Neolithic in the Near East

The Neolithic in the Near East is a period in the prehistory of Western Asia, which began with the transition from a Paleolithic to a Neolithic way of life and then saw its consolidation and perpetuation. It takes place between the Levant and the western Zagros, including part of Anatolia, at the beginning of the Holocene, between around 10000 and 5500 BC, or 12000–7500 AD (before the present).
This period was marked primarily by the adoption of agriculture (predominantly cereals) and livestock breeding following the domestication of plants and animals, gradually replacing hunting and gathering. The first characteristic elements of the Neolithic way of life were put in place during the final phase of the Paleolithic, known as the Epipaleolithic in the Near Eastern context, notably the Natufian period in the Levant (c. 14500–10000 BC), which saw the development of a sedentary lifestyle. The Neolithic process in the Near East began in the 10th millennium BC and ended more than two millennia later, around 7500 BC. This first phase is known as the "pre-ceramic" Neolithic, because, as its name suggests, ceramics were not yet in use, but agriculture and animal husbandry were introduced, and sedentary lifestyles became widespread. The subsequent phases of the Ceramic (or Late) Neolithic lasted until around the middle of the 6th millennium BC, and saw the emergence of regional cultures, and the Neolithic way of life spread to new regions. They come to an end with the development of metallurgy, which marks the beginning of the metal ages.
The concept of the Neolithic was coined in 1865, at the same time as the Paleolithic, by John Lubbock, extending Christian Jürgensen Thomsen's system of "three ages" (copper, bronze and iron). It depends solely on technical criteria, primarily the transition from cut to polished stone. The Neolithic took on more substance in the 1920s–1930s with the work of Australian prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe, notably in his seminal work, Man Makes Himself (1936), which shifted its definition towards economic and social aspects, when he coined the concept of the "Neolithic revolution". It is transposed from that of the industrial revolution and anchored in a progressive vision of human history: it is marked by the emergence of food-producing village societies, follows the revolution in the domestication of fire and precedes the "urban revolution"; it thus sets the conditions for the emergence of "civilization". He characterizes this phenomenon by several major features: plant cultivation and animal husbandry, which lead to population growth, generate surpluses and enable sedentary lifestyles; although he considers these societies to be largely self-sufficient, he admits that they trade luxury goods among themselves; they were able to undertake collective and cooperative work, notably in agriculture and resource security, and set up clan-based political organizations, consolidated by magical and religious aspects; from a material point of view, the Neolithic is characterized by polished stone objects, ceramics and weaving implements. This model has obviously been amended, but it remains partly valid when it comes to determining the Neolithic "package".
Research since the post-war years has enabled studies to better define the characteristics of Neolithic societies, thanks to new discoveries. For example, the excavations of Natoufian sites in the 1950s and 1960s revealed that these villages were inhabited by hunter-gatherers, and that sedentarization preceded domestication, rather than being seen as a consequence of it, as had been thought at the time. In the 1950s, Kathleen Kenyon laid the foundations for a chronology of the Neolithic in the Levant, based on excavations at Jericho (Tell es-Sultan), highlighting phases of a "Pre-Pottery Neolithic". This model is still in use, even if it has its limitations, notably because it qualifies societies in early periods as "Neolithic" when in fact they were not. Data from recent excavations have further advanced our knowledge of the Neolithic process, highlighting the plurality of domestication sites (partly thanks to genetic studies), and the discovery of the Göbekli Tepe sanctuary in Turkey has shed light on the religious and ritual aspects of early Neolithic societies. Comparing the situation in the Near East with that of other archaeologically known societies that experienced the Neolithic process, whether endogenously or not, also helps to evolve understanding of the Neolithic by revealing common elements and specificities, and ethnographic work supports the development of explanatory models based on prehistoric archaeological data.
As a result, the search for causes has often dominated the research agenda, and given rise to a diverse set of proposals, often focusing on the question of the origin of domestication, but also taking the phenomenon of Neolithization in its various components.
Childe, echoing the ideas of R. Pumpelly, was a proponent of the "oasis theory": the end of the last Ice Age led to a drier climate, forcing people and animals in the Middle East to take refuge in river plains and oases, where wild cereals were also found, and this coexistence in these reduced spaces would have led to the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry. After him, Robert John Braidwood, based on his research in the Zagros in the 1950s ("Hilly flanks theory"), shifted the search for causes towards social and cultural criteria: if the Neolithic occurred, it was because societies were materially and culturally ready, in particular because they had the tools and knowledge needed for agriculture and food processing. From the late 1960s onwards, Lewis Roberts Binford formulated an explanation combining demography and environment, based on the idea that Epipaleolithic communities in the Levant were experiencing population growth, which would have combined with the rise in sea levels associated with the end of the Ice Age. This would have created "stress" in terms of access to food resources, as space per person had shrunk, prompting migration to hitherto unpopulated marginal areas, where migrants would have domesticated cereals and animals and taken them with them. Similar functionalist explanations, highlighting the adaptive responses of societies to environmental and/or demographic change, were subsequently formulated. This is based on the idea that societies are forced by various factors to move into the Neolithic stage. The next stage proposes a different approach, and sees a return to cultural and cognitive explanations. J. Cauvin's model, formulated in the 1980s–1990s, identifies a "symbol revolution", a change in the way humans relate to the world around them, which he sees as the sole cause of the social, economic and material changes observed during Neolithization. I. Hodder has also put forward proposals for the mental changes that took place during the Neolithic period, but he sees them not so much as a cause, but as evolutions accompanying other changes. Like this perspective, explanatory models that take into account the possible interactions between social, economic and mental changes, as well as climatic ones, have taken the lead since the 2000s.
The phenomenon of Neolithization is now seen as a long, complex, non-linear process, characterized by the transition from a hunter-gatherer to a farmer-herder economy, but encompassing many other technical, social and mental evolutions that accompany the phenomenon, and are clearly linked by causal relationships. To summarize current approaches to the Neolithic and Neolithization as a process that encompasses several changes over a very long period.
According to Ç. Çilingiroğlu:
And for A. Goring-Morris and A. Belfer-Cohen:
In order to define what Neolithic societies are, the concept of the Neolithic "package" has spread, based on the criteria laid down by Childe, which are the characteristics expected of Neolithic societies, but which remain rather vague all in all. Basically, these features include the "first times" found in the Neolithic: "built spaces indicating permanent habitation, domesticated animals, cultivated cereals and legumes indicating food production, pottery vessels indicating storage and cooking, polished stone objects indicating food processing, axes indicating a new technology of finishing stone tools by polishing" (M. Özdoğan, who speaks like others of the "Neolithic Way of Life"). But the details of material assembly vary from region to region and from period to period. Another way of grouping the first Neolithic societies as a whole around common elements, material or otherwise, and despite their regional diversity, is to use the term koinè, "sum of traits common to several human groups".
These new approaches are accompanied by the formulation of more complex models, which have to take into account a plurality of phenomena over a very long period, since the trend is increasingly to go back to the beginnings of the Epipaleolithic, around 20,000 BC, ten millennia before the start of the Neolithic. A form of deconstruction of the concept of the "Neolithic revolution" has thus been achieved by highlighting the fact that many, if not all, of the components of the Neolithic "package" already existed in societies that preceded Neolithization, at least those of the Final Epipaleolithic, if not before. The Neolithic is therefore not so much revolutionary as the period during which these elements were developed and integrated into a completed process of social, economic and mental change. This approach also reveals phases of ebb and flow in the Neolithic process, which undoubtedly came after a succession of attempts that failed to produce Neolithic societies.
In Neolithic studies, the Near East is understood as a region stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Zagros, from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to the Taurus Mountains, to which Cyprus and Central Anatolia are commonly added because they were rapidly involved in the Neolithization process. This vast region encompasses a wide variety of natural environments and landscapes, grouped into several major zones according to geographical and cultural criteria. These include the "Fertile Crescent", a concept that originated in the work of James Henry Breasted, which in its current sense is a biogeographical space that extends roughly over the Levant and the slopes and foothills of the Taurus and Zagros, and includes the wild plants and animals that gave rise to the first domesticated species.
The Levant, located to the east of the eastern Mediterranean, is characterized by alternating environments stretching in a north-south direction: the coastal plain to the west, wider than today during the Epipaleolithic and Neolithic periods, since sea levels were lower, then progressing eastwards, the foothills gradually rise to form mountain ranges, often well forested, reaching up to 2,000 meters in altitude, then a new low-lying zone, the Rift or "Levantine corridor", a structuring axis that descends to the south below sea level, followed by an area of higher plateaus, and finally a slow descent towards the Arabian desert. This region is divided into three geographical areas, sometimes two, with the same west-east division.
Mesopotamia in the broadest sense comprises the regions dissected by the Tigris and Euphrates, the two main rivers of the Middle East.
At the northern and eastern extremities are several high areas, with the presence of the Taurus-Zagros arc mountain ranges, home to elevated regions that are for many if not hotbeds at least regions that actively participated in the success of the Neolithic way of life.
The north-western edge of the Arabian desert is in fact a steppe, more or less open according to climatic fluctuations. During the Neolithic period, it was therefore subject to great variations in settlement. In wetter periods, there are a few temporary streams and lakes, and above all artesian springs that form oases (el Kowm, Azraq).
The island of Cyprus is also a geographical component of the Near Eastern Neolithic. The third-largest Mediterranean island, located 100 kilometers from the coast of the northern Levant, it comprises three east-west groups that follow one another from north to south: along its northern coast, the mountains of the Kyrenia range, then the Mesaoria plain, and in the center-west, the Troodos massif. The southern coastline includes the main prehistoric and ancient settlement areas, notably around the Akrotiri peninsula and the Larnaka plain.
The Near Eastern Neolithic occurred at the end of the last Ice Age and the beginning of the Holocene. However, this period cannot be summed up simply as a gradual warming, as the climate underwent several fluctuations during the Epipaleolithic and Neolithic phases:
These variations in temperature and precipitation have had a significant impact on the natural environment, and this impact has varied from one area to another, probably affecting valleys less than steppe areas. In the latter, human occupation seems to have fluctuated in line with these changes. In the regions of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia, it is the variations in precipitation (especially concentrated in winter), which can be very large from one year to the next under current conditions, that have a greater impact on human societies than temperature fluctuations. It is generally accepted that 200 mm of annual precipitation are needed for agriculture without artificial water input ("dry"), but in areas where arid zones meet, this limit may be exceeded one year, and then not reached the next. The "Fertile Crescent", where agriculture originated, is therefore seeing its geographical limits shift, both in line with long-term climatic trends and with inter-annual variations in rainfall.
The question of how human groups adapted to these environmental changes is not always a matter of consensus, since several answers are possible to the same phenomenon, and archaeological data are not unequivocal: thus, the Recent Dryas is commonly invoked to explain changes in settlement during the Late Natoufian, but for some it only caused a decline in sedentarism, while for others it led to an intensification in the exploitation of environments by certain sedentary villages, leading to the domestication of plants and animals. Without necessarily being seen as a cause of Neolithization, climate change is in any case a factor to be taken into consideration, as it creates the conditions for its implementation. Indeed, the coincidence between the onset of the Holocene and that of agriculture (and more broadly of the Neolithic) is too striking to be fortuitous, all the more so as this evolution can be observed in other regions of the world.
