![Göbekli Tepe, Urfa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe%2C_Urfa.jpg)
The 9th millennium BC spanned the years 9000 BC to 8001 BC (11 to 10 thousand years ago). In chronological terms, it is the first full millennium of the current
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...
epoch that is generally reckoned to have begun by 9700 BC (11.7 thousand years ago). It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis, or by radiometric dating.
In the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
, especially in the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
, the transitory
Epipalaeolithic
In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are someti ...
age was gradually superseded by the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
with evidence of
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
across the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
to the
Zagros Mountains
The Zagros Mountains ( ar, جبال زاغروس, translit=Jibal Zaghrus; fa, کوههای زاگرس, Kuh hā-ye Zāgros; ku, چیاکانی زاگرۆس, translit=Çiyakani Zagros; Turkish: ''Zagros Dağları''; Luri: ''Kuh hā-ye Zāgro ...
in modern-day
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. The key characteristic of the Neolithic is agricultural settlement, albeit with wooden and stone tools and weapons still in use. It is believed that agriculture had begun in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
by the end of the millennium. Elsewhere, especially in Europe, the
Palaeolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
continued.
Global environment
In the
geologic time scale
The geologic time scale, or geological time scale, (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochrono ...
, the first
stratigraphic stage
In chronostratigraphy, a stage is a succession of rock strata laid down in a single age on the geologic timescale, which usually represents millions of years of deposition. A given stage of rock and the corresponding age of time will by conventi ...
of the
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...
is the "
Greenlandian
In the geologic time scale, the Greenlandian is the earliest age or lowest stage of the Holocene Epoch or Series, part of the Quaternary. Beginning in 11,650 BP (9701 BCE or 300 HE) and ending 8,276 BP (6237 BCE or 3764 HE), it is the earlies ...
" from about 9700 BC to the fixed date 6236 BC and so including the whole of the 9th millennium. The starting point for the Greenlandian has been correlated with the end of the
Younger Dryas
The Younger Dryas (c. 12,900 to 11,700 years BP) was a return to glacial conditions which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, c. 27,000 to 20,000 years BP). The Younger Dryas was the last stage ...
and a climate shift from near-glacial to interglacial, causing glaciers to retreat and sea levels to rise.
[ ''This proposal on behalf of the SQS has been approved by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and formally ratified by the Executive Committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)''.]
It has been estimated that the
Bering Land Bridge
Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of ...
was inundated around 8500 BC by the rising sea levels so that North America and Asia were again separated by the waters of the
Bering Strait and the
Chukchi Sea
Chukchi Sea ( rus, Чуко́тское мо́ре, r=Chukotskoye more, p=tɕʊˈkotskəjə ˈmorʲɪ), sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west b ...
. It is generally believed that there was a migration across the land bridge from eastern Siberia into North America during the
Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent.
Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...
. Sometime after the American glaciers melted, these peoples expanded southward into the wider continent to become the
Native Americans. After the land bridge was inundated by the rising sea water, no further migration was possible from Siberia.
During the millennium, there were
three known volcanic eruptions which registered magnitude 5 or more on the
Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). These were at
Ulleungdo
Ulleungdo (also spelled Ulreungdo; Hangul: , ) is a South Korean island 120 km (75 mi) east of the Korean Peninsula in the Sea of Japan, formerly known as the Dagelet Island or Argonaut Island in Europe.
Volcanic in origin, the rocky s ...
(''aka'' Ulreung), an island east of the
Korean Peninsula
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
about 8750 BC;
Grímsvötn
Grímsvötn (; ''vötn'' = "waters", singular: ) is a volcano with a (partially subglacial) fissure system located in Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland. The volcano itself is completely subglacial and located under the northwestern side of the Va ...
, north east Iceland about 8230 BC; and
Taupo Caldera, New Zealand about 8130 BC. The biggest eruption was at Grímsvötn, VEI 6, producing some of
tephra
Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism.
Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, they rem ...
.
Population and communities
As the Neolithic began in the Fertile Crescent, most people around the world still lived in scattered
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
communities which remained firmly in the
Palaeolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
. The
world population
In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for the ...
was probably stable and slowly increasing. It has been estimated that there were some five million people in 10,000 BC growing to forty million by 5000 BC and 100 million by 1600 BC. That is an average growth rate of 0.027% per annum from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.
Near East
From the beginning of the 9th millennium,
Göbekli Tepe
Göbekli Tepe (, "Potbelly Hill"; known as ''Girê Mirazan'' or ''Xirabreşkê'' in Kurdish languages, Kurdish) is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between 9500 ...
was inhabited after possibly being first occupied during the previous millennium. It is a carved stone hilltop sanctuary in south-eastern
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
which includes the world's oldest known
megaliths
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
.
