'Ain Ghazal, Jordan, a site that will…
7245 BCE to 7102 BCE
'Ain Ghazal, Jordan, a site that will be inhabited until 5000 BCE and grow to encompass thirty acres (one hundred and twenty thousand square meters), one of the largest known prehistoric settlements in the Near East, is inhabited from 7250 BCE.
Having begun as a typical aceramic Neolithic village of modest size,'Ain Ghazal is set on terraced ground at a valley-side, and is built with rectangular mud-brick houses that accommodate a square main room and a smaller anteroom.
Walls are plastered with mud on the outside, and with lime plaster inside that is renewed every few years.
Being an early farming community, the 'Ain Ghazal people cultivate cereals (barley and ancient species of wheat), legumes (peas, beans and lentils) and chickpeas in fields above the village, and herd domesticated goats.
However, they also still hunt wild animals—deer, gazelle, equids, pigs and smaller mammals such as fox or hare.