On the other hand, the introduction of the Neolithic way of life meant that humans were increasingly modifying their environment, shaping landscapes and thus accentuating anthropization. Of course, anthropization was nothing new at the time, since humans had been modifying their environment at least since the domestication of fire, and hunter-gatherers had evolved their relationship with the environment by using methods to control certain plants and herds of wild animals (selective hunting). In the Neolithic period, however, a new stage in this evolution was reached with the emergence and expansion of agriculture and animal husbandry. This has been described in scientific terms as "niche construction", or "ecosystem engineering", concepts taken from biology and originally intended to explain the planning behaviour of certain animal species (such as beavers). The establishment of the agro-pastoral economy led to an uninterrupted process of environmental modification, which from the outset involved expansion into new regions, as well as the manipulation of plants and animals leading to their genetic modification (artificial selection), then to their dispersal outside their natural environment, further modifying ecosystems. These changes in turn had an impact on humans, who had to adapt to the changes they brought about in the objects of domestication, having to adjust their farming practices to feed animals, or implement water management practices (leading to the advent of irrigation). Demographic growth due to the adoption of agriculture and livestock breeding also encouraged this expansion. The phenomenon is thus marked by feedback loops, with consequences having amplifying effects on what caused them.
Neolithic periodization in the Near East comprises several systems. The terminology of the Levant derives from that determined at Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) by Kathleen Kenyon, distinguishing two phases of "Pre-Pottery Neolithic" (abbreviated to PPN), A and B, and phases of "Pottery Neolithic", today considered more as Late Neolithic. This chronology has since been refined: Pre-Pottery Neolithic A is divided into several cultures according to period and region (Khiamian, Mureybetian, Sultanian), Pre-Pottery Neolithic B is divided into three sub-periods (Early, Middle and Recent), a Pre-Pottery Neolithic C has been proposed for the Southern Levant, and various regional cultures for the Late Periods (Hassuna, Samarra in Mesopotamia). The pre-Pottery periodization of the Levant has been extended to south-eastern Anatolia and Cyprus, and sometimes to northern Iraq. However, it has hardly been extended to central Anatolia and Zagros, where the distinction between the Neolithicwith and without pottery is retained.
For Epipaleolithic phases, the periods determined in the 1930s by Dorothy Garrod - the Kebaran and Natufian of the southern Levant and the Zarzian of the Zagros - continue to be used. The former has been divided into two or three sub-periods, and sometimes extended to the northern Levant.
Depending on the region and the site, but sometimes even within the same region, the dating of these different phases can vary according to the authors, who opt for either calibrated pre-BC or calibrated pre-present dates (the difference between the two being 1,950 years, often rounded off to 2,000 years). These different datings are still often difficult to reconcile.
The final periods of the Palaeolithic are referred to in southwest Asia as "Epipaleolithic", emphasizing continuity with the Upper Palaeolithic; the term Mesolithic is rarely used in the Near East. In the southern Levant, the Kebaran (c. 19000–16000 BC), Geometric Kebaran (c. 15500–12500 BC) and Natoufian (c. 12500–10000 BC) cultures follow one another. In the Zagros, the local culture is Zarzian (c. 18000–10000 BC). In the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia, a "Trialeti" culture can sometimes be distinguished at the same time. But the Epipaleolithic has no local name in most of Anatolia.
Human groups of this era were mobile hunter-gatherers, collecting a wide variety of food resources. These groups evolved towards a more territorial settlement pattern. They occupied sites of various sizes, erecting circular structures and settling them on a seasonal basis, before becoming partly sedentary in the Levant during the Natoufian period. Perhaps they experimented with pre-domestic forms of agriculture and animal husbandry. In any case, it is now considered that these Epipaleolithic communities possessed many of the elements that were to become the hallmarks of the Neolithic way of life, and that they were often at its origin. Thus, the Neolithic did not mark the beginning of the transition to agriculture. According to N. Munro and L. Grosman, it should rather be seen as "a recent stage or end point within a larger transformation in cultural dynamics that began during the Epipaleolithic".
The main groups in the Early Epipaleolithic of the southern Levant are the Masraquian (c. 22,000–19,000 BC), followed by the Kebarian in the west (c. 19,000–16,000 BC) and the Nizzanian in the arid east (c. 18,000–16,000 BC). They are characterized by varied lithic assemblages, perhaps reflecting the presence of several bands occupying areas of one or two thousand km. The sites are small, mostly between 25 and 100 m2, rarely more than 250 m2, but the Nizzanian features much larger gathering sites (v. 20,000 m2). These are either open-air sites or located near rock shelters or caves, and the habitats identified are small, semi-buried circular huts. Ohalo II (c. 21,000 BC), located in the Jordan Valley on the shores of Lake Huleh, which has since disappeared, is the best known. On the basis of the discoveries made there, which were exceptional for their time and isolated, due to the submergence of the site, which enabled very favourable preservation conditions, subsistence could be defined as "broad-spectrum": gathering of a wide variety of plants (herbs, wild cereals, lentils, figs, pistachios, almonds), hunting of gazelle, hares and foxes (on other sites of the same period, deer and wild goats would have been more present), and fishing in the lake.
The Geometric Kebarian (c. 15500–12500 BC), corresponding to a middle phase of the Epipaleolithic, is identified in the Levant between Sinai in the south and the El Kowm oasis in Syria in the north. It owes its name to the trapezoidal, rectangular or triangular microliths found in large numbers at these sites, and are the only means of characterizing this period. Indeed, known habitat sites are rare (Ein Gev III, Kharaneh IV, Umm el-Tlel 2), and very few have been surveyed, as have burials, so the lifestyle of groups from this period remains poorly known compared with the preceding period.
In the Zagros, this period marks the transition between the Baradostian, an "Aurignacian of the Zagros", and the Zarzian, which covers the Epipaleolithic, but is essentially known for its recent phases. Similarly, the transition between the Upper Palaeolithic and the Epipalaeolithic is poorly documented in the Taurus and Alborz, which share common features with the Zagros. At best, the mountainous nature of these regions suggests that hunting was primarily focused on wild goats, sheep and fallow deer. The paucity of recent work on these regions prevents us from having a more precise idea, and the development of these vaguely defined cultural entities is undoubtedly still not well understood.
The Natoufian corresponds to the Final Epipaleolithic of the Levant. It apparently developed from the area of Mount Carmel and Galilee in the southern Levant, where the highest concentration of sites of the period is found, but is now attested in different parts of the Levant, as far as the Middle Euphrates, by sites that may have been included in this entity. The Natoufian was defined by Dorothy Garrod in the 1930s on the basis of its lithic industry, notably various types of microliths. It subsequently emerged that this was the period that saw the beginnings of sedentarization, during the first part of the period, the Early Natoufian (c. 13/12500–11500 B.C.), which clearly benefited from the favorable conditions of the Bölling-Alleröd climatic softening. Natufian sites were established in the open air (Mallaha, located near a lake, and Wadi Hammeh 27 in the Jordan Valley; Beidha in Jordan), under rock shelters or at the entrance to caves (Hayonim, Nahal Oren, El Wad and other sites on Mount Carmel, or Shuqba in the Wadi Natuf, which gave its name to the period). The largest of these rarely exceed 1,000 m2 and, as in previous phases, are made up of small, mostly circular structures, in this case semi-buried. While some of these sites appear to have been permanently occupied, other habitats are temporary, since the lifestyle of hunter-gatherer populations of this period is still characterized by the mobility of at least part of the group (referred to as "semi-sedentary"). Subsistence strategies remain similar to those of the previous period, and potentially very diverse, although there seems to be a greater emphasis on cereal gathering and gazelle hunting. It has been suggested that pre-domestic forms of agriculture and animal husbandry were practised at this time, but there is no conclusive evidence in this direction. Crushing equipment was also developed, with the appearance of increasingly deep mortars. It is assumed that societies of this period remained egalitarian, although some distinctions appear in funerary material and could reflect social hierarchies. The second part of the period, the Late Natoufian (c. 11500–9600 BC), is marked by the onset of the cold, dry episode of the Younger Dryas, and it is generally to these new climatic conditions that we attribute the decline in sedentary life during this period, as groups had to be more mobile in order to obtain food resources in a less generous environment. But this is debatable. In any case, the downturn mainly concerned the southern Levant, while sites in the Middle Euphrates saw a boom (Mureybet, Abu Hureyra).
In the rest of the Middle East, the period is less well known, so the definition of cultural areas is less clear-cut.
The Zarzian of the Western Zagros, also defined by Dorothy Garrod on the basis of its lithic tools, is best known for the Final Epipaleolithic, again through sites in shelters (Warwasi), caves (Zarzi, Shanidar, Palegawra) or open-air (Zawi Chemi Shanidar), a much more limited sample than for the Levant and mostly excavated in the 1950s–1960s, which means that the period remains poorly known, right down to its exact extension. Surveys carried out in the Marv Dasht and Arsanjan plains in Fars have identified material related to the Zarzian, and indicate a rather dense occupation, with base camps around which are located satellite sites, mainly caves, a mode of occupation also proposed for the Central Neolithic Zagros. This phase is marked by microlithic tools, notably small, geometrically-shaped blades. At the end of the period, the habitat consisted of huts, again circular in shape, but sedentarity has not been confirmed. Subsistence was based on the hunting of wild goats and sheep, fallow deer and evening primrose. However, there are no finds enabling us to determine the plants consumed, but it is assumed that wild barley and fruit, particularly nuts, were gathered. The late Zarzian phase, sometimes referred to as "post-Zarzian" or "proto-Neolithic", during the Younger Dryas, seems to have seen a less mobile way of life take hold in the Zagros, as witnessed by the sites of Shanidar (a cemetery at this time) and Zawi Chemi, and from what prospecting in the southern Zagros seems to indicate. Settlement became more concentrated in lower-lying areas to cope with the colder climate, and subsistence seems to have focused more on plants.
It is impossible to approach the human occupation of the Mesopotamian alluvial plain, where the alluvium deposited since then covers the occupations of the time, and that of the regions currently under the waters of the Persian Gulf but which were dry at the time. Nevertheless, "Mesolithic" lithic tools (including microliths, burins and scrapers), which can be roughly dated to this period, have been found during surface surveys in the Burgan hills of Kuwait.
Towards the end of the period, sedentary villages developed in the Upper Tigris, including Demirköy, Körtiktepe and Hallan Çemi, which seem to be culturally closer to the Zarzian than the Natoufian, and/or to be linked, in an assemblage sometimes referred to as "Trialetian", with cave sites on the southern shores of the Caspian dated very roughly to the Epipaleolithic (Ali Tappeh, Dam Dam Chechme), an assemblage that perhaps needs to be split into regional variants.
The Epipaleolithic of Central Anatolia remains less understood. The Pınarbaşı site in the Konya region served as a camp for hunter-gatherer groups from 13,000 BC. The obsidian mined in the vicinity undoubtedly created contacts with the Natufian Levant, where this stone is found at several sites. This would explain why the lithic tooling from Pınarbaşı shows similarities with that from Natoufian sites.
The Final Epipaleolithic of Cyprus is known from the site of Aetokremnos, a small rock shelter in the south of the Akrotiri peninsula, roughly contemporary with the Natoufian, which pushed back the boundaries for the early occupation of the island. The site yielded numerous remains of the dwarf hippopotamus from Cyprus, a species that became extinct around this time, leading to the hypothesis of human responsibility for this phenomenon, which is a little hasty in view of the evidence gathered. At the very least, this would suggest that communities faced with cooling would have intensified their subsistence strategies here too. Generally speaking, due to the virtual absence of known sites for the period, the Cypriot Epipaleolithic remains an unknown land, and its connections with the mainland are little understood.