As with Göbekli Tepe, the site at
Tell Qaramel
Tell Qaramel (also ''Tel Qaramel'' or ''Tel al-Qaramel'', ar, تل القرامل) is a tell, or archaeological mound, located in the north of present-day Syria, 25 km north of Aleppo and about 65 km south of the Taurus mountains, ...
, in north-west
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, was inhabited from 9000 BC following possible first occupation in the previous millennium. In the same region, the settlement at
Nevalı Çori
Nevalı Çori ( tr, Nevali Çori, ku, Newala Çorî) was an early Neolithic settlement on the middle Euphrates, in Şanlıurfa Province, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. The site is known for having some of the world's oldest known temples and monu ...
has been dated about 8500 BC. Elsewhere in the Fertile Crescent, there is evidence of settlements at
Mureybet
Mureybet ( ar, مريبط, muribit, lit=covered) is a tell, or ancient settlement mound, located on the west bank of the Euphrates in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria. The site was excavated between 1964 and 1974 and has since disappeared under ...
and
Ganj Dareh
Ganj Dareh ( Persian: تپه گنج دره; "Treasure Valley" in Persian,Smith, Philip E.LArchitectural Innovation and Experimentation at Ganj Dareh, Iran '' World Archaeology'', Vol. 21, No. 3 (February, 1990), pp. 323-335 or "Treasure Valle ...
from around 8500 BC. Towards the end of the millennium, by 8200 BC, the site of
Aşıklı Höyük
Aşıklı Höyük is a settlement mound located nearly south of Kızılkaya village on the bank of the Melendiz brook, and southeast of Aksaray, Turkey.
Aşıklı Höyük is located in an area covered by the volcanic tuff of central Cappadoci ...
in central Anatolia was first occupied (until around 7400 BC).
Europe
It is believed that European sites settled before 8500 were still Palaeolithic, or at best
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
, communities. At
Star Carr
Star Carr is a Mesolithic archaeological site in North Yorkshire, England. It is around five miles () south of Scarborough.
It is generally regarded as the most important and informative Mesolithic site in Great Britain. It is as important to ...
in North Yorkshire, the results of
radiocarbon
Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and coll ...
analysis in 2018 indicate that occupation first commenced between 9335 and 9275 BC, lasting for a period of around 800 years until 8525–8440 BC, although such occupations may have been episodic in nature, varying in intensity between different periods. Archaeological excavations at
Cramond
Cramond Village (; gd, Cathair Amain) is a village and suburb in the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the mouth of the River Almond where it enters the Firth of Forth.
The Cramond area has evidence of Mesolithic, Bronze Age and Roman ac ...
in
prehistoric Scotland
Archaeology and geology continue to reveal the secrets of prehistoric Scotland, uncovering a complex past before the Romans brought Scotland into the scope of recorded history. Successive human cultures tended to be spread across Europe or furt ...
have uncovered evidence of habitation dating to around 8500 BC. Another settlement may have been established at
Ærø
Ærø () is one of the Danish Baltic Sea islands, and part of the Southern Denmark Region.
Since 1 January 2006 the whole of Ærø has constituted a single municipality, known as Ærø Kommune. Before that date, there were two municipalities o ...
in
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
.
Japan
In
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, the
Jomon culture had probably been established by small communities on the Pacific side of
Honshu
, historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separ ...
by this time. The word means "cord-pattern", referring to the distinctive pottery of the period. As there was no potter's wheel, the clay was prepared in the shape of a rope and manually coiled upwards to create a vessel that was baked in an open fire. At first, the vessels were simple bowls and jars but later became artistic. Proposed dates for the start of the Jomon are wildly variable, ranging from the Ice Ages to as late as c. 4500. It is generally accepted that the period ended c. 300 BC when it was superseded by the
Yayoi culture
The started at the beginning of the Neolithic in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age.
Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōmon p ...
.
Americas
In North America, the Paleo-Indian
Clovis Culture
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 ...
is believed to have ended around 8800 BC having fathered numerous local variants. One of these was the
Folsom complex which was centred in the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
and is dated from c.9000 to c.8000 BC. The people were hunter-gatherers who hunted the now-extinct ''
Bison antiquus
''Bison antiquus'', the antique bison or ancient bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in Late Pleistocene North America until around 10,000 years ago. It was one of the most common large herbivores on the North American continent dur ...
''.
In
Patagonia
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and gl ...
, the Fell's Tradition prevailed through the millennium at
Cueva Fell
Cueva Fell is a natural cave and archaeological site in southern Patagonia. Cueva Fell is in proximity to the Pali Aike Crater, another significant archaeological site. Cueva Fell combined with the nearby Pali Aike site have been submitted to U ...
