Revision summary
Near Eastern Neolithic grows from Natufian sedentary harvest. PPNA and PPNB villages add plaster houses, ritual skulls, and herds. Jericho’s tower and Çatalhöyük’s crowded houses are type sites. Founder crops and sheep–goat define the package; pottery comes later. Childe named a revolution; current work stresses a long, mosaic process.
Model answer
Introduction
The Near Eastern Neolithic is the first durable package of cereals, pulses, sheep, goat, and village life. It is a long process, not a single invention day.
Body
From Natufian to Pre-Pottery
- Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian hamlets harvested wild cereals with sickles and stored grain. Sedentism began before full domestication.
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B (PPNA/PPNB) in the Levant and upper Tigris–Euphrates show lime-plaster houses, skull curation, and expanding herds.
- Jericho (Tell es-Sultan), excavated by Kathleen Kenyon, has a PPNA tower and wall. It is a type site of early village defence and ritual, not yet a metal city.
Villages and plants
- Founder crops include einkorn, emmer, barley, lentil, pea, and flax. Sheep and goat follow, then cattle and pig in neighbouring zones.
- Çatalhöyük on the Konya plain, reported by James Mellaart and later Ian Hodder, is a crowded Neolithic town of roof entry, wall painting, and cattle symbolism.
- Other nodes include Abu Hureyra, Ain Ghazal, Jarmo, and Ali Kosh. Irrigation and pottery come in stages; pottery is not the definition of this Neolithic.
Reading the change
- V. Gordon Childe’s oasis and urban-revolution stories set the exam language. Later work stresses climatic pulses after the Younger Dryas and social ritual, not only hunger.
- The Near East is a mosaic of farming cultures, not one tribe that invented agriculture and marched.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD NAT[Natufian harvest] --> PPN[PPNA PPNB villages] PPN --> J[Jericho tower] PPN --> C[Catalhoyuk] PPN --> CR[Cereals pulses sheep goat]
Conclusion
Near Eastern early farming is Natufian sedentism, PPN villages, founder crops, and sites such as Jericho and Çatalhöyük. It is a regional process that later feeds Europe and beyond.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Neolithic Cultures of India
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q5(c)). View answer →
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Did farming begin only at Jericho?
No. Jericho is famous. Many contemporary sites in the Fertile Crescent share the process.
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Is pottery required for the Neolithic?
Not in the Levantine PPN. Villages and domesticates precede widespread ceramics.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
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2025 · Q7(b) · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
What are the major theories proposed in support of the origin of food production? How the change in subsistence economy brought revolution during this period? -
2024 · Q2(b) · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
Describe the evidences of food production and domestication of animals with special reference to Mehrgarh. Throw light on its significance. -
2016 · Q5(c) · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Neolithic Cultures of India
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Q7(b) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
What are the major theories proposed in support of the origin of food production? How the change in subsistence economy brought revolution during this period?
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Childe saw a Neolithic revolution driven by post-glacial crowding around oases. Braidwood placed origins in hilly flanks where wild cereals already grew. Binford and Cohen stressed packing and population pressure on the margins. Bender and Hodder stressed social and symbolic demand. Mehrgarh is the South Asian early-farming example. The revolution is surplus, sedentism, labour and inequality, not automatic better health.
Q2(b) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
Describe the evidences of food production and domestication of animals with special reference to Mehrgarh. Throw light on its significance.
Neolithic
Mehrgarh on the Kachi plain begins as an aceramic farming village around the seventh millennium BCE. Wheat