The first phase of the Near Eastern Neolithic is the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, defined by Kathleen Kenyon on the basis of the stratigraphy of the Jericho archaeological site Tell es-Sultan, which divided it into two periods, A and B. As its name suggests, the criterion was that it was a period considered Neolithic, but without the presence of ceramics (unlike the European Neolithic, which served as a reference point). This name was retained to designate the cultural entities of the first part of the Neolithic in the Levant and sometimes also in neighbouring regions (but not Central Anatolia or the Zagros), then refined, with the distinction of several subsets, and even the addition of a phase C to the south of the Levant. Preceramic Neolithic A (or PPNA), c. 10000/9600–9000/8800 BC, is divided into several regional entities, while Preceramic Neolithic B (PPNB), c. 9000/8500–7000 BC depending on the region, is divided into three phases (ancient, middle, recent), or four (final/PPNC). During these periods, the Neolithic process was initiated and brought to a conclusion, with the domestication of plants and animals and thus the gradual constitution of the Neolithic "package", right up to the appearance of ceramics at the end of the period. The characteristic features of Neolithic societies are only brought together during the last centuries of the PPNB, so the term Neolithic for these periods is used rather by convention.
During the PPNA and PPNB periods, the Neolithic process gradually took hold in several regions of the Near East, and began to spread. These periods saw the development of villages, more complex architecture (notably the rise of rectangular buildings), the birth of agriculture and animal husbandry, greater specialization in lithic crafts, the development of pyrotechnology with the more widespread use of plaster and lime, and the appearance of the first ceramics at the very end of the period, as well as a proliferation of rituals that accompanied the social upheavals brought about by the formation of more durable village communities, which had to organize themselves and assert their identity, and were perhaps also more unequal. During these periods, a Neolithic koinè or "sphere of interaction" was formed on a Near Eastern scale, sharing many common characteristics over and above regional specificities, evident during the recent phases of the PPNB. The question of whether there is a main focus for this phenomenon is often raised: the group formed by the northern Levant, the northern Jezirah and south-eastern Anatolia (O. Aurenche and S. Kozlowski's "Golden Triangle") is the preferred hypothesis, but others favour the joint evolution of several regions, each in their own way, towards the Neolithic way of life, but without any one region taking precedence over another, with constant exchanges between them.
The first phase of Neolithization in the Levant is a continuation of the Natoufian period, which ended around 9550 BC at the latest, and has many features in common with it. It corresponds to Pre-Ceramic Neolithic A, and can even be extended to Early Pre-Ceramic Neolithic B. This period is part of a phase of climate softening, with the end of the Younger Dryas, which occurred during the first centuries of the PPNA, and was perhaps more rapid to the north of the Levant than to the south.
The transition phase between the Natoufian and the PPNA is known as the Khiamian, and is found in the southern Levant and on the Middle Euphrates (Mureybet); it is characterized in particular by the spread of small arrowheads, the "el Khiam points" (found well beyond the Levant). In the Levant, the Khiamian evolves into the Sultanian, which covers most of the PPNA. In the northern Levant, the contemporary phase is referred to as Mureybetian. By contrast, the Aswadian designation that was used in the central Levant is no longer used.
These phases are characterized by a continuity in sedentariness compared with the previous period. Clearly, settlement underwent a more marked expansion phase in the Middle Euphrates than in the southern Levant. The largest villages are 2–3 hectares in size. Settlements still consisted of circular structures, but during the second half of the 9th millennium B.C. in the Middle Euphrates, a diversification of forms was observed, leading to the appearance of quadrangular houses, a model that subsequently became the norm. These same sites (Jerf el Ahmar, Tell Abraq, Mureybet) also saw the appearance of non-domestic buildings with a collective purpose, serving as venues for meetings and/or rituals; the "tower" of the PPNA at Jericho, defended by a wall, is of the same type of construction; a ritual site at Wadi Faynan 16 reflects the same developments. This indicates the strengthening of community structures in the villages, and perhaps also the authority of the chiefs at the head of these structures. In the south of the Levant, however, there seems to have been a phase of decline at the end of the PPNA and during the early PPNB, with major gaps in the occupation of several sites indicating phases of abandonment, the causes of which are unknown; in the north, on the other hand, continuity is the order of the day.
In southeastern Anatolia, the monumental group built at Göbekli Tepe during the last centuries of the PPNA, with its megalithic enclosures formed by "T"-shaped pillars, is analyzed as a sanctuary, as there is no obvious trace of domestic activity; it is therefore a first-rate testimony to mental and ritual evolution at the dawn of Neolithization; the neighboring site of Karahan Tepe features similar pillars. This region is also located within the PPNA horizon. After an initial stage of development whose geographical origin cannot be traced at present (Hallan Çemi, Körtiktepe, Gürcütepe), the region saw the development of larger village sites (Nevalı Çori, Cafer Höyük, Çayönü) between the end of the PPNA and the beginning of the PPNB, where architectural changes were also observed at the end of the period, seeing a transition from circular to more complex quadrangular dwellings.
From the point of view of subsistence strategies, societies in the southern and northern Levant remained hunter-gatherer groups, but it is increasingly accepted that pre-domestic agriculture developed during this phase, at least from 9500 BC onwards, in the form of early experiments to develop the cultivation of cereals and legumes in the fields, and the control of animal herds. In the absence of morphological changes in the individuals undergoing domestication during this period, we must rely on indirect evidence of changes in the gathering and feeding habits of human communities in the Levant, such as the growing importance of cereals in the diet, and the presence of plants outside their natural environment.
Cyprus is also located in the PPNA period. This phase is known from the sites of Ayia Varvara-Asprokremnos and Ayios Tychonas Klimonas. Hunting at these two sites was primarily focused on wild boar.
To the east, O. Aurenche and S. Kozlowski distinguish two entities: the Nemrikian in Iraqi Jezirah and Eastern Jezirah, and the Mlefatian in Western Zagros. For J. Oates, this period corresponds to an Epipaleolithic. Be that as it may, this period, which follows on from the Zarzian, is known from a few villages with circular, semi-buried houses: Nemrik, Qermez Dere and M'lefaat. The former is located in the highlands and seems more oriented towards hunting than the latter, located in the lowlands.
In the central Zagros, the onset of sedentarization is poorly documented, although progress has been made with several excavations (Sheikh-e Abad, Asiab, Chogha Golan). The oldest levels of these sites, which are probably not permanent dwellings, show no trace of buildings similar to those in western regions. Subsistence was based on diversified hunting and gathering, which varied from site to site (wild cereals at Chogha Galan, walnuts and pistachios at Sheikh-e Abad). It is possible that pre-domestic agriculture was practised at Chogha Golan from this period onwards, which would extend the presence of agricultural centers considerably to the east.
The phase in which Neolithization is brought to a close corresponds to the Middle and Late Neolithic periods. During this period, the Neolithic way of life spread rapidly in many regions. From a climatic point of view, this period coincides with the climatic optimum at the beginning of the Holocene, which saw a marked improvement in the climate, and thus a favorable period for the development of agriculture.
The northern Levant seems to be the most dynamic region during these periods, while in the southern Levant the early PPNB is a poorly attested phase, suggesting a recovery in the middle PPNB. But cultural relations between these regions are not necessarily unbalanced. In any case, it's during this phase that we can best observe the features indicating that the Near East formed a cultural community, koinè, integrating Central Anatolia and Cyprus during this period. It was a phase of increasing material exchanges, as evidenced by the spread of obsidian quarried in Central Anatolia, cultural exchanges, and probably also human movements that contributed to the spread of the Neolithic way of life.
The PPNB is the period of formation and growth of agricultural societies. It is during this period that evidence of morphological domestication of plants and animals appears, including unequivocal indications that agriculture and animal husbandry were practiced. These indications are found for plants in several regions of the Middle East (North Levant, Anatolia, South Levant, Cyprus, Zagros), clearly indicating several episodes of domestication in different households. As for animals, traces of domestication are more likely to be found in the northern Levant and south-eastern Anatolia, apart from other domestications of the goat in the southern Levant and the Zagros, and apart from the latter animal, domesticated species are only found in other regions after the end of the PPNB.
Settlement was based on a network of large villages that served as a hub for agro-pastoral communities, which were becoming increasingly organized and no doubt consolidated by rituals serving to affirm their identity and unity. In the southern Levant, inland regions are developing, while the coast is less occupied than in the past; sedentary settlement is progressing in the Jordan corridor and in Transjordan, and large villages of more than 10 hectares are being built ("megasites", such as Ain Ghazal). Large sites are also found in the northern Levant (Abu Hureyra). These were rectangular settlements, with more complex residential layouts. Their southeastern Anatolian neighbors, first and foremost Çayönü, continued their architectural experimentation, adopting increasingly elaborate plans and planning for their homes.
The PPNB of Cyprus is represented in particular by the site of Shillourokambos on the south coast, Mylouthkia in the southeast and Akanthou in the north. This period clearly saw the arrival of settlers who brought the Neolithic way of life to the region, the culture being very similar to that of the northern Levant, with its domesticated animals and plants, even if there are local specificities such as the survival of circular architecture. It is possible that pre-domestic experiments took place on the island before this, but this is a matter of debate.
Central Anatolia underwent a sedentary development during this period, particularly in the Konya plain with the sites of Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu, close to the obsidian mining sites of Göllü Dağ (Kaletepe), whose export seems to play a role in the development of Neolithic features in the region; Can Hasan III further south is another notable site of the period. Cereal crops appear to have been cultivated here around 8300 BC, while the development of livestock seems to have come later.
In eastern Upper Mesopotamia, the situation is poorly known; ancient sites are abandoned in the first phase of the period (Nemrik, Qermez Dere), but another emerges, Tell Maghzaliyah, where we note the adoption of rectangular architecture, made later here than in the west.
In the central Zagros, several sites are known from this period (Ganj Dareh, Jani, Tepe Guran, Tepe Abdul Hosein), which saw a rise in sedentarization with perennial architecture, and the beginnings of a Neolithic economy with the appearance of domesticated plants and animals, even if the way of life remained partly marked by hunting and mobility. Then, in the second half of the 8th millennium BC, the Neolithic way of life conquered the Iranian plateau: it spread southwards to the Zagros (Ali Kosh in the Deh Luran plain, Chogha Bonut in Susiana), eastwards to Fars and Kerman (Tepe Rahmatabad and Tell-e Atashi), and towards Alborz (Tepe Sang-e Chakhmaq).
In the southern Levant, northern Syria, southeastern and central Anatolia, and also in the Zagros, the end of the PPNB (c. 7000 B.C.) is widely considered to be accompanied by a marked ebb phase, sometimes referred to as a "Neolithic collapse" ("Palestinian hiatus" in the southern Levant), characterized by a reduction in the size of sites or their abandonment, even though continuity is evident at many sites. Significant cultural changes ensued, with the spread of pottery being the most significant, but also architecture and settlement in several areas. Some suggest that this was the result of climatic change, or of excessive demographic pressure leading to conflict, or of epidemics, or a little of everything; it could also be a period of changes in social organization and lifestyle, resulting in a reorganization of settlement.
In the southern Levant, the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic continued until around 6400 BC, a phase referred to as "Final Pre-Ceramic Neolithic B" or "Pre-Ceramic Neolithic C" (PPNC), best known at Ayn Ghazal (where the hiatus with the preceding period is not apparent), and also at Atlit Yam on the coast.