. Another Paleo-Indian site in the region is the Las Cuevas Canyon near
Los Toldos (Santa Cruz)
Los Toldos is an archaeological site in Santa Cruz, Argentina, which has evidenced human activity dating back almost 13,000 years ago. It is the namesake of the Toldense culture group.
Location
The site is located south of the Deseado Rive ...
where rock art has been found.
In Central America, remains of three prehistoric human fossils have been discovered since 2006 in the cave system at
Chan Hol
Chan Hol, part of the Toh ha cave system, is a cenote and submerged cave system in Quintana Roo, Mexico, of interest to paleoanthropologists. The remains of three prehistoric human fossils were discovered within the cave system. Along with Eve of ...
in
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo ( , ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Quintana Roo ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo), is one of the 31 states which, with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 11 mu ...
, Mexico. All have been dated to around the 9th millennium.
Early warfare
Evidence of a precursor to warfare has been found at
Nataruk
Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, is the site of an archaeological investigation which uncovered the 10,000-year-old remains of 27 people. The remains have garnered wide media attention for possible bioarchaeological evidence of interpersonal vio ...
in Kenya. Remains of at least 27 individuals have been found and dated to around 8500 BC. The condition of the skeletons indicates that a massacre took place as hands were bound and skulls were smashed by blunt force. Communities in Africa at the time would have been nomadic hunter-gatherers.
Rise of agriculture
The
Natufian culture
The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction ...
continued to prevail in the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
ine and upper
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
n areas of the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
with their most significant site at
Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) in the
Jordan Valley
The Jordan Valley ( ar, غور الأردن, ''Ghor al-Urdun''; he, עֵמֶק הַיַרְדֵּן, ''Emek HaYarden'') forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" often applies just to ...
. The Natufian people had been
sedentary or semi-sedentary through the 10th millennium, even before the introduction of
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
.
By about 8500 BC, the Natufians were harvesting
wild wheat with
flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...
-edged
sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...
s. It was around that time, or soon afterwards, that the wild wheat crossed with a natural
goat grass to form
emmer
Emmer wheat or hulled wheat is a type of awned wheat. Emmer is a tetraploid (4''n'' = 4''x'' = 28 chromosomes). The domesticated types are ''Triticum turgidum'' subsp. ''dicoccum'' and ''Triticum turgidum ''conv.'' durum''. The wild plant is ...
, the seeds of which could scatter in the wind to spread naturally. Later, emmer crossed with another goat grass to form the even larger hybrid that is
bread wheat
Common wheat (''Triticum aestivum''), also known as bread wheat, is a cultivated wheat species. About 95% of wheat produced worldwide is common wheat; it is the most widely grown of all crops and the cereal with the highest monetary yield.
Ta ...
. The Natufians learned how to harvest the new wheat, grind it into flour and make
bread
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
. The early bread was unleavened, with the dough allowed to dry on hot stones. Writing in 1973,
Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He was known to friends and professional colleagues alike by the nickname Bruno. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to sc ...
argued that the combination of wheat and water at Jericho enabled man to begin civilisation. Jericho, having a natural spring, was an oasis on the edge of the
Syrian Desert
The Syrian Desert ( ar, بادية الشام ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering of the Middle East, including parts of sou ...
and, although similar developments occurred elsewhere, Bronowski called Jericho "a microcosm of history".
The earliest known cultivation of
lentil
The lentil (''Lens culinaris'' or ''Lens esculenta'') is an edible legume. It is an annual plant known for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about tall, and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each. As a food crop, the largest pro ...
s was at
Mureybet
Mureybet ( ar, مريبط, muribit, lit=covered) is a tell, or ancient settlement mound, located on the west bank of the Euphrates in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria. The site was excavated between 1964 and 1974 and has since disappeared under ...
in Syria, where wheat and
barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...
were also grown. Lentils were later (by 7500 BC) found at
Hacilar
Hacilar is an early human settlement in southwestern Turkey, 23 km south of present-day Burdur. It has been dated back 7040 BC at its earliest stage of development. Archaeological remains indicate that the site was abandoned and reoccupied ...
and
Çayönü
Çayönü Tepesi is a Neolithic settlement in southeastern Turkey which prospered from circa 8,630 to 6,800 BC. It is located forty kilometres north-west of Diyarbakır, at the foot of the Taurus mountains. It lies near the Boğazçay, a trib ...
in Turkey. Ganj Dareh, in Iranian Kurdistan, has been cited as the earliest settlement to domesticate animals, specifically the goat, towards the end of the millennium.
