Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
Name	Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
Period	Neolithic
Dates	c. 8800–6500 BCE
Region	Levant, Upper Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Jordan Valley
Typesite	Jericho
Preceded by	Natufian, Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
Followed by	Pottery Neolithic, Yarmukian

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B is a major early Neolithic cultural horizon of the Near East that marked advances in sedentism, architecture, agriculture, and ritual. Emerging after the Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A transitions, it spread across the Levant, Upper Mesopotamia, parts of Anatolia, and the Jordan Valley, influencing contemporaneous communities linked to sites such as Jericho, Çatalhöyük, and Aşıklı Höyük. Scholars including Kathleen Kenyon, V. Gordon Childe, and Jacques Cauvin have debated its role in the origins of farming and complex society, while archaeobotanists like Ofer Bar-Yosef and Nigel Goring-Morris have traced its plant and animal domestication trajectories.

Chronology and geographic extent

Radiocarbon chronologies developed by teams around British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, Danish Institute at Athens, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology place the culture broadly between c. 8800 and 6500 BCE, though regional dating by researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Cambridge, and Columbia University refines local sequences. Its geographic extent encompassed sites in the Jordan Rift Valley, the Beqaa Valley, Euphrates River corridors, and the Goban Saigh Plain, with major loci at Jericho, Ain Ghazal, Tell Abu Hureyra, and Ganj Dareh. Interactions with neighboring phenomena such as the Zagros Neolithic, Fertile Crescent communities, and the later Pottery Neolithic cultures are evidenced by lithic exchange networks identified by archaeologists from UCLA and Australian National University.

Settlement and architecture

Settlements ranged from fortified tells like Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) to nucleated villages documented at Ain Ghazal and hillside mounds excavated by James Mellaart at Çatalhöyük. Architectural innovations include rectilinear mudbrick houses, multi-room plans, and subfloor burials noted by Kathleen Kenyon and teams from the British Museum. Public or communal structures, possibly ritual buildings, have been proposed at sites excavated by T. Douglas Price and Y. Garfinkel, while evidence for defensive works and tower constructions stimulated debate among researchers influenced by Graham Connah and Paul Goldberg. Spatial organization studies by Ian Kuijt and Lisa-Marie Shillito emphasize household variability and courtyard-based social spaces.

Economy and subsistence

Subsistence shifted decisively toward cultivation and herding: archaeobotanical analyses by Ofer Bar-Yosef, Dolores Piperno, and Mark Nesbitt document early cultivation of wheat and barley, while zooarchaeologists such as John H. Allen and J. David Clark trace the management and eventual domestication of goats, sheep, and cattle. Sites like Tell Abu Hureyra and Çayönü show seasonal exploitation of wild resources alongside systematic cereal harvesting and storage features identified by field teams from University of Oxford and Hebrew University. Surplus production inferred from storage installations and grinding implements prompted models by Karl Butzer and Ian Hodder linking agricultural intensification to social complexity.

Material culture and technology

Lithic industries in this horizon include finely pressure-flaked arrowheads and lunates studied by A. V. Schmidt and E. Peltenburg, while groundstone assemblages, querns, and sickle gloss from excavations led by John Evans and Franck Hole reflect plant processing technologies. Architectural ceramics are absent, but plaster production—lime plaster floors, modeled skulls, and whitewashing—was technologically sophisticated, documented at Ain Ghazal and Jericho by conservators from British Museum and analysts at University College London. Textile production indicators, bone tools, and personal ornaments found by teams from University of Pennsylvania and Leiden University suggest emergent craft specialization and long-distance exchange with sites in Anatolia and the Zagros Mountains.

Social organization and ritual practices

Burial customs, including secondary interments and plastered skull cult practices at Jericho and Ain Ghazal, have been central to interpretations by Jacques Cauvin and A. M. T. Moore concerning ancestor veneration and communal identity. Evidence for communal rituals, figurine assemblages, and symbolic art has been recovered by excavators from University of Cambridge and Hebrew University, prompting comparative analyses with the iconography of Çatalhöyük, the mortuary practices of the Natufian, and the ceremonial architecture of Göbekli Tepe. Social models proposed by Ian Hodder, A. B. Knapp, and Marcello A. Mannino examine household autonomy, emerging leadership roles, and ritual specialists within early Neolithic polities.

Regional variants and related cultures

Regional variants include the southern Levantine sequences at Jericho and Ain Ghazal, the Euphrates regional expressions at Tell Halula and Tell Sabi Abyad, Anatolian adaptations at Çatalhöyük and Aşıklı Höyük, and Zagros-affiliated assemblages at Ganj Dareh and Asiab Cave. Connections with the Natufian, the later Yarmukian, and the broader Fertile Crescent trajectories are reconstructed through comparative ceramicless phases, lithic typologies, and subsistence data produced by consortia including Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Smithsonian Institution. Ongoing debates engaged by teams from Université de Liège, University of Toronto, and University of Copenhagen address the balance of local innovation versus interregional diffusion during this formative period.

Category:Neolithic cultures of the Near East