to Greenland ice cores. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic corresponds to the period of warming of theHolocene.[5]Calibrated Carbon 14 dates forGesher, the earliest known Neolithic site as of 2013.[6]Reliefs of animals, Göbekli Tepe Layer III (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A),c. 9000 BCE.
PPNA archaeological sites are much larger than those of the preceding Natufian hunter-gatherer culture, and contain traces of communal structures, such as the famousTower of Jericho. PPNA settlements are characterized by round, semi-subterranean houses with stone foundations andterrazzo-floors.[7] The upper walls were constructed of unbaked claymudbricks with plano-convex cross-sections. Thehearths were small and covered with cobbles. Heated rocks were used in cooking, which led to an accumulation of fire-cracked rock in the buildings, and almost every settlement contained storage bins made of either stones or mud-brick.
As of 2013,Gesher, modern Israel, became the earliest known of all known Neolithic sites (PPNA), with a calibratedCarbon 14 date of 10,459 BCE ± 348 years, analysis suggesting that it may have been the starting point of aNeolithic Revolution.[8] A contemporary site isMureybet in modernSyria.[8]
One of the most notable PPNA settlements isJericho, thought to be the world's first town (c. 9,000 BCE).[9] The PPNA town contained a population of up to 2–3000 people and was protected by a massivestone wall and tower. There is much debate over the function of the wall, for there is no evidence of any serious warfare at this time.[10] One possibility is the wall was built to protect the salt resources of Jericho.[11] It has also been proposed that the tower caught the shadow of the largest nearby mountain onsummer solstice in order to create a sense of power in support of whatever hierarchy ruled the town's inhabitants.[12]
PPNA cultures are unique for their burial practices, and Kenyon (who excavated the PPNA level of Jericho) characterized them as "living with their dead". Kenyon found no fewer than 279 burials, below floors, under household foundations, and in between walls.[16] In the PPNB period, skulls were often dug up and reburied, or mottled with clay and (presumably) displayed.
Sedentism of this time allowed for thecultivation of local grains, such asbarley andwild oats, and for storage ingranaries. Sites such asDhra′ andJericho retained a hunting lifestyle until the PPNB period, but granaries allowed for year-round occupation.[19]
This period of cultivation is considered "pre-domestication", but may have begun to develop plant species into the domesticated forms they are today. Deliberate, extended-period storage was made possible by the use of "suspended floors for air circulation and protection from rodents". This practice "precedes the emergence of domestication and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years".[2]
It has been observed of these granaries that their "sophisticated storage systems with subfloor ventilation are a precocious development that precedes the emergence of almost all of the other elements of the Near Eastern Neolithic package—domestication, large scale sedentary communities, and the entrenchment of some degree of social differentiation". Moreover, "building granaries may [...] have been the most important feature in increasing sedentism that required active community participation in new life-ways".[2]
With more sites becoming known, archaeologists have defined a number of regional variants of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A:
(Aswadian) in the Damascus Basin, defined by finds fromTell Aswad IA; typical: bipolar cores, big sickle blades,Aswad points. The 'Aswadian' variant recently was abolished by the work ofDanielle Stordeur in her initial report from further investigations in 2001–2006. The PPNB horizon was moved back at this site, to around 10,700 BP.[20]
Mureybetian in the Northern Levant, defined by the finds fromMureybet IIIA, IIIB, typical:Helwan points, sickle-blades with base amenagée or short stem and terminal retouch.[21] Other sites include Sheyk Hasan andJerf el Ahmar.
^Mithen, Steven (2006).After the ice: a global human history, 20,000–5,000 BC (1st ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 63.ISBN978-0-674-01999-7.
^Mithen, Steven (2006).After the ice: a global human history, 20,000–5,000 BC (1st ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 59.ISBN978-0-674-01999-7.
^Mithen, Steven (2006).After the ice: a global human history, 20,000–5,000 BC (1st ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 60.ISBN978-0-674-01999-7.
^Young, Theodore Cuyler Jr; Smith, Philip E. L.; Mortensen, Peder (1983).The hilly flanks and beyond: essays on the prehistory of Southwestern Asia presented to Robert J. Braidwood, November 15, 1982. Studies in ancient Oriental civilization (in French). Chicago (Ill.): Oriental institute of the University of Chicago. pp. 44–45.ISBN978-0-918986-37-5.
^Curry, Andrew (November 2008)."Göbekli Tepe: The World's First Temple?". Smithsonian Institution. Archived fromthe original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved14 March 2009. Directrice de la mission permanente El Kowm-Mureybet (Syrie) du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères – Recherches sur le Levant central/sud : Premiers résultats.
J. Cauvin, Naissance des divinités, Naissance de l'agriculture. La révolution des symboles au Néolithique (CNRS 1994). Translation (T. Watkins) The birth of the gods and the origins of agriculture (Cambridge 2000).
O. Bar-Yosef, The PPNA in the Levant – an overview. Paléorient 15/1, 1989, 57–63.
The ruins ofGöbekli Tepe,c. 9,000 BCE
![The Urfa Man c. 9000 BCE.[13][14][15] Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museum.](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aUrfa_man.jpg)
