Pre-Pottery Neolithic

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Near East, dating to  12,000 – c. 8,500 years ago, (10000 – 6500 BCE). It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic Near East (also called Mesolithic), as the domestication of plants and animals was in its formative stages, having possibly been induced by the Younger Dryas.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture came to an end around the time of the 8.2-kiloyear event, a cool spell centred on 6200 BCE that lasted several hundred years. It is succeeded by the Pottery Neolithic.