Mesopotamia

The Mesolithic (Greek: mesos "middle," lithos "stone") is an archaeological concept used to refer to specific groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.

The term developed as a catchall to refer to material that did not fit into the other categories of prehistory and after the development of radiocarbon dating the arbitrary nature of its definition has become apparent.

The term was first used to refer to post-Holocene but pre-agricultural material in northwest Europe about 10,000 to 5000 BCE but is also applied to material from the Levant (about 20,000 to 9500 BCE); in Japan, the Jomon period (about 14,000 to 400 BCE) is sometimes called Mesolithic and it is also applied to some cultures from the Indian subcontinent.

The term "Epipaleolithic," often used for areas outside northern Europe, was also the preferred synonym used by French archaeologists until the 1960s.

The Upper Paleolithic (also spelled Upper Palaeolithic) is the final subdivision of the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), as defined in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Broadly dating between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, this period coincides with the emergence of behavioral modernity and predates the development of agriculture.

The terms "Late Stone Age" and "Upper Paleolithic" refer to the same time period. However, due to historical conventions, "Stone Age" is more commonly used in reference to Africa, while "Upper Paleolithic" is typically applied to Europe.

Unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species (Homo sapiens sapiens) reaches the Neolithic, a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 10,200 cal. BCE according to the ASPRO chronology in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world.

The term Neolithic, which derives from the Greek eolithikos, from neos, “new," and lithos, "stone," literally meaning "New Stone Age," was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system.

Traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age, the Neolithic follows the terminal Holocene Epipaleolithic period, beginning with the rise of farming, which produces the "Neolithic Revolution," and ending when metal tools become widespread in the Copper Age (chalcolithic) or Bronze Age or developing directly into the Iron Age, depending on the geographical region.

The Neolithic is a measured progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops and the use of domesticated animals.

New findings put the beginning of a culture tentatively called Neolithic back to around 10,700 to 9400 BCE in Tell Qaramel in northern Syria, twenty-five kilometers north of Aleppo.

Until those findings are adopted within the archaeological community, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant (Jericho, modern-day West Bank) about 10,200-8800 cal. BCE.

It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming.

Farming communities arose by 10,200-8800 cal. BCE in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa and North Mesopotamia.

Early Neolithic farming is limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which includes einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep and goats.

The Natufian period was between 12,000-10,200 cal. BCE and the so called "proto-neolithic" is now included in the PPNA between 10,200-8800 cal. BCE.

As the Natufians had become dependent on wild cereals in their diet, and a sedentary way of life had begun among them, the climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas are thought to have forced people to develop farming.

The early Neolithic human occupation of Mesopotamia is, like the previous Epipaleolithic period, confined to the foothill zones of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains and the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period (10,000–8700 BCE) sees the introduction of agriculture.

The Natufian culture in Upper Mesopotamia, contemporaneous with the Zarzian in the Zagros, is attested over a much wider region and is characterized by open-air sites that are semi-permanently occupied.

In the Zagros, this period has been excavated at Zawi Chemi, Shanidar, and M'lefaat.

In the area of the Syrian Upper Euphrates, villages of Natufian hunter-gatherers that were occupied since the eleventh millennium BCE have been excavated at Abu Hureyra and Mureybet.

One such village, established about 9000 in southeastern Anatolia on the Turkish-Iranian border, consists of houses made from mud and reeds, with conical roofs and circular stone bases.

It is the first known example of a permanent settlement.

Copper was known to some of the oldest civilizations on record, and has a history of use that is at least 10,000 years old.

Some estimates of copper's discovery place this event around 9000 BCE in the Middle East.

A copper pendant found in what is now northern Iraq dates to 8700 BCE.

The Neolithic way of life is first achieved in Mesopotamia (the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present Iraq) and in what are today Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.

The sheep, derived mainly from the Asian Mouflon, is domesticated in the Middle East.

Farming settlements appear in southern Mesopotamia.

Cultivation of wheat, barley, peas, and olives had begun in the ninth millennium BCE, along with domestication of sheep, goats, and pigs.

By this time, most animals that are amenable to domestication, such as cattle and poultry, have already been tamed.

Obsidian, like all glass and some other types of naturally occurring rocks, breaks with a characteristic conchoidal fracture.

A naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock, Stone Age cultures value it because, like flint, it can be fractured to produce sharp blades or arrowheads, or polished to create early mirrors.