[What's Bred in the Bone](_blank)
''Discover (magazine)
''Discover'' is an American general audience science magazine launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It has been owned by Kalmbach Publishing since 2010.
History
Founding
''Discover'' was created primarily through the efforts of ''Time'' mag ...
'', July 2000 ("After investigating bone collections from ancient sites across the Middle East, she found a dearth of adult male goat bones—and an abundance of female and young male remains—from a 10,000-year-old settlement called Ganj Dareh, in Iran's Zagros Mountains. This provides the earliest evidence of domesticated livestock, Zeder says".)
Agriculture may have begun in the
Far East
The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.
The ter ...
before 8300 BC, the estimated date for the earliest cultivation of common
millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...
. Proso millet (''
Panicum miliaceum
''Panicum miliaceum'' is a grain crop with many common names, including proso millet, broomcorn millet, common millet, hog millet, Kashfi millet, red millet, and white millet. Archaeobotanical evidence suggests millet was first domesticated abou ...
'') and foxtail millet (''
Setaria italica
Foxtail millet, scientific name ''Setaria italica'' (synonym ''Panicum italicum'' L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest evidenc ...
'') were important crops beginning in the
Early Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
of China. Some of the earliest evidence of millet cultivation in China was found at
Cishan (north), where proso millet husk
phytoliths
Phytoliths (from Greek, "plant stone") are rigid, microscopic structures made of silica, found in some plant tissues and persisting after the decay of the plant. These plants take up silica from the soil, whereupon it is deposited within different ...
and biomolecular components have been identified around 10,300–8,700 years ago in
storage pits along with remains of pit-houses, pottery, and stone tools related to millet cultivation.
Pottery and dating systems
Beginning with China c.18,000 BC,
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
is believed to have been invented independently in various places – for example, at
Ounjougou
Ounjougou is the name of a lieu-dit found in the middle of an important complex of archaeological sites in the Upper Yamé Valley on the Bandiagara Plateau, in Dogon Country, Mali. The Ounjougou archaeological complex consists of over a hundred s ...
in central Mali (dated c.9400 BC). These early innovations were probably created accidentally by fires lit on
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
soil.
The
potter's wheel
In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping (known as throwing) of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, a ...
had not yet been invented and, where pottery as such was made, it was still hand-built, often by means of
coiling
A coiling or coil is a curve, helix, or spiral used for storing rope or cable in compact and reliable yet easily attainable form. They are often discussed with knots.
Mountaineer's coil
The mountaineer's coil (also alpine coil, climber's co ...
, and
pit fired.
The first chronological pottery system was the Early, Middle and Late Minoan framework devised in the early 20th century by Sir
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on t ...
for his
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
findings at
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
for the period c. 2800 BC to c. 1050 BC. Dame
Kathleen Kenyon
Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon, (5 January 1906 – 24 August 1978) was a British archaeologist of Neolithic culture in the Fertile Crescent. She led excavations of Tell es-Sultan, the site of ancient Jericho, from 1952 to 1958, and has been called ...
was the principal archaeologist at
Tell es-Sultan
Tell es-Sultan ( ar, تل السلطان, ''lit.'' Sultan's Hill), also known as Tel Jericho ( he, תל יריחו) or Ancient Jericho, is a UNESCO-nominated archaeological site in the West Bank, in the State of Palestine, located adjacent to th ...
(ancient Jericho) and she discovered that there was no pottery there.
The vessels she found were made from stone and she reasonably surmised that others made from wood or vegetable fibres would have long since decayed.
Using Evans' system as a benchmark, Kenyon divided the Near East Neolithic into phases called
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating to years ago, that is, 10,000–8,800 BCE. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and Up ...
(PPNA), from c. 10,000 BC to c. 8800 BC;
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon during h ...
(PPNB), from c. 8800 BC to c. 6500 BC; and then
Pottery Neolithic
In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is some ...
(PN), which had varied start-points from c. 6500 BC until the beginnings of the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
towards the end of the
4th millennium
While the future cannot be predicted with certainty, present understanding in various scientific fields allows for the prediction of some far-future events, if only in the broadest outline. These fields include astrophysics, which studies ho ...
. At the beginning of the 9th millennium, the Natufian culture co-existed with the PPNA which prevailed in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian areas of the Fertile Crescent.
Metallurgy
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
(Cu, 29) was originally found in
raw surface lumps and first used in the Middle East. It was later extracted from ores such as
malachite
Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures ...
. A copper pendant from Mesopotamia is dated 8700 BC.
The use of copper and, from the eighth millennium,
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
(Pb, 82) was gradual – it could not become widespread until
systematic processes had been developed for extraction of the metals from their ores; this did not happen until about the sixth millennium.
References
Bibliography
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