Situated between the "Neolithic Revolution" and the "Urban Revolution", the second part of the Near Eastern Neolithic, referred to as the "Ceramic" or "Late" Neolithic, has attracted much less attention. As the first name indicates, and in contrast to the preceding phases, the beginning of this period is dated by the appearance of ceramics, during the first half of the 7th millennium BC, at different rates depending on the region. This change is easily identifiable on excavated sites, but did not necessarily imply major evolutions in the Neolithic way of life. From a methodological point of view, cultures from this period onwards are identified above all by their ceramic types, generally named by a site or region where it has been identified (Halaf, Yarmouk, etc.).
From a geo-cultural point of view, this period may be characterized by a shift in the driving regions from the Levantine area to the Mesopotamian plain, where a process of complexification began, leading a few millennia later to the emergence of the "urban revolution".
The end of the Neolithic, succeeded by the Chalcolithic ("Copper Age"), is placed at different chronological milestones in different regions, and this does not necessarily reflect material developments, but rather the positions of authors. For some, the Neolithic of the southern Levant lasts until 4500 BC, while that of Syria and Upper Mesopotamia ends around 5500/5200 BC (the "Halaf-Ubaid transition"), if not earlier.
The first ceramic Neolithic of the southern Levant shows many features of continuity with the last phases of the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic (PPNB Final or PPNC), with the exception of the appearance of pottery.
The first ceramic period in the western part is the Yarmukian (c. 6400–5800 BC), which also extends into Jordan (Ayn Ghazal) and Lebanon (Byblos). Its main site is Sha'ar Hagolan in the central Jordan Valley, covering some 20 hectares, with streets and large courtyard houses. The pottery is varied, the art very rich (female figurines in terracotta, small figurines on pebbles, with regional variations). Other regional cultures occupied this area: that of Jericho IX/Lod in the Judean lowlands, and that of Nizzanim on the southern coastal plain.
Some believe that the Neolithic of the southern Levant lasted until 5000 B.C. (including Wadi Rabah) and 4500 B.C. (also including the Qatifian), periods that others consider to be Early and Middle Chalcolithic, positions that can perhaps be reconciled by speaking of a transition between Neolithic and Chalcolithic. The Wadi Rabah culture that succeeded the Yarmukian is very much inspired by the pottery types of Halaf: perhaps this is the product of migrations from the north. Then there's the Qatifian in the southern part (northern Negev), whose sites have yielded little perennial architecture, no doubt because many are seasonal herders' camps, and an unnamed agro-pastoral culture further north, known in particular from the Tel Tsaf site.
On the northern Levant coast and in eastern Syria, several sites continued to be populated in the early Ceramic Neolithic, such as Tell el-Kherk, with only Ras Shamra showing a hiatus phase. New sites appear in the region: Byblos, Tell Sukas, Hama, Shir, etc., and surveys in the Beqaa indicate a significant number of sites for the period. In the Middle Euphrates, Mureybet was abandoned, but Abu Hureyra, Tell Halula and Mezraa Teleilat were still occupied. The collapse at the end of the PPNB is therefore not very evident. Site abandonments did occur in the late 7th and early 6th millennia BC, but the chronology of this region remains rather poorly established, which is an obstacle to understanding the evolution of settlement during the Late Neolithic.
This marked the beginning of the expansion of the Halaf culture, centered on Upper Mesopotamia. The appearance of pottery in the region is well documented at Tell Sabi Abyad, in the Balikh basin, around 7000 BC, a period that corresponds to a "Proto-Halaf". The Halaf culture proper emerged after the changes at the end of the 7th millennium BC, and is characterized by its circular constructions (known as "tholoi"), multi-room collective buildings probably used as storage areas, and its bichrome and polychrome painted ceramics, but also sees other notable developments such as the rise of seal-cachets, which testify to a more advanced economic organization, and spindle whorls, which could reflect a boom in textile activities. Settlement in the Jezirah during this period appears to have fluctuated, with most sites being small and of limited duration. Until around the middle of the 6th millennium B.C. C, the Halaf culture was found in northern Iraq (Tell Arpachiyah, Yarim Tepe II), where it succeeded the Samarra tradition, in the Middle Euphrates (Shamsh-ed Din, Tell Amarna, Kosak Shimali) and aspects of its material culture are present west of the river, and in the high valleys of southeastern Anatolia through several sites such as Samsat, Tell Idlis, further north at Tepecik (Makaraz Tepe), Tülintepe, Korucutepe, and further east Domuztepe which is the most important known for this period and was undoubtedly a major center of this culture, M. Özdoğan considers this region to be the most dynamic of the Halaf horizon. But the origin of the Halaf culture remains debated, its ceramic tradition seeming rather to originate in northern Mesopotamia.
The 7th millennium BC is still pre-ceramic. The type site is Khirokitia, on the island's south coast, the largest of the period. The others are small permanent villages (Tenta, Troulloi, Kastros) and seasonal sites (Ortos, Dhali, Kataliontas). These settlements are generally erected on sites offering natural protection, such as a promontory for Khirokitia, hemmed in by a meandering river, with a wall completing the natural barrier; this construction testifies to a more advanced organization on this site than on the rest of the island. Nevertheless, safety seems to be taken into consideration just about everywhere. The economy was agro-pastoral, supplemented by deer hunting and fishing. This phase came to an abrupt halt around 5500 BC, and no further traces of occupation are attested on the island for the following centuries. The causes of this collapse remain unexplained. After a hiatus of around a millennium, the Sothira culture took shape, and with it ceramics appeared on the island in all its different parts. This phase can be considered the Late Neolithic. The economy was similar to that of the previous period, with the addition of fruit trees (fig, olive) and vines.
Southeastern Anatolia is situated in the Syro-Mesopotamian horizon. Central Anatolia sees the emergence of numerous sites, such as Hacilar and Erbaba in the Pisidian Lakes district, Süberde and above all Çatalhöyük on the Konya plain, which follows on from Boncuklu and Aşıklı Höyük. This is the best-known site of the period, with its richly decorated houses (wall paintings, bucranes, figurines), which should probably not be identified as temples. The agro-pastoral economy was now firmly established in the region. At the same time, the first monochrome ceramics were being produced in Central Anatolia, probably as early as the end of the 7th millennium BC. This phase thus saw the consolidation and rise of the Anatolian Neolithic, as well as westward and northwestward expansion, since Neolithic sites have been found on the shores of the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara (Fikirtepe culture zone). On the other hand, there are no known Neolithic sites in northern Anatolia, either because the sedentary lifestyle was not developed or because they have not yet been identified. From the last centuries of the 6th millennium B.C. onwards, painted pottery developed, sometimes of high quality. The expansion of the Neolithic way of life in the west continued, until a period of rupture around 6000–5800 B.C. was observed over most of the Anatolian plateau, marked in particular by the spread of a new type of pottery, dark and polished with incised or grooved decoration; the origin of this phenomenon has not been determined.
In the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, it is likely that many sites from the Neolithic period are inaccessible because they are located close to rivers (which are major axes of settlement there) but buried beneath river sediments, or because they were populated in historic periods and archaeologists have focused on clearing them (this is the case of Nineveh, where test pits have revealed occupation as early as the second half of the 7th millennium BC). As a result, only a few villages are known from this period, which were abandoned as early as the Neolithic period, and which are generally far from major waterways.
The earliest North Mesopotamian ceramic culture is Hassuna, preceded by a "Proto-Hassuna" or "Archaic Hassuna" phase, or "Umm Dabaghiyah" (c. 7000–6500 BC, ceramics decorated with simple motifs painted in red) attested at Yarim Tepe, Bouqras, Umm Dabaghiyah, and also at Tell es-Sawwan in central Mesopotamia; it is also found in Syrian Jezirah. The sites of the Hassuna period, which roughly covers the second half of the 7th millennium B.C. - Hassuna, Yarim Tepe, Telul eth-Thalathat - see a complexification of house plans and the appearance of collective granaries. This was followed by the Samarra period (c. 6200–5700 BC), characterized by fine painted ceramics, especially attested in central Mesopotamia, at Tell es-Sawwan and Choga Mami. Its painted ceramics are an evolution of those of the previous period, and can be found as far away as the Syrian Jezirah. It saw the appearance of tripartite houses and the first evidence of irrigation canals, while the use of seals and the greater inequalities observed in the Tell es-Sawwan necropolis seem to imply a greater social complexity than in the previous phase. This trend continued in the 6th millennium BC, when Upper Mesopotamia became part of the Halaf culture already mentioned (Tell Arpachiyah, Yarim Tepe II).
The oldest known site in southern Mesopotamia is Tell el-'Oueili, inhabited from the end of the 7th millennium B.C., with very elaborate architecture, including an 80 m2 granary and houses of up to 240 m2, and practicing irrigated agriculture, indispensable in this region which doesn't receive enough rainfall for crops to grow without artificial inputs. The question remains as to whether this region was only populated at this time, or whether it was settled earlier, as its geography has a particularly chequered history. The coastline of the Persian Gulf was much lower during the early Neolithic period than it is today, so that dry areas were no longer dry. It then rose following the melting of the ice at the beginning of the Holocene to a height greater than that of today's coastline, which submerged earlier settlements, before retreating from the 4th millennium BC under the effect of sediments carried by rivers, which in turn buried earlier settlements. So far, no pre-Samarra ceramics have been found at Lower Mesopotamian sites, but lithic tools similar to those of the PPNB have been found at sites on the western desert margins. In any case, it is this region that is at the origin of the most influential Chalcolithic cultural ensembles in the Middle East, the Ubaid and Uruk cultures, which lead the process of urbanization and the emergence of the state, marking the end of Prehistory and the beginning of History.
After the abandonment of ancient sites at the beginning of the 7th millennium BC, a new type of settlement emerged in the Zagros. A number of sites testify to the transition between pre-ceramic and ceramic Neolithic: Ganj Dareh, Tepe Abdul Hosein, Tepe Guran in the upper valleys, Chogha Bonut and Chogha Golan in the lower regions. Others are new: Jarmo in the Chemchemal valley (Iraq), Sarab and Siahbid in Mahidasht, and Chogha Mish in Susiana. The expansion of the Neolithic way of life was even more marked in the 6th millennium BC. C. with the appearance of numerous sites in the various regions that were already partly Neolithic, such as Fars and Kerman (Tal-e Mushki, Tal-e Jari then Tepe Yahya) and also in new regions such as Lake Urmia (Hajji Firuz), the central plateau (Tepe Sialk Nord), the Tehran plain (Cheshmeh Ali); sites south of the Caspian show affinities with those of the Jeitun culture in Turkmenistan, the first Neolithic culture in Central Asia. Unsurprisingly, given their geographical extension, the types of ceramics from the Final Iranian Neolithic are very diverse, yet have a common base ("soft-ware horizon"). The Neolithic economy is present everywhere, with cereals and legumes, goat and sheep rearing above all, but hunting remains important in some places (gazelle, hemione and aurochs in Susiana).
