The Middle East (6957–6814 BCE): Early Settlement and Trade at Ugarit

Establishment of Ugarit

Between 6957 and 6814 BCE, the area destined to become the city of Ugarit and its associated port first witnessed human occupation. The site is identified with the mound at the current village of Ras Shamra and the adjacent small harbor of Minet-el-Beida, situated approximately ten kilometers (six miles) north of Latakia in northwestern Syria.

Strategic Location and Early Trade

The early significance of this site derives from its dual advantages: as a coastal port and as the gateway to an essential inland trade route leading toward the Euphrates and Tigris river valleys. Its strategic location facilitated early commercial interactions, fostering connections between coastal and inland communities and thus significantly contributing to regional economic and social developments.

Implications for Early Societal Development

The settlement’s dual nature as a coastal port and inland trade hub underscores the early importance of trade and communication networks in the development of complex societies. This strategic positioning likely encouraged the flow of goods, ideas, and innovations, laying important foundations for subsequent cultural and economic growth in the Middle East.

This era marks a critical point in the early economic and social dynamics of the region, setting a precedent for future urban and trade developments that would profoundly shape the ancient Near East.

Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the seventh millennium BCE, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries, as Greece lies on the route via which farming spreads from the Near East to Europe.

Advanced agriculture and a very early use of pottery are features of the Sesklo culture in Thessaly, Greece, which begins around 6850–4800 BCE.

The people of Sesklo, today an Aromanian village nearby the city of Volos, build their villages on hillsides near fertile valleys, where they grow wheat and barley, also keeping herds of mainly sheep and goats, though they also have cows, pigs, and dogs.

Their houses are small, with one or two rooms, built of wood or mudbrick in the early period.

The Middle East (6813–6670 BCE): Agricultural Innovations at Jarmo

The Settlement at Jarmo

Between 6813 and 6670 BCE, approximately one hundred and fifty inhabitants settled at Jarmo, an archaeological site named after the Kurdish village Qallat Jarmo, situated in the foothills of northern Iraq, approximately fifty-five kilometers (thirty-five miles) east of Kirkuk. By 6750 BCE, the community cultivated two varieties of domesticated wheat and managed flocks of sheep and goats.

Pioneering Agricultural Community

Jarmo holds distinction as one of the world's earliest agricultural settlements. It emerged contemporaneously with significant Neolithic sites such as Jericho in the southern Levant and Çatalhöyük in Anatolia. Covering an area of roughly twelve thousand to sixteen thousand square meters (approximately three to four acres), Jarmo was located at an elevation of eight hundred meters above sea level, nestled in a rich belt of oak and pistachio woodlands.

Archaeological Excavations and Theoretical Contributions

The site of Jarmo was excavated extensively by American archaeologist Robert Braidwood between 1948 and 1955. These excavations provided critical support for Braidwood’s influential hypothesis, which posited that plant domestication and early agricultural practices in the Near East originated in the hilly regions flanking northern Iraq's Zagros Mountains. The discoveries at Jarmo significantly shaped subsequent understandings of agricultural origins and Neolithic cultural developments.

This period highlights the transformative impact of agricultural innovations, marking Jarmo as a cornerstone site in the narrative of early human settlement and the progression toward increasingly complex societies.

The one hundred and fifty or so people who live in the settlement at Jarmo (an archaeological site named after the Kurdish village of Qallat Jarmo in the foothills of northern Iraq, about thirty-five miles—fifty-five kilometers—east of Kirkuk) cultivate two kinds of domesticated wheat and tend sheep and goats around 6750 BCE.

Known as the oldest agricultural community in the world, Jarmo is broadly contemporary with such other important Neolithic sites such as Jericho in the southern Levant and Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia.

The site is approximately three to four acres (twelve thousand to sixteen thousand meters.)

in size and lies at an altitude of eight hundred meters above sea level in a belt of oak and pistachio woodlands.

Excavated by the American archaeologist Robert Braidwood in 1948-55, the site fueled Braidwood’s hypothesis that plant domestication and early farming in the Near East originated in the hilly flanks of northern Iraq's Zagros Mountains.

The original site of Jericho, following an apparent break in occupation, is abandoned after a few centuries for a second settlement, established in 6800 BCE, perhaps by an invading people who absorbed the original inhabitants into their dominant culture, known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B.

Their houses are rectangular and have beaten earth floors.

That the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B is a different group from the Aceramic, or Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, culture is evidenced by significant changes both in the architectural tradition and in the flint tools.

The current culture, which constructs two possible shrines, places, beneath the floors of their houses, plastered skulls with shells replacing the eyes.

Artifacts dating from this period include ten skulls, plastered and painted to reconstitute the individuals' features.

These represent the first example of portraiture in art history, and it is thought that these were kept in people's homes while the bodies were buried.

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.

Food crops such as wheat and maize become standardized in this age.

The domestication of maize is of particular interest to researchers—archaeologists, geneticists, ethnobotanists, geographers, etc.

The process is thought by some to have started twelve thousand to seven thousand five hundred years ago.

Research from the 1950s to 1970s originally focused on the hypothesis that maize domestication occurred in the highlands between Oaxaca and Jalisco, because the oldest archaeological remains of maize known at the time were found there.

Genetic studies led by John Doebley identified Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River valley and known as Balsas teosinte, as being the crop wild relative teosinte genetically most similar to modern maize.

However, archaeobotanical studies published in 2009 now point to the lowlands of the Balsas River valley, where stone milling tools with maize residue have been found in an eighty-seven hundred-year-old layer of deposits.

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.