Obsidian is widely traded in the Mediterranean and Near East in the eighth millennium BCE.

Bladed tools found in southwest Iran, dating from around 8000 BCE, are made from obsidian that had been transported from Anatolia.

Agriculture begins to be practiced along a crescent-shaped swath from Mesopotamia to Egypt as the ice sheet shrinks to its nearly current size and the climate stabilizes to form the rhythms and patterns familiar to us.

Comprising the lower Tigris and Euphrates valleys, Syria, Palestine, and the Nile Valley of Egypt, the Fertile Crescent is very fertile indeed, much more so than today.

To the west, much of northern Africa's vast Sahara Desert, bone-dry in historic times, is semi-arid, even wet.

Rivers flow in Arabia, forests carpet the Levant, and lakes, swamps, and marshes dot the Southwest Asian plains.

Fish, fowl, and game are abundant; the virgin soils rich and deep.

Population densities are lower in the Sahara than along the Nile, where some sedentary communities exploited fish and wild plant foods intensively after 8000, coincident with the beginning of agriculture and animal domestication in the Near East. (Anthropologists continue to debate whether food production was introduced into the Nile Valley, or resulted from indigenous developments.)

Wild barley and emmer, a forerunner of wheat, are the bases from which cereal crops began to be domesticated.

Goats and pigs were domesticated in about 8000, and the domestic cat may have originated around the same time, when nomadic humans settle into village life.

The cat (Felis catus), also known as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from other felines and felids, may have originated about 8000 BCE, when nomadic humans settle into village life.

A 2007 study published in the journal Science asserts that all house cats are descended from a group of self-domesticating desert wildcats, Felis silvestris lybica, circa ten thousand years ago, in the Near East.

The advances of the Neolithic Revolution continue to spread throughout the planet.

The cultivation of emmer wheat reaches Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE, and Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE, by which time highly organized social structures have formed.

Among the many such, notable examples include the Samarra culture in Mesopotamia, the Linear pottery culture in Central Europe, and various cultures in China: the Yangshao, the Hemudu, the Majiabang, the Daxi.

The Near and Middle East (6,093 – 4,366 BCE): Middle Holocene — Hearths of Cultivation and the First Webs of Exchange

Geographic & Environmental Context

During the Middle Holocene, the Near and Middle East—stretching from the Nile Valley and Aegean coasts across Mesopotamia, Iran, and Arabia to the Persian Gulf and Caucasus foothills—stood as the primary heartland of the global Neolithic.
This vast zone combined riverine alluvia, fertile uplands, oasis basins, and seasonal monsoon margins, all benefiting from the climatic stability of the Hypsithermal Optimum.

• In the Middle East proper, the Tigris–Euphrates plains, the Zagros foothills, and the Caucasus formed a continuous belt of early farming, herding, and craft innovation.

• The Near Eastern sphere—the Nile Delta, Red Sea highlands, and Aegean–Anatolian littoral—blended floodplain and coastal economies tied to the first maritime exploration.

• Along the southern frontier, Southeast Arabia and Yemen’s uplands linked oasis horticulture, early pastoralism, and maritime gathering in one adaptive system.

This region was, in essence, the ecological and technological axis of the Middle Holocene world: the meeting ground of the river, the steppe, and the sea.

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Climate & Environmental Shifts

The epoch coincided with the Hypsithermal climatic maximum, when temperatures and rainfall across Southwest Asia were higher and more consistent than at any time before or since.

• The Nile experienced regular, strong floods, nourishing fertile alluvium from Nubia to the Delta.

• The Tigris–Euphrates lowlands oscillated between flood and marsh, while the Zagros and Caucasus enjoyed dense woodland and ample springs.

• Arabia’s southern and eastern uplands received reliable monsoon rains, creating “green corridors” across Dhofar, Hadhramaut, and Oman.

• Western Anatolia and the Aegean coasts prospered under mild, humid conditions ideal for cereals and olives.

This convergence of warmth, moisture, and sediment productivity underwrote a massive expansion of farming frontiers and the first sustained population growth in the Old World.

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Subsistence & Settlement

By this period, fully developed Neolithic lifeways had spread across nearly every subregion:

• In Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, villages cultivated wheat, barley, pulses, and flax, while herding sheep, goats, and cattle. Canals and ditches appeared in Khuzestan and the Lower Tigris–Euphrates, marking the birth of irrigation agriculture.

