The8th millennium BC spanned the years 8000 BC to 7001 BC (c. 10 ka to c. 9 ka). In chronological terms, it is the second full millennium of the currentHolocene epoch and is entirely within thePre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) phase of theEarly Neolithic. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis, or by radiometric dating.
In thegeologic time scale, the firststratigraphic stage of theHolocene epoch is the "Greenlandian" from about 9700 BC to the fixed date 6236 BC and so including the whole of the 8th millennium. The Greenlandian followed theYounger Dryas and essentially featured a climate shift from near-glacial to interglacial, causing glaciers to retreat and sea levels to rise.[1][2] Towards the end of the 8th millennium, theHolocene Climate Optimum (HCO) – also called the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) – began as a warm period lasting roughly 4,000 years until about 3000 BC.Insolation during summers in the northern hemisphere was unusually strong with pronounced warming in the higher latitudes such as Greenland, northern Canada and northern Europe with a resultant reduction in Arctic sea ice.[3]
According to radiometric dates, the main occupation phases recognized atShillourokambos took place between the end of the9th millennium BC and the end of this millennium, long before theKhirokitia Culture.[7] The fact remains that its disappearance in the Middle Phase atShillourokambos, in the second half of this millennium, is not an isolated incident but one of a number of expressions of a deep cultural change.[7]
Outside the Near East, most people around the world still lived in scatteredhunter-gatherer communities that remained firmly in thePalaeolithic.[8] Within the Near East,Neolithic culture and technology had become established throughout much of theFertile Crescent by 8000 BC and was gradually spreading westward, though it is not believed to have reached Europe till about the end of this millennium. Planting and harvesting techniques were transferred through Asia Minor and across the Aegean Sea to Greece and the Balkans. The techniques were, in the main, cultivation of wheats and barleys; and domestication of sheep, goats and cattle.[8]
Theworld population was probably stable and slowly increasing. It has been estimated that there were some five million people c. 10,000 BC growing to forty million by 5000 BC and 100 million by 1600 BC. That is an average growth rate of 0.027% p.a. from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.[citation needed]
There was no potteryper se in the Near East at this time as thepotter's wheel had not yet been invented. Rudimentary clay vessels were hand-built, often by means ofcoiling, andpit fired.[11] DameKathleen Kenyon was the principal archaeologist atTell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho) and she discovered that there was no pottery there.[12][13] The vessels she found were made from stone and she reasonably surmised that others made from wood or vegetable fibres would have long since decayed.[12][13] The first chronological pottery system had been devised by SirArthur Evans for hisBronze Age findings atKnossos and Kenyon used this as a benchmark for the Near East Neolithic. She divided the period into phases calledPre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), from c. 10,000 BC to c. 8800 BC;Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), which includes the entire 8th millennium, from c. 8800 BC to c. 6500 BC; and thenPottery Neolithic (PN), which had varied start-points from c. 6500 BC until the beginnings of the Bronze Age towards the end of the4th millennium (c. 3000 BC).[11][12]
^Walker, Mike; Head, Martin J.; Berkelhammer, Max; et al. (14 June 2018)."Formal ratification of the subdivision of the Holocene Series/Epoch (Quaternary System/Period)"(PDF).Episodes. Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS).doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2018/018016.Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved21 September 2022.This proposal on behalf of the SQS has been approved by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and formally ratified by the Executive Committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS).
^abLe Brun, Alain. "Like a Bull in a Chine Shop: Identity and Ideology in Neolithic Cyprus." Archaeological Perspectives on the Transmission and Transformation of Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, edited by Joanne Clarke, Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL), 2005, pp. 113–17. JSTOR,http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv310vqks.19. Accessed 3 Feb. 2023.
^abDever, William G. (1978). "Kathleen Kenyon (1906–1978): A Tribute".Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.232. American Schools of Oriental Research:3–4.doi:10.1086/BASOR1356696.S2CID167007661.
^Richards, Julian (17 February 2011)."Britain's Oldest House?". London: BBC History. Retrieved8 January 2021.
^Hoffmann, Almut; Hublin, Jean-Jacques; Huels, Matthias; Terberger, Thomas (2011). "TheHomo aurignaciensis hauseri from Combe-Capelle – A Mesolithic burial".Journal of Human Evolution.61 (2). Amsterdam: Elsevier:211–214.Bibcode:2011JHumE..61..211H.doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.03.001.PMID21486678.