This phenomenon can be detected by a number of clues: permanent architecture with reconstructions, silos, heavy furniture, polished stone objects; accumulation of material remains; study of the slaughter seasons of the animals consumed, which must cover the whole year; presence of nearby cemeteries; also the presence of commensal animals of man (house mice, sparrows) attracted by the food remains left by man. The question is whether we should speak of a sedentary lifestyle when a community lives continuously on a site, or whether it's sufficient for the majority of the group to reside in the same place on an annual basis, while the rest continue to be mobile on a seasonal basis. In fact, during these periods, the boundaries between mobility and sedentariness become porous, and human groups can be found where both coexist. This phenomenon gradually brings about major changes in the societies concerned: changes in the rhythm of activities, reproduction, diet, division of labor, exchange networks, as well as in diseases and beliefs.
The beginning of this phenomenon can be seen in the southern Levant, during the Early Natufian, the last phase of the Epipaleolithic, from around 12500 to 11500 B.C. It saw the appearance of the first villages that appear to be permanently occupied, consisting of small, rounded constructions (Mallaha, Hayonim, Wadi Hammeh 27). However, human groups remained highly mobile, occupying temporary camps that served as hunting and gathering sites. And during the second part of the period, the Late Natoufian, from around 11500 to 10000 BC, sedentarism declined considerably in the southern Levant, while it took root further north in the Middle Euphrates region (Mureybet, Abu Hureyra). These fluctuations are at least partly linked to changes in climate, with the rise of sedentarism coinciding with the softening of the Bölling-Alleröd, while its retreat occurred during the cooling of the Recent Dryas. But the relationships between these phenomena are disputed. Sedentary living prevailed during the next era, the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic A (or PPNA, c. 10000–9000 BC), which saw the consolidation of village societies in the Levant (Jericho, Mureybet, Jerf el Ahmar, etc.) and their expansion into neighboring regions, notably Southeastern Anatolia (Çayönü, Hallan Çemi, Körtik Tepe) and Upper Mesopotamia (Nemrik, Qermez Dere, M'lefaat). The next phase, Pre-Ceramic Neolithic B (or PPNB, c. 9000–7000/6400 B.C.), perpetuated the phenomenon despite some setbacks, and saw the appearance of large-scale sites (Ayn Ghazal and Basta in Jordan, Abu Hureyra and Halula in Syria). A new type of non-domestic construction appeared, which seemed to be community buildings that must have had ritual purposes; sometimes entire sites seemed to have a ritual vocation, the most famous case being the Göbekli Tepe site in southeastern Anatolia.
Neolithic villages vary in profile from place to place and time to time. Some are less than a hectare in size, others more than fifteen. Surface areas tend to increase over time, and hierarchies between settlements can be established in places, around large villages (but never towns as such). Essentially occupied by houses, village space may also include empty spaces used as squares for collective needs, protective walls and dykes, and buildings for community use, whether as meeting places, places of worship or storage.
During the early phases of the Neolithic period, houses took the form of rounded, semi-buried structures. From 8500 BC onwards, the rectangular house model appeared, first in the northern Levant, then in neighboring regions. This development went hand in hand with that of bricks and, more generally, masonry techniques. Different types of house plan developed in different regions throughout the PPNB, sometimes resulting in complex configurations, and larger residences, also with an upper floor. This long architectural evolution reflects the transformation of the house into a genuine "domestic" space, with rooms that sometimes seem to be assigned specific functions. It became the expression of a particular family group and its privileged living space, its "home".
The Ceramic Neolithic is still known for its large-scale sites: Çatal Höyük (Central Anatolia) occupied around 13.5 hectares, with a very dense settlement of houses where access was through the roof, and its population could be estimated very roughly at around 3,500 or 8,000 people; Sha'ar Hagolan (Southern Levant) is a site of around 20 hectares comprising a network of streets separating large residential buildings; Domuztepe in the Late Halaf horizon (c. 5500 BC) exceeds 20 hectares and comprises perhaps 1,500–2,000 people. But a site like Tell Arpachiyah (northern Mesopotamia), which covers barely 1.5 hectares around the same period, has architectural features (collective building) that make it a regionally important agglomeration.
If we take the definition proposed by G. Willcox, plant cultivation consists of "assisting the reproduction and consequent multiplication of plants", and domestication is defined as "the selection of cultivar traits, for example the loss of the dispersal mechanism". For D. Helmer, animal domestication can be defined as "the control of an animal population through the isolation of the herd with the loss of panmixia, the suppression of natural selection and the application of artificial selection based on particular traits, either behavioral or cultural. Animals become the property of the human group and are dependent on it".
The first cultivated plants in the Near East, known as the "founders", consisted of a group of at least nine plants: cereals, barley, starch wheat and einkorn; legumes, lentils, broad beans, vetches, peas and chickpeas; and flax. After the dog, the first domesticated animals were the four primary domesticated ungulates: sheep, goats, pigs and cows. The domestic cat is also attested during the Neolithic period.
These domestications occur roughly during the period from 9500 to 8500 BC, and become more concrete thereafter, with unequivocal signs of morphologically domesticated plants and animals being clear in the second half of the 9th millennium BC. A number of clues (increase in the proportion of future domesticated plants consumed at sites, presence of commensal animals such as mice and sparrows, more common presence of straw, age of animal slaughter, etc.) make it possible to identify the beginnings of domestication in earlier centuries. They have been identified at a number of sites, notably in the northern Levant and south-eastern Anatolia, but also in the southern Levant and the Zagros, as well as on Cyprus: there is therefore no single focus. The main facts highlighted are that, prior to domestication, domesticated plants and animals were exploited in the form of gathering and hunting, and also under "pre-domestic" forms of control, as the methods and techniques required for domestication were already known at the end of the Palaeolithic. The sedentary (or semi-sedentary) lifestyle established as early as the Epipaleolithic preceded the phenomenon, and can therefore no longer be seen as its consequence. The climatic changes occurring during the transition phase between the end of the last Ice Age and the beginning of the Holocene coincide with the domestication process, and probably have an influence on it. Agriculture and animal husbandry appeared in areas where domesticated plants and animals were found in the wild, and which also included a large number of food resources in their natural state. A number of explanations have been put forward as to why these developments occurred, none of which has achieved consensus. Rather than sticking to a single lead, it is likely that a plurality of factors need to be considered: "climate, demography, rational economic decisions, biological responses of plants and animals to human interventions, social opportunities and tensions, as well as a reformulation of humanity's place in the universe through ritual and religion" (M. Zeder and B. Smith).
Neolithic agriculture probably took place on small plots, more akin to gardens where several crops coexisted than to extensive fields dedicated to one main crop. These plots were worked by human power alone, with tools such as the hoe, more intensively than extensively. Most of this agriculture was dry, relying on the natural supply of water, but irrigated agriculture gradually developed and enabled the conquest of new regions, notably the Mesopotamian plain, where rainfall was insufficient for dry farming. From the outset, livestock farming was closely associated with agriculture (known as the "agro-pastoral" economy). The development of "pastoral" nomadism, a consequence of animal domestication, must also be taken into account, both in terms of lifestyles and activities. This is particularly true in semi-arid areas, with mobile groups accompanied by large herds, mainly of sheep and goats. Hunting also survives, and sometimes remains important. In the final PPNB period, in the Jordanian desert, a form of mass gazelle hunting developed using large-scale traps (the "Desert kites"), associated with camps and ritual installations, again testifying to an original form of community development in these periods, which did not follow the classic model of Neolithization.
Material production in the Near Eastern Neolithic mobilized a diverse range of raw materials. Due to the conditions of preservation on Middle Eastern sites, perishable materials (skins, wood, reeds, plant and animal fibers) have generally disappeared, and their working cannot be apprehended. What remains are stones, plaster, clay, bones and, to a lesser extent, metal ores. These industries are characterized by their workflows, a series of operations ranging from extraction of the raw material to production and use of the finished product, which research is attempting to reconstruct.
Technical progress can be seen in many fields.
The transformations of the Neolithic greatly affected these different industries, which succeeded in producing increasingly diverse products, and these changes were in large part a response to the adaptations required by the establishment of the agro-pastoral economy. While most production was carried out by non-specialists in a domestic setting, over time more elaborate production lines emerged, clearly the result of experimentation and expertise at a level that could be described as "specialized". The result is the emergence of craftsmen whose main, if not sole, activity is the production of artisanal products. Their skills and creations are in demand, and can be found across a wide area, perhaps because they are itinerant and/or passing on their knowledge elsewhere.
The most widespread set of art objects, or non-utilitarian objects, from the Neolithic Near East are small animal or human representations, referred to as figurines if modelled in clay, plaster or lime, and statuettes if carved in stone.
Small-scale animal and human representations are widespread in the Near East during the Natoufian period, in the form of tool and weapon handles or isolated bone objects representing animals (ruminants, perhaps gazelles), and stone statuettes of humans, generally heads, sometimes with relatively realistic or highly stylized bodies.
During the PPNA, female representations became the most common type, in the form of statuettes carved in limestone or figurines modelled in clay, some intentionally fired; sometimes schematic (up to the T-shaped figurines of the Zagros), sometimes more realistic, often in volume, but flatter in the southern Levant, they in any case unequivocally represent the gender of their subject. J. Cauvin sees them as divine figures, a testimony to his "symbol revolution". Sometimes, representations are limited to a head. Male representations are attested in the PPNB, but they are much rarer than those of women. Animal figurines and statuettes remain common during the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic, with a predilection for bovids in the Levant, while in the Zagros, an area where animal representations are more numerous than human ones, goats and wild boars are often found; Upper Mesopotamia is characterized by statuettes of animal heads, notably birds at Nemrik.
From the end of the PPNB and during the Ceramic Neolithic, figurines take on a more elaborate appearance, with the addition of elements such as eyes. Yarmoukian figurines are seated or standing, with a flattened profile; those from the Northern Levant and Mesopotamia are more flattened, and standing; in the Zagros, highly stylized T-shapes persist. Seated volume figurines are also found in the last two zones. Voluptuous female figurines appear in Anatolia during this period, with a clear link to fertility at Çatal Höyük, where a statuette depicts a woman in childbirth.
Statues, larger sculptures than figurines and statuettes, represent their subject in medium or near-real size.
Stone statues appear in the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic of southeastern Anatolia. Göbekli Tepe is characterized by these monumental T-shaped pillars, which are clearly highly simplified human representations, since the central pillars of the enclosures have bas-relief arms and loincloths. Those around the perimeter have low- or high-relief representations of animals, and sometimes humans. This site has also yielded a "totem" associating humans and animals, and smaller animal and human statues. A similar type of art can be found at Nevalı Çori. A 1.80-meter statue of a man from Urfa dates from the same period. More recently (2021), bas-reliefs have been uncovered at Sayburç, which appear to be contemporary and may testify to narrative art.
The PPNB statuary comes from Ain Ghazal in Jordan, with busts measuring around 50 cm and full-length statues measuring around 1 meter, unearthed in two pits where they had been deliberately buried. They are made of lime or plaster on a reed frame, with bitumen used to emphasize their eyes and pupils, and a red slip used to color the faces of some. Fragments (legs) of similar statues have been unearthed in Jericho. Modeling in plaster or lime is found at the same time in the Southern Levant on some skulls taken from bodies, where they function as a second flesh, while the eyes may be figured by shell inlays, and paint is sometimes applied. Their ritual function is debated. Stone masks from the same period also refer to statuary; they may also have had a ritual function.