• The Zagros and Iranian plateaus supported terraced gardens and orchards near permanent springs, with transhumant herding along mountain flanks.

• In the Caucasus foothills, mixed farming–herding hamlets developed into the precursors of the Shulaveri–Shomu and Kura–Araxes horizons.

• Across the Nile floodplain, grain cultivation and cattle management became staples; oasis gardening flourished in the Fayum and Western Desert depressions.

• In the Aegean and Anatolian coasts, farmers combined fields, orchards, and fishing, creating hybrid economies of land and sea.

• In Southeast Arabia, proto-horticultural villages in Dhofar and Hadhramaut tended millets, tubers, and fruit trees, while coastal groups practiced net fishing and shell gathering.

The overall pattern was one of ecological specialization and integration—communities adapted their subsistence to every available niche, from marsh reedbeds to desert wadis.

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Technology & Material Culture

This epoch marked the technological threshold of the Chalcolithic:

• Pottery reached universal adoption, with distinct regional styles—painted, burnished, or impressed—signifying cultural networks.

• Mudbrick and plaster construction, lime floors, and storage granaries appeared in major settlements.

• Sickle blades, loom weights, spindle whorls, and grinding stones defined the domestic economy.

• Copper ornaments and small tools emerged in the Zagros, Caucasus, and Anatolia, heralding early metallurgy.

• In Southeast Arabia, the first terrace-bund systems and stone alignments prefigured later oasis agriculture.

• Weirs, fish traps, and early sails on the Nile and Gulf coasts hint at growing control of water and wind power.

Together these innovations formed a technological constellation—the first integrated toolkit of sedentary civilization.

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Movement & Interaction Corridors

The Middle Holocene Near and Middle East was bound by interlocking networks of exchange:

• The Zagros–Khuzestan–Lower Mesopotamia route linked grain, livestock, and metal between mountain and plain.

• The Kura–Araxes corridor connected the Caucasus to northern Iran and Anatolia, transmitting both obsidian and copper.

• The Euphrates and Nile served as inland highways, carrying goods and ideas between villages, oases, and early towns.

• Aegean coastal cabotage moved obsidian, shell, and pigment across western Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Levant.

• Red Sea and Arabian Sea navigation—still short-range—linked Yemen and Dhofar to coastal Oman and the Horn of Africa.

These corridors laid the foundations for the world’s earliest long-distance trade system, one that would, within millennia, stretch from the Indus to the Mediterranean.

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Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Religious and symbolic life deepened around ancestry, fertility, and the household shrine.

• Across the Fertile Crescent, clay figurines—often female—represented fertility and domestic prosperity.

• House shrines and ritual pits served as loci of ancestor veneration and community feasting.

• In the Aegean, cape sanctuaries and communal burials expressed a growing sense of shared identity.

• Rock art in Dhofar and the Iranian highlands depicted hunters, ibex, and herders, blending daily life with mythic imagery.

• Feasting rituals—often at house compounds or communal courtyards—symbolized renewal and alliance.

The sacred was both intimate and practical: it infused agriculture, herding, and domestic space rather than standing apart from them.

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Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Across these varied landscapes, societies perfected adaptive strategies for climatic and environmental variability:

• Irrigation canals and flood management in Mesopotamia stabilized crop yields.

• Pastoral mobility in the Zagros and Arabian fringes allowed herders to exploit shifting rainfall zones.

• Oasis horticulture in Arabia and Egypt buffered against drought.

• Storage systems and inter-village exchange distributed risk and secured food during lean years.

• Arboriculture and mixed farming ensured ecological sustainability, preserving soil fertility and hydrological balance.

Resilience was achieved through diversity—agriculture, herding, and trade worked in symbiosis, forming an enduring environmental equilibrium.

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Long-Term Significance

By 4,366 BCE, the Near and Middle East had fully matured into a network of interconnected Neolithic civilizations.
The seeds of urbanism, metallurgy, and written administration were already germinating in Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley; the oasis and terrace cultures of Arabia and the Aegean coastal communities would soon join the same orbit.
This epoch cemented the region’s role as the world’s first agricultural and cultural nexus—where field, flock, and faith combined to generate sustained human complexity.

In these centuries, the land between the Nile, the Tigris, and the Indus became the blueprint for civilization itself:
rivers as lifelines, mountains as corridors, and the sea as a bridge rather than a boundary.