The Middle East (6669–6526 BCE): Growth of Agricultural and Settled Communities

Expansion and Stability of Settlements

Between 6669 and 6526 BCE, the established agricultural communities across the Middle East, such as Jarmo, Çatalhöyük, and emerging settlements in the Levant, continued to experience growth and stability. The expansion of these settlements was fueled by consistent agricultural productivity, improved resource management, and strengthened social structures.

Agricultural Practices and Livestock Management

During this period, agricultural techniques continued to advance, ensuring reliable harvests of staple crops, including wheat and barley. Communities refined animal husbandry practices, increasingly relying on domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle, supporting both dietary needs and agricultural labor.

Enhanced Social Structures

As settlements grew in size and complexity, social structures became more sophisticated, necessitating improved organizational systems. This era saw the establishment of clearer divisions of labor, increased cooperation in communal projects, and possibly the early emergence of leadership roles and social stratification.

Cultural and Ritual Developments

Archaeological evidence from sites across the region indicates continued growth in cultural practices. The presence of ritual artifacts, figurative art, and ceremonial spaces highlights the communities' deepening engagement with religious or spiritual practices, underscoring the cultural richness of Neolithic society.

This age reflects a period of notable stability and development, marked by advances in agricultural practices, community organization, and cultural expression, laying a crucial foundation for further societal evolution in the ancient Middle East.

An early Neolithic culture that inhabits caves near Aq Kupruk, in present north central Afghanistan, evidently keeps domestic animals.

Archaeological finds include an extensive and sophisticated stone tool industry, very early stone sculpture, domesticated sheep and goat remains, fragments of beaten copper from the ceramic Neolithic, many projectile points, terra cotta and simple jewelry.

A volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, today one of the most various and active volcanic areas in the world, had a VEI 7 eruption around 6440±25 BCE, one of the largest of the Holocene epoch.

It forms a crater known today as Kurile Lake, which is today the largest spawning ground for sockeye salmon in Eurasia (if not in the world).

The Houli culture, a Neolithic culture in Shandong, China, begins around 6500 BCE.

The people of the culture live in square, semi-subterranean houses.

Archaeological evidence shows that domesticated dogs and pigs were used.

The type-site at Houli was discovered in the Linzi District of Shandong.

Human settlement in Estonia became possible eleven thousand to thirteen thousand years ago, when the ice from the last glacial era melted away.

The oldest known settlement in Estonia is the Pulli settlement, which was located on the banks of the river Pärnu, near the town of Sindi, in southwestern Estonia.

According to radiocarbon dating, it was settled around eleven thousand years ago, at the beginning of the ninth millennium BCE.

Evidence has been found of hunting and fishing communities existing around 6500 BCE near the town of Kunda in northern Estonia.

Bone and stone artifacts similar to those found at Kunda have been discovered elsewhere in Estonia, as well as in Latvia, northern Lithuania and in southern Finland.

The Kunda culture belongs to the middle stone age, or Mesolithic period.

Two breeds of non-wolf dogs appear at sites in Scandinavia dated to around 6500 BCE.

The Middle East (6525–6382 BCE): Trade and Domestication Developments

Lead Beads and Trade at Çatalhöyük

During 6525 to 6382 BCE, communities in Anatolia, specifically at Çatalhöyük, made notable advancements in trade and craftsmanship. Archaeological findings include lead beads from this period, dated to around 6500 BCE, highlighting early experimentation with metalworking. Additionally, the roughly five thousand inhabitants of Çatalhöyük actively participated in the obsidian trade, illustrating significant regional economic interactions and the settlement's prominent role in early trade networks.

Domestication of Hogs in Jarmo

In Jarmo, a prominent settlement in northern Iraq, evidence from around 6500 BCE indicates the domestication of hogs. This development represents a significant step in animal husbandry, complementing the existing management of sheep, goats, and cattle. The inclusion of domestic hogs further diversified agricultural and dietary resources, reinforcing the community’s stability and self-sufficiency.

Continued Cultural and Economic Expansion

The period witnessed continued expansion in cultural, economic, and social complexities. The presence of trade networks facilitated the spread of materials and ideas, supporting the emergence of more interconnected and culturally vibrant communities.

This era underscores significant developments in early trade practices, metalworking experimentation, and diversification in animal domestication, marking essential steps towards increasingly complex Neolithic societies in the Middle East.

Lead beads found in what is now Turkey are dated to around 6500 BCE; at this time, the roughly five thousand inhabitants of Çatalhöyük are engaged in the obsidian trade.

Domestic hogs are raised in Jarmo around 6500 BCE.

'Amman, located about twenty-five miles (forty kilometers) north of the Dead Sea, will be inhabited by several civilizations throughout history.

The first civilization on record is during the Late Neolithic period, around 6500 BCE, when archaeological discoveries in 'Ain Ghazal, located in eastern 'Amman, show evidence of not only a settled life but also the growth of artistic work, which suggests that a well-developed civilization inhabits the city at this time.

'Ain Ghazal people bury some of their dead beneath the floors of their houses, others outside in the surrounding terrain.

Of those buried inside, often later the head is retrieved and the skull buried in a separate shallow pit beneath the house floor.

Also, many human remains have been found in what appears to be garbage pits, where domestic waste was disposed, indicating that not every deceased was ceremoniously put to rest.

Why only a small, selected portion was properly buried and the majority just disposed of, remains unresolved.

'Ain Ghazal is renowned for a set of anthropomorphic statues found buried in pits in the vicinity of some special buildings that may have had ritual functions.

These statues are half-size human figures modeled in white plaster around a core of bundled twigs.

The figures have painted clothes, hair, and in some cases, ornamental tattoos or body paint.

The eyes are created using cowrie shells with a bitumen pupil.

In all, thirty-two of those plaster figures were found in two caches, fifteen of them full figures, fifteen busts, and two fragmentary heads.

Three of the busts were two-headed, the significance of the two-headed statues is not clear.