Painted decorations on the walls and floors of buildings appear towards the end of the PPNA, with geometric decorations, at Mureybet (c. 9300-9000 BC) in a residence (zigzags and stripes) and at Dja'de (c. 9300–8800 BC) in a community building (rectangles and rhombuses), painted in black (obtained with charcoal) and red (obtained with hematite, red ochre) on a white background (limestone powder). Then, for the Middle PPNB, human representations appear on the floor of a building at Tell Halula, with some twenty red female figures (dancers?) arranged around a square figure. Animal representations follow at Bouqras (c. 6800 BC), where a fresco depicts red ostriches, and a little later at Umm Dabaghiyah. The most complex groups of Neolithic wall paintings in the Near East come from the residences of Çatal Höyük (c. 7000–6500 B.C.), associating humans and animals (bulls, deer) in hunting scenes or ritual dances.
The social and economic changes that occurred in the Neolithic period are often linked to a set of cognitive and mental evolutions, ultimately an upheaval in worldview, which are seen as the cause and/or consequence of other evolutions. Excavations of Neolithic sites have uncovered areas of ritual practice, the unfolding and meaning of which are impossible to explain, even if the help of ethnological sources is generally held to give greater force to proposed explanations. Funerary and ritual practices can be approached, while what falls within the realm of beliefs is virtually inaccessible. Artistic manifestations are often mobilized, since they are often seen as evidence of a mythology and are commonly linked to rituals.
Moreover, terminology and classifications on this subject are not easy to handle. To designate this aspect of Neolithic societies, archaeologists invoke the notion of religion, or that of symbolism, and more often ritual, sometimes even magic. These concepts do not overlap, since a ritual act is not necessarily something religious, and the symbolic can be found just about anywhere. These notions also refer to their opposites, i.e. what is profane, pragmatic or utilitarian, and it is often very difficult to distinguish the two, if at all relevant, as the dividing line is often impossible to draw.
The ways in which the dead were buried were diverse and varied during the Near Eastern Neolithic. This points to ritual practices and beliefs relating to death that clearly played an important role in the religious and social universe of the period. However, the number of burials uncovered on archaeological sites is generally very limited in relation to the periods of occupation. It seems that there is a selection of bodies buried, the reasons for which are undetermined. Whatever the case, this means that the funerary treatment of the majority of the population remains unknown.
The location of burials is a first way of distinguishing between ways of treating the dead. Burials may take place close to dwellings, or inside villages. The practice of burial under inhabited houses developed during the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic, as the role of domestic space expanded. With the arrival of the first villages, the first proper cemeteries appeared on the edges of sites. Other burial sites were not associated with dwellings, such as Kfar HaHoresh, which was intended for funerary rites. Cremation is attested for the Final PPNB/PPNC at Baysamun, where a pit containing the charred bones of a single individual was excavated directly after his death (whereas the intentionally burnt charred bones found at other sites of the period were found well after the death of the individuals as part of a secondary treatment).
The most widespread form of burial is individual, although collective forms are also common. Positions are varied, with the flexed position predominating, as are orientations. The dead are rarely buried with accompanying equipment, and when they are, it's mostly personal ornaments, nothing particularly demonstrative. There are, however, cases of burials associated with important material that seems to distinguish a particular individual, notably at Ba'ja in Jordan, where a child's tomb was unearthed, accompanied by an ornament made up of hundreds of pearls.
Elements of distinction between the deceased (or at least those who are buried) appear above all through the practice of secondary burials: the body of an individual is exhumed and then reburied in another place, under a building. In many cases, it is only the skull that is detached from the body, then buried or displayed, sometimes after being over-modelled or otherwise modified, in a specific residence or building, alongside other skulls (attested "houses of the dead" at Çayönü and Dja'de, for example). This points to special treatment of these individuals, which may be linked to ancestral worship and/or foundation rites.
Identifying rituals of a religious nature involves identifying the places where they may have taken place, i.e. sanctuaries. This term designates "particular buildings whose configuration (plan, construction method) or contents (non-utilitarian objects such as statues, massive skull deposits) distinguish them from 'simple' dwellings" (O. Aurenche and S. Kozlowski). Candidate buildings and sites have been uncovered rather late in the history of Near Eastern Neolithic discoveries, so much so that some have long doubted their existence. Other qualifications can be proposed, such as "ritual buildings", where a wide range of rites of various types with a sacred and collective aspect can take place, such as marriages or matrimonial exchanges, burials, rites of passage, and "men's houses" or "clan houses", buildings used for community rituals (notably initiatory), known from ethnological work. When the ritual function appears to be site-wide, as at Göbekli Tepe and Kfar Hahoresh, it is more likely to be a ritual site of supra-regional importance serving several neighbouring communities, a kind of "amphictyony".
In any case, the assemblages indicating the performance of rituals, whether public or not, are thus found in locations of various types: Göbekli Tepe and the other sanctuaries at southeast Anatolian sites that have yielded vases, statues and human skulls; the circular construction with a deposit of wild goat skulls and raptor wings at Zawi Chemi Shanidar [fr]; the Nahal Hemar Cave and its deposit of ritual objects; the "special buildings" at Ain Ghazal and the cache of anthropomorphic statues at the same site; and so on. Moreover, the burials of ritual objects (in addition to skulls) attested at Ain Ghazal and Nahal Hemar, but also at Yarim Tepe and other Neolithic sites, must have had ritual significance in themselves. The growth in the number of traces of ritual practices clearly reflects their major social role: they served to bind village communities together, to affirm social identities, but also to consolidate the power of some, at a time when human groups were becoming larger in size and more durable. Some have questioned the boundary between residences and places of worship, particularly those who consider Neolithic societies to be "house societies" in which the identity of the household is invested with symbolic importance.
The most detailed documentation comes from the south-eastern Anatolia of the PPNA and PPNB. Göbekli Tepe, founded around 9500 B.C., is a site whose first level comprises a series of circular structures, a kind of enclosure, featuring megalithic "T"-shaped pillars, often sculpted, two in the center and many more around the perimeter. A second phase at PPNB saw the construction of rectangular structures, also featuring T-shaped pillars, but in smaller numbers (often four). Stone statues, grinding implements and animal remains have been unearthed at the site. Göbekli Tepe is identified by its excavators as a community sanctuary where festivities were held. Nearby but slightly later, Nevalı Çori features a rectangular building with the same types of pillars, which has yielded several statues. At Çayönü, several one-room rectangular buildings in the same location may have been sanctuaries; one of them, the "Skull Building", included, as its name suggests, dozens of skulls, probably arranged on shelves, as well as burials; a square lined with stelae (the plazza) adjoined the building during the last phase.
Similarities exist between these buildings and those of the neighboring Middle Euphrates, with which they are undoubtedly culturally linked. The "community buildings" at Jerf el Ahmar, Mureybet or Tell 'Abr 3, some containing bucranes, benches and sculpted bas-reliefs, may have had at least a partly cultic function.
In the southern Levant, structure O75 at the Wadi Faynan 16 site in Jordan is another type of collective construction, semi-buried, with benches, where animal bones, stone statuettes and broken vases have been found, which could indicate a ritual function, or at the very least a place used for community meetings.
For the PPNB, traces of ritual activity are more numerous. The Nahal Hemar cave in the Judean desert has yielded some clearly ritual material: stone masks, wooden, stone and shell beads, wooden figurines, over-modelled skulls and various vessels. Kfar HaHoresh in the Jezreel Valley is a necropolis where tombs are often plastered and enclosed in rectangular enclosures, which may have been used by several communities for ceremonial gatherings, including a cult area with hearths and monoliths. An enclosure bordered by monoliths was also found at the submerged site of Atlit Yam.
For the Late Neolithic, several buildings at Çatal Höyük had been described as "sanctuaries" by their discoverer, J. Mellaart, due to their remarkable decoration including bucranes, modelled plaster reliefs and paintings depicting scenes. However, subsequent research by I. Hodder demonstrated that these were spaces with no different function from that of other dwellings. Rather, they highlighted the fact that many buildings had a long lifespan, undergoing several phases of reconstruction on the same foundations, and would be places of expression of a household and its memory ("History houses").
One of the main sources for the identification of cults in the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic are human skulls found outside primary burials, and more broadly the circulation of remains of the deceased and their manipulation for obviously ritual purposes (secondary burials). There are wide variations in these practices, which go back at least as far as the Natoufian period, and can be found in the Levant, southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia. They include both men and women, adults and children. These skulls are detached from the bodies, emaciated, and some (a minority) may be subjected to various treatments, including being overmodelled (in the Southern Levant). In most cases, it is not possible to determine whether the deceased died naturally or were sacrificed. Several headless bodies have been unearthed under residences, which clearly indicates that these were individuals whose skulls had been moved; in any case, the practice of secondary burial under buildings is widespread, and undoubtedly linked to these particular treatments of skulls. These skulls may be buried elsewhere, under residences, or displayed in buildings (at Çayönü, Dj'ade, Tell Aswad). These human remains may also be associated with those of animals. The interpretation of these practices, often referred to as the "worship of skulls", generally points in the direction of ancestor worship, i.e. memorial rituals concerning a village community or family group, with which these skulls could be associated. But other explanations are possible, such as war trophies.
Another relevant case study is that of religious festivals - occasional, perhaps periodic, public rituals. These Neolithic feasts were "no more than (...) our own, the result of a decision taken by a group of friends, to which everyone contributed their share", but "formal events", to which the whole community was invited, with an organizer and sponsor, who ensured the supplies (A. Testart). They may be funerary, foundational or initiatory rites, and often seem to refer to the sphere of death, to be integrated into an ancestral cult, but rarely to the category of fertility rites, which were probably not widespread during the Neolithic. These Neolithic public ceremonies combine rites, beliefs, funerary practices and the creation of a collective memory, and also involve authority structures, which tend to integrate them into mechanisms of social competition, integration and negotiation.
By comparing archaeological finds with ethnographic descriptions of feasts, it is possible to identify a number of clues as to how major feasts were held (the less important ones leaving fewer traces). These were, above all, times of food and drink consumption, which can be identified by the presence of vases and other containers, animal remains and plants. Göbekli Tepe clearly witnessed the holding of such festivities, bringing together communities from its region and beyond; numerous animal remains and a large quantity of grinding implements have been found, indicating that feasts were prepared here, for which tons of cereals were milled and dozens of gazelles and other game animals slaughtered.
This consumption also involved sacrifices, documented in some places: the "Bos Pit" at Kfar HaHoresh (PPNB) included eight cattle slaughtered as part of a rite (probably funerary); the "Death Pit" at Domuztepe (recent Halaf) comprises some ten thousand highly fragmented bones, primarily of animals but also of humans (some forty individuals), the latter possibly cannibalized according to the site's excavators, in addition to fragments of ceramics and various objects, indicating a ritual context.
Stone masks uncovered at several sites in the southern and northern Levant, including Nahal Hemar and Göbekli Tepe, may indicate the performance of public performances. There is no indication that they were actually worn by people, and they appear a little heavy for that purpose, although we can assume that there were some in lighter perishable materials. From figurative representations (bas-reliefs, paintings on ceramics), Y. Garfinkel concluded that collective dances played an important role in Neolithic communities.
The analysis of Neolithic images has led some to venture beyond the categories of communal, memorial or ancestral rites, in an attempt to identify what falls within the realm of belief, or "symbolism".
