It was in the Near East that the `` most important developments in early farming '' occurred in the Levant and the mountains surrounding what is now Syria , Israel , Jordan , Turkey , Iran and Iraq , areas which already had rich ecological variation that was being exploited by hunter-gatherers in the Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods .
These areas already had rich ecological variation that was being exploited by hunter-gatherers in the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods .