12th Millennium BCE

The 12th millennium BC spanned the years 12,000 BC to 11,001 BC (c. 14 ka to c. 13 ka). This millennium is during the Upper Paleolithic period. The Paleolithic-Mesolithic transition began in the Near East during this millennium. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened during this millennium, and all dates associated with this millennium are estimates mostly based on geological analysis, anthropological analysis, and radiometric dating.

Geology

Animals

The Horn core of Saiga tatarica is from the Komishan cave that indicates an occupation of the cave at the end of this millennium. In France, the first incisor from a red deer is dated to the 13-12th millennium BC. During this millennium, the first dog remains came from the Natufian culture of the southern Levant.

Environmental changes

There is material evidence for the build up of the Mediterranean islands that is pointing to such activity as early as the 12-11th millennium BC. More than a century ago, it first became clear how much of the Magdalenian and Azilian underwent change in Western Europe. Since that time, these mutations succeeding one another between the 14th and 12th millennium BC, particularly during the Lateglacial warming, were often seen as a real revolution, frequently described through the filter of myths of catastrophes which then inspired and at times still influences prehistoric research.

Human culture

Humans

No concrete archaeological evidence was found to substantiate a human presence in Egypt throughout this millennium, according to Egyptologists. The time gap has been filled, at least, with comparable discoveries made at Tushka in Egypt during this millennium, showing continuity of human presence in the area from this antiquity all the way down to the start of history.

Technology and Agriculture

The frequency of occurrence of fundamental tool groups such as end-scrapers, burins, truncated pieces, backed pieces, perforators, and combination tools in Moravian inventory is most closely matched and is dated to the late 13th - early 11th millennium BC. From the 17th to the 9th millennium BC, no surface pressure flaking technology is known to have existed in Europe. Only this millennium has the first conclusive evidence for deep-sea fishing and navigation in the Strait of Gibraltar crossing.

In Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic, the seeds of bitter vetch were found among both the earliest findings of wild collected plants from this millennium and the storages of domesticated crops of the Near East Neolithic. The Neolithic era was originated with agriculture in the Middle East around this millennium.

Other cultural developments

The Hamburg cultures prevailed in Schleswig-Holstein around the second half of this millennium. The sites, Göbekli Tepe, Gusir Höyük, Nevali Çori, and Karahan Tepe, have generated convincing proof of public rituals performed by shaman-like ritual practitioners and also indicate that collective celebrations of rites and rituals have existed since this millennium. McNeish's excavations in Mexico's Tehuacan Valley have revealed a series of cave cultural layers dating back to this millennium. Jebel Sahaba, a prehistoric site of protracted violence, probably dates to this millennium.https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-021-89386-y/MediaObjects/41598_2021_89386_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

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{{Millennia

Late Pleistocene
Millennia