J. Mellaart has attempted to interpret the female figures of Çatal Höyük as "mother-goddesses", linked to fertility cults. J. Cauvin has extended this in his identification of the birth of divinities in the Near Eastern Neolithic: the Goddess, a female figure (attested above all by terracotta figurines) linked to fertility and who also has a sovereign aspect, is considered the keystone of the system, but he adds the Bull, a male divinity, not yet anthropomorphized. This is also based on the beliefs of the historical Near East, in which both feminine and masculine divinities can be found. The introduction of these divine figures is linked to the emergence of a new way of thinking about the world, with a "rift (...) between an order of personified, dominating divine force and that of everyday humanity, whose inner effort can be symbolized by the raised arms of the orants" who appear in Neolithic and ancient representations. According to this author, this is part of the "revolution of symbols" at the origin of Neolithization. However, the link between female representations and fertility, which is commonly put forward, is not as obvious as that in most cases, and the explanations to be given to the mythological universe of the emerging Neolithic (or rather to mythological universes, as they seem to vary according to region) are more complex than that.
The existence of forms of shamanism, and therefore of animistic beliefs, has also been presumed. The animal representations common in the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic of Southeastern Anatolia and the Middle Euphrates are sometimes associated with humans, and there are also possible representations of humans disguised as animals, which could refer to the idea that humans can make mystical journeys in animal form.
The formation of Neolithic village societies involved the reorganization of social structures, whether at the level of the family, the household, or the communities in which they coexisted, and also had to organize relations with other groups. These changes are difficult to discern from archaeological sources, but generally speaking, the image that emerges is of groups aggregating several nuclear families, ensuring their cohesion and coexistence by various practical or symbolic means, in which the elements of distinction, in terms of wealth or gender, are still not very pronounced and violence is not very widespread.
Rather, it is considered that the introduction of the Neolithic way of life led to a decline in human health and stature, as corroborated by studies in different parts of the world. This would be due to an increase in various forms of stress, less varied and poorer-quality nutrition, the rise of contagious diseases induced by the growth of agglomerations and contact with domestic animals and rodents, as well as the risk of food crises in the event of poor harvests. This is partly in line with the older conclusions of those who follow Marshall Sahlins and consider that the hunter-gatherer economy corresponds to an "age of abundance" and that the neolithic farmer-herder economy is not necessarily more advantageous in terms of food.
Bioarchaeological studies focus mainly on skeletons from the southern Levant, the region that has provided by far the most documentation. There are also significant samples from the pre-ceramic phases at Abu Hureyra, Körtik Tepe and Nemrik, and it should be borne in mind that the entire population was clearly not buried, even where the greatest number of burials have been identified, which raises questions about the representativeness of the sample. These studies tend to provide a contrasting view of developments: new sanitary conditions are indeed being put in place, but the picture is not systematically negative. Certainly, from the Final Natoufian onwards and during the PPNA, populations appear to be experiencing a decline in health, with a reduction in stature, particularly among women, attributed to nutritional deficiencies during childhood. A reduction in the size of teeth, worn down by increased cereal consumption and also because they serve as a "third hand" in artisanal work (notably fiber weaving), is commonly observed with Neolithization. There was also an increase in caries and enamel insufficiency (hypoplasia). In addition, analyses of bone-wearing movements suggest that work is more physically demanding than in the past, linked to the development of heavy load-bearing (on the back; this concerns adults as well as teenagers) and repetitive grinding movements in a prolonged squatting position (more so for women), generating muscular stress. This would coincide with the introduction of agriculture, and perhaps also with population growth leading to a reduction in per capita resources. Inflammatory diseases also appear to have been less common among mobile hunter-gatherers. By contrast, from the middle PPNB onwards, the situation seems to have improved, no doubt due to the stabilization of the agro-pastoral system: with agriculture under control and the transition to animal husbandry completed (with the introduction of milk in particular), people are better nourished and more resilient. Average height has increased and hypoplasia is less marked, but tooth wear remains high, cavities more common and tooth loss more frequent. In the long term, there is no significant difference between the Natoufian and Neolithic periods in terms of trauma and pathologies such as arthritis. The Neolithic lifestyle introduces differences between the sexes: men from Natoufian hunter-gatherer groups seem to have died younger than women, due to risks associated with hunting, since this activity was reserved for them; on the other hand, Neolithic men seem to have lived longer because this risk has disappeared, while women's life expectancy seems to have decreased due to greater fertility, which increased the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth. On the contrary, one analysis puts life expectancy at 24.6 years in the Natoufian and 25.5 years in the Neolithic; the average age of death is 31.2 and 32.1 years respectively. Stress indices, on the other hand, seem to be more pronounced in the Final PPNB/PPNC, a period of difficult subsistence and infectious diseases.
It is generally believed that the domestication of animals and the resulting proximity between humans and animals has led to the emergence of zoonoses, diseases transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa. However, potential evidence of this phenomenon is very limited. A few skeletons from sites in the northern Levant (Dja'de, Tell Aswad), the earliest dated to around 8500 BC, provide the earliest known evidence of tuberculosis in humans. Tuberculosis is a disease of bovine origin, and this is the period during which the domestication of this animal is supposed to have begun or to be in progress. The coincidence is therefore striking, but the possibility of an earlier presence of this disease in humans cannot be ruled out.
The Late Neolithic populations of the Levant bear witness to the continuing adjustment to the Neolithic way of life: average life expectancy is around 30, deaths are more numerous between the ages of 30 and 50, and more women are over 40.
Population growth occurs during the Neolithic process, with consequences for social and economic development when demographic thresholds are crossed. However, there is disagreement as to when to locate a starting point: as early as the Natoufian, during the PPNA, or during the PPNB? In any case, it is generally believed, on the basis of ethnographic observations, that a sedentary lifestyle is potentially conducive to increased fertility: compared to a mobile lifestyle, the risk of miscarriage is lower in a sedentary lifestyle, and the duration of breast-feeding is shorter, which in turn reduces the interval between conceptions. Above all, it is clear that the adoption of agriculture and animal husbandry, by enabling a larger population to survive on a constant land surface (increasing the carrying capacity of the terroirs), led to a more marked demographic increase among Neolithic populations than among collectors.
The "Neolithic demographic transition" model, now known as the "agricultural demographic transition" (J.-P. Bocquet-Appel), proposes that population growth occurred following the adoption of a sedentary, agricultural lifestyle, thanks to the additional caloric intake it entailed. This, combined with a decrease in female energy expenditure with the end of the mobile lifestyle, would lead to an increase in fertility with constant mortality, at least initially. Indeed, following a course similar to that of the modern demographic transition, in a second phase mortality increases, particularly that of children, due to a concentration of housing, which results in a less healthy environment conducive to the spread of disease, and therefore earlier weaning, before stabilizing when population density is lower. In this scenario, population growth is the cause of the initial system change, but it is also its consequence, since it is due to the emergence of agriculture.
Without calling into question the idea of population growth, evidence of higher settlement density remains limited to the southern Levant, and is mainly found in the PPNA, when the concentration of sites is actually relatively high. They are not present in the northern Levant, where settlements are more widely spaced, either at the start of the domestication process in this region, or after the adoption of the agro-pastoral economy. The carrying capacity of village terroirs does not appear to have reached its limit, except in a few cases.
Organizational methods may have varied greatly from place to place and time to time, but they seem to rely little on constraint and alienation, and indeed the composition of the groups seems to be fluid throughout the period.
The size of residences is commonly held to reflect that of the families that occupy them, or rather, if we take them as a social and economic unit, "households". But interpretation of the data is not straightforward. For the Natoufian, we could assume the persistence of small groups based on nuclear families, particularly in more mobile contexts, but for more sedentary sites it is possible to envisage grouping into extended families. The residences of the PPNA seem more likely to be designed for nuclear families, and we can also assume that the villages or parts of them group families with kinship ties. An evolution towards larger constructions, with functionally differentiated spaces, can be seen in places in the late PPNB and during the Ceramic Neolithic in the southern Levant (notably the walled building complexes of Sha'ar HaGolan), which seems to indicate the presence of extended families. Elsewhere, however, settlements tend to reflect occupation by nuclear families, as in Central Anatolia. Here, residences are often occupied continuously by the same family, and we have been able to speak of a "house society" (as defined by Claude Lévi-Strauss), where the house is a focal point of family organization and heritage, which explains why it often becomes the place of symbolic expression of a family (paintings, ritual furniture).
The introduction of a sedentary lifestyle, followed by that of an agro-pastoral economy, led to the emergence of larger villages, communities grouping together several households who coexisted and set up a form of collective organization, if only for economic purposes, to reduce the risks inherent in agriculture. Archaeology documents, first and foremost, the appearance of community buildings, at least as early as the PPNA, such as the "tower" at Jericho, the community buildings at Jerf el Ahmar, and Göbekli Tepe, i.e., the appearance of buildings with "public" purposes as distinct from "private" spaces. This presupposes the establishment of broader interactions within and between communities, since some of the community buildings appear to have been meeting places, and the sanctuaries often seem to have an importance that goes beyond the framework of a single community, and may have been the work of an "amphictyony", a grouping of several communities for a ritual purpose. These are all elements that point to the implementation of means to ensure group cohesion, at a time when groups are potentially subject to greater tensions as a result of more numerous and more extensive interactions, which threaten them both from within, with the potential affirmation of more marked social hierarchies, and from without, with potential rivalries between communities.
If Neolithic communities are considered to be rather egalitarian and non-violent, even in more recent times, this is linked, according to several researchers, to the effectiveness of ritual and, more broadly, social mechanisms in preserving group homogeneity and putting would-be leaders in their place before they gain too much power. Thus, I. Kuijt has suggested that the fact that inequalities are barely visible in burials is the result of the spread of an egalitarian ideology, and that collective rituals (festivals, the "cult of skulls") reflect a desire to erase social distinctions, or at least their visibility, and to emphasize community cohesion, with, for example, a public (village) rather than private (family) ancestor cult. The fact that groups were mobile and used to splitting up may also have been one of the mechanisms contributing to limiting the establishment of central authorities and ensuring the durability of an egalitarian social order. The establishment of networks for the circulation of goods, through various forms of exchange, also seems to have played a part in regulating relations between communities.
Developments in the Ceramic Neolithic tend to indicate that community organization and social interaction reached a new stage, with the appearance of collective storage buildings, sealing practices indicating greater control over the circulation of products, greater exchanges between communities, and the affirmation of clearer "regional styles" in material culture, although this should probably not be seen as reflecting the existence of ethnic groups or clans.
Through archaeological data, subjective considerations come into play, since the same type of society, the "chieftaincy" - the textbook case in ethnology is the society of the "Big Men" of Papua - will be seen as egalitarian by some, and inegalitarian by others. As is often the case, these interpretations are based on ethnographic studies of societies considered equivalent to those of the Neolithic. The first problem is that archaeological evidence of inequality in Neolithic societies is elusive. According to A. Testart, who adopts a more unequal reading of these societies than the majority, if we rely on these ethnological equivalents, they would not be societies in which wealth accumulates in a lasting way, because it is mainly food and therefore perishable. Prestige would then be manifested more in the ability to provide than to possess in the long term. If objects of prestige do exist, they are not necessarily very impressive, and the residences of the elite are generally indistinguishable in size from those of the rest of society. In sum, there is no such thing as luxury or misery in this type of society. Others have pointed out that questions of production methods are not enough to explain social inequalities: while the Neolithic way of life allows for wealth differentials based on control of (good) farmland and livestock, not all agricultural or pastoral societies are unequal.Inheritance practices could have a decisive influence on the widening of inequalities, if they enable the transmission and thus accumulation of wealth between generations.
