Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

Long ago, people lived in new ways.

They built houses with straight walls. They also made floors with white clay.

People kept animals like goats and sheep. They used tools made of flint. They even made art from stone.

Some people made heads from stone too. It was a very busy time for them.

Long ago, people lived in a time called the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B.

This era lasted from about 8,700 to 6,000 BC. People lived in places like the Levant and Mesopotamia. These areas are in the Middle East today.

Life was changing for these people. They began to rely more on farm animals. They kept goats and sheep around 9,000 BC. Later, they kept pigs and cattle too. They also grew grains like barley. To keep food safe, they built granaries. These were special rooms for storing crops. Some granaries had floors that let air move. This kept pests away from the food.

People also built new kinds of homes. Instead of round huts, they made houses with straight walls. They covered their floors with smooth, white clay. They were very good at using fire. This helped them make things like plaster. They also made beautiful art. Some artists carved heads from stone.

They even made plaster art from human skulls. This shows they cared deeply for their families.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, or PPNB, was a very important time in human history.

It happened in the Middle East in places like the Levant and Mesopotamia. This period lasted from about 8,700 BC to 6,000 BC.

Scientists like Kathleen Kenyon helped us learn about this era. She found many things during her work at Jericho in the West Bank. This culture grew from older groups of people called the Natufians. It also likely included people moving in from northeastern Anatolia. These changes helped shape how people lived for a long time.

Life during the PPNB was very different from what came before. People began to depend much more on domesticated animals for food. They started keeping goats and sheep around 9,000 BC. Later, they added pigs around 8,500 BC and cattle around 8,000 BC.

They also grew grains like barley and wild oats. To keep these crops safe, they built special granaries. Some granaries had floors that let air move underneath. This helped protect the food from tiny pests like rodents. These clever storage systems helped people stay in one place.

Building homes also changed during this era. Earlier people lived in round or oval houses. PPNB people started building houses with straight walls instead.

These new homes often had very beautiful floors. They used a thick layer of white clay plaster. They made this plaster from limestone using fire. This skill is called pyrotechnology, which means controlling fire. They polished these floors until they were very smooth. Some experts think these clay floors helped people eventually discover how to make pottery.

Art was also a big part of their lives. People made amazing things out of stone like alabaster or granite.

They used sand to polish these objects until they shone. They even made sculpted heads that looked like real people.

Another special tradition involved human skulls. They covered these skulls in plaster to make them look like portraits. This shows they took great care in honoring their ancestors. They often buried these loved ones right beneath their homes.

We can learn even more about these people through their DNA. Scientists found that PPNB people were a mix of different groups. They had ancestors from the Natufian culture and from Anatolian farmers.

This mix helped create the large communities we see later in history. Their way of life changed how humans used the land. They moved from hunting everything to growing and raising what they needed. This shift was a huge step for everyone living in the region. It laid the groundwork for the many cultures that followed.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, often called the PPNB, was a transformative era in human history.

This culture flourished in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant between approximately 8,700 BC and 6,000 BC. It emerged from the earlier Mesolithic Natufian culture. However, researchers believe it also included people moving from northeastern Anatolia. British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon helped define this period through her excavations at Jericho. The PPNB is significant because it represents a massive shift in how humans interacted with their environment. People moved away from simple hunting toward complex farming and animal management.

One of the most important changes involved the domestication of animals. During the earlier Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, people mostly hunted wild animals and gathered wild grasses. In the PPNB, people began to rely heavily on domesticated livestock. This process happened in stages across Northern Mesopotamia. Goats and sheep were domesticated around 9,000 BCE. Pigs followed around 8,500 BCE. Finally, cattle were domesticated around 8,000 BCE.

This shift provided a much more stable food supply for growing communities.

Food storage also became much more advanced during this period. People cultivated grains like barley and wild oats. To protect these crops, they built sophisticated granaries. These structures often featured suspended floors designed for air circulation. This ventilation helped protect the grain from rodents.

Early on, granaries were often placed between buildings for communal use. Over time, they moved inside houses or into special rooms. This change suggests that ownership was shifting from the whole community to individual households. These storage systems were a key reason why people could live in one place all year.

Architecture and technology underwent a major evolution as well. In earlier periods, dwellings were typically circular, elliptical, or octagonal. During the PPNB, architectural styles became primarily rectilinear, meaning they had straight walls and rectangular shapes. People also mastered pyrotechnology, which is the advanced control of fire. They used fire to produce lime from limestone. This lime was used to create a thick, white clay plaster for floors and walls.

These floors were highly polished to a smooth finish. Many experts believe this use of clay plaster eventually led to the discovery of pottery.

Artistic expression reached new heights during the PPNB. Artisans became experts at crafting containers from stone materials like alabaster or granite. They used sand to shape and polish these objects to a high shine.

Some of the most famous examples include sculpted heads found at Nevalı Çori.

Another unique tradition involved the creation of plastered human skulls. These were reconstructed skulls covered in plaster to serve as portraits. This practice shows that people took great care in burying and honoring their ancestors beneath their homes.

We can understand the movement of these people through modern genetic science. DNA analysis shows that PPNB populations were a diverse mix. They shared ancestry with the Natufians and with farmers from Anatolia. Specifically, studies have modeled these populations as being about 60.5% related to Israel Natufian ancestry. The remaining 39.5% was related to the Barcin Neolithic ancestry from Turkey.

This genetic blending helped create the foundation for many later Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures.

The PPNB era eventually gave way to new ways of life. Around 6,200 BC, a climatic crisis occurred, known as the 8.2 kiloyear event. This caused a sudden drop in global temperatures that lasted for centuries. This event influenced how different groups, like the nomadic pastoralists, moved across the landscape. Despite these environmental shifts, the cultural developments of the PPNB continued to influence the region. The advancements in farming, building, and social organization laid the groundwork for the complex civilizations that followed in the Levant and Mesopotamia.