As seen above, burials and, more broadly, material culture do not really reveal social distinctions, although they do provide some clues. In the Early Natoufian, for example, this can be seen in the funerary material, with the distinctive necklaces made of dentals (shells) found on around 8% of individuals, and also in possible community buildings (at Mallaha) and the presence of large mortars dug into the rocks, which may have been intended for festive rituals. For the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic, D. Pryce and O. Bar-Yosef consider that the "cult of skulls" was mainly reserved for a limited number of elite individuals, reflecting a social hierarchy, and reject the idea of social homogenization through mortuary practices, since the presence of a few tombs with specific objects (obsidian in particular) again seems to distinguish individuals of more eminent social status. Richer tombs do exist, for example at Ba'ja, but they remain isolated cases.
Rather than looking for evidence of greater social hierarchization in burials or the presence of larger residences for elites, as is the case in later periods, we should look for it in the ability of societies to organize collective projects (construction of sanctuaries, movements to colonize Cyprus), and it is behind this that it is tempting to see the action of chiefs. Thus, in these models, feasts are seen as factors of inequality rather than cohesion: they are collective events generally taken care of by the elites, which may also be accompanied by construction work on the sites intended to host them (in which case the distribution of food is also a form of remuneration). By sustaining participants through food expenditure, they ostentatiously demonstrate their prestige and generosity, and perhaps their ability to exercise leadership. According to B. Hayden, competition between chiefs to see who could organize the most sumptuous feasts would have prompted an increase in food resources, and played a crucial role in the emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry.
In any case, even if we admit the presence of an elite overseeing collective projects, the use of the term "chieftaincy" is not generally accepted for these periods, and the leadership exercised by these individuals would be linked to circumstances, and therefore rather "temporary and situational". And while it is possible to reason in terms of hierarchies when interpreting evidence of ritual or administrative organization, we must not rule out the possibility of coexistence with more egalitarian forms of organization (such as heterarchy?).
The Ceramic Neolithic seems to see a continuation of this complexification. Nonetheless, a study of the Halaf culture suggests that social stratification was not very pronounced: hierarchization of housing was low (the society was rather semi-sedentary), domestic constructions predominated, there was still little social differentiation in tombs, and crafts were organized within a domestic framework. This society is therefore best described as egalitarian, although some also recognize the presence of chiefs and more assertive social divisions. Indications of the development of more complex societies ready to take the step towards chieftaincy are most visible in the Mesopotamian sphere, in the Samarra culture, then its continuation in the Ubaid culture of the Chalcolithic period.
The question of the cohesion of Neolithic societies is also concerned with the relationship between men and women.
In the past, two opposing visions of relations between the two during Neolithic times have been put forward: an optimistic view sees them as a period of harmonious coexistence, during which women are valued for their maternal and nurturing roles; a pessimistic view sees them as a period during which the situation of women deteriorates due to the advent of sedentary life and the agricultural economy, which create a stronger compartmentalization between the public and private spheres, relegating women to the domestic sphere and to more strenuous tasks, and creating strong social inequalities between men and women. Nevertheless, studies tend to prevent the generalization of evolutionary models, as they show contrasting situations in different places. As usual, studies are more advanced in the Southern and Northern Levant than elsewhere.
With regard to the division of labor, ethnological studies of agricultural societies tend to show that women are in charge of most of the work in the fields, whether sowing, harvesting or cleaning. As a result, it has been suggested that women were at the origin of plant domestication. Men may support women in these tasks, but they are more likely to devote themselves to labour-intensive work and hunting, although it is not uncommon for women (and children too) to take part in hunting, especially if it is done collectively. Women are also responsible for processing agricultural products. This is confirmed by a study carried out on human remains from Abu Hureyra by T. Molleson, which shows that women tend to exhibit more physical markers of squatting grinding activities than men (more stress on knees, wrists, toes and lower back). However, other studies carried out on sites in the southern Levant for later periods do not show any marked differences between men and women in terms of activity indicators. J. Peterson sees this as a reflection of local variations in gender differentiation.
Attempts have also been made to identify changes in the spatial differentiation between men and women. For K. Wright, the end of the PPNB saw a process of concentration of cooking implements (ovens/fireplaces and grinding and cooking tools) within the domestic space, whereas in earlier periods they were located outside in front of doors. In her view, this reflects the privatization of domestic activities. Moreover, she assumes an intensification of these tasks, which can be seen in the increased presence of these tools. Given that these activities tend to involve women, this development would be to their detriment. However, there is no evidence to suggest that women were exclusively involved in domestic activities in Near Eastern Neolithic societies.
As far as health is concerned, the cross-period studies carried out in the Southern Levant already mentioned indicate that Natouf women lived longer than their Neolithic descendants; perhaps this is the consequence of the increase in fertility that is supposed (by ethnographic comparison) to have been brought about by sedentarization and the beginnings of agriculture. For men, the trend is the opposite, which is explained by the fact that the activities of sedentary farmers are less dangerous than those of mobile hunters. On the other hand, there is no difference in terms of trauma.
For the rest, analysis of ritual activities and funerary practices does not seem to imply any difference in treatment between men and women, or at least they are not visible in the available documentation. On the other hand, in the religious sphere, contrary to classic interpretations of the "great goddess", recent studies tend to emphasize the importance of masculinity and virility, particularly in Anatolia (a "phallocentrism" for I. Hodder and L. Meskell). Rather than reflecting the cult of the nurturing goddess, figurines of voluptuous women can be interpreted as reflecting a male gaze of the female body and sexuality.
Ultimately, according to J. Peterson, there is no clear indication of the existence of hierarchies between women and men in the Neolithic societies of the southern Levant. Instead of looking for generalizable trends across all Neolithic societies, it is better to highlight the existence of local particularities at the different sites and periods studied.
Violence and armed conflict are major mechanisms in the evolution of human societies, and we know from the example of the European Neolithic that they may have been present at such times. In the case of the Near East, however, the evidence is rather meagre and open to contrasting interpretations, with the result that the issue has attracted little attention and the period is generally seen as peaceful. Does this mean that Neolithic societies in the Near East have little to do with warfare? No, according to O. Bar-Yosef and S. LeBlanc, who believe that we underestimate the role of violence as a factor in the evolution of ancient Near Eastern societies. Their arguments are based on the fact that sites are often located in places that can be chosen for their defensive value, that there is a trend towards increasing densities that would imply a search for security, and that defensive walls are attested in several cases (Magzalia, Hacilar). Weapons are also commonplace: arrowheads are a very common artefact, sometimes found in large quantities (a cache of 100 arrowheads at Beidha), as are slingshot bullets (at least 1,000 at Umm Dabaghiyah), which seems to rule out use for hunting. Site abandonment occurs regularly, which could be partly attributable to violence. Finally, in several cases, the skeletons show traces of trauma that may be linked to violence, and if there is a lack of documentation on this point, it is rather because analyses have never really focused on the subject.
It would then be the interpretation of the data by archaeologists that would have "pacified" the Near Eastern Neolithic, so much so that it is true that these clues can give rise to opposing conclusions. For example, the common idea that the organization of several Anatolian sites (Aşıklı Höyük, Çatal Höyük, Hacilar) was defensive in nature has been challenged. In fact, fortifications can have a function other than, or in addition to, defensive: protection against floods (this is what O. Bar-Yosef proposes for the Jericho wall in the PPNA), passage control, symbolic barrier.
More generally, the interpretation of data on violence is based on more complex considerations. For example, some believe that the domestication process and the spread of the Neolithic way of life could only have taken place in a context of generally peaceful knowledge-sharing, and not in societies with large-scale vendettas and inter-group conflicts. However, it may be that the expansion of Neolithic communities in Asia Minor to the detriment of hunter-gatherer groups took place in a more conflictual context. Moreover, violence in a prehistoric context is often explained by a Malthusian principle: it would be the consequence of a form of overpopulation and struggles for the appropriation of resources. However, these conditions have not been demonstrated for the Near East. Ultimately, the question comes down to the study of human behavior from an ethological angle, i.e. whether human beings are inherently inclined towards peace or war.
The Near Eastern Neolithic, from its various foci (as far as is currently known, mainly the northern and southern Levant and southeastern Anatolia), spread rapidly to neighboring regions, and by the PPNB, the Neolithic way of life had been adopted from Anatolia to the central Zagros. The phenomenon then spread in several directions: eastwards across the Iranian plateau, then towards Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent; northwards towards the Caucasus; westwards to western Anatolia, then to Europe; southwards towards Arabia and Egypt. This diffusion is traceable because most of the elements of the Near Eastern Neolithic package can be found here, first and foremost the cultivation of wheat and barley, and the breeding of goats and cattle, whose varieties are found in the wild and traces of domestication only in the households of the Near East. There are many different interpretations of how and why this phenomenon of diffusion occurred. There is a classic opposition between the so-called "demic" diffusion or "migrationist" approach, which considers that Neolithization spread mainly through the migration of farmers from a Neolithic area to a non-Neolithic area (this can take the form of colonization and/or conquest) and "cultural" diffusion, through contact, exchanges and borrowings and little or no migration. But the situation must have varied from case to case, and it is considered difficult to defend an explanatory model that can be generalized to all regions, or even to all localities within the same region.
The first large-scale genetic studies carried out on Near Eastern populations in the mid-2010s tend to link the outward expansion of the Neolithic lifestyle to migratory movements. Genetically differentiated Epipaleolithic and Neolithic populations in the Southern Levant, Central Anatolia and the Zagros, originating from hunter-gatherer groups indigenous to these regions, each spread in several directions: they intermingled to such an extent that by the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages, several individuals had traceable origins in two of these regions; and they each spread to the regions outside the Near East closest to them, those from the Southern Levant to East Africa, those from Central Anatolia to Europe, those from the Zagros to Central Asia, then South Asia.
The situation of Cyprus is atypical, since the island was apparently not populated before the Final Epipaleolithic, but was regularly visited by populations from the mainland during the PPNA, some of whom settled on the island and practiced a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The conditions under which the island's shores were reachable from the mainland are still rather obscure, not least because the oldest known sites are mainly in the southern part of the island, which is the least accessible in terms of navigation conditions. No doubt progress will be made in this area over the coming years. In any case, the finds from the PPNB sites (Shillourokambos in particular, but also Myloutkhia and Akanthou) indicate that the island was inhabited around 8500 BC. C. a wave of colonization from the northern Levant brought with it the Neolithic "package", as yet unfinished, since we find the same lithic industry and similar art, perhaps also the practice of ritual removal of the skulls of certain deceased, an architecture still predominantly circular, and above all the "founding" domesticated plants and animals, still morphologically wild, and also cats. More surprising is the introduction of the fallow deer, which has led to the suggestion that some of the other animals are brought to the island when they are not fully domesticated, but just controlled, and that episodes of domestication perhaps occur, before a later influx of domesticated species; this is debated.
As for the causes of these expansions, if one postulates a diffusion that took place mainly through migrations, then climatic phenomena and, above all, demographic pressure were evoked, moving Neolithic groups, considered to be more dynamic demographically and potentially overpopulated in places, towards non-Neolithic border regions where there was room. J. Cauvin sees in this a cultural impetus, a form of messianism on the part of the settlers; he also stresses the prestige and attractiveness they enjoyed in the eyes of the hunter-gatherer populations, who saw them arrive with domesticated animals and plants, ceramics and other technologies more "advanced" in the Neolithic agricultural way of life, even if this was not clearly superior to gathering in terms of its ability to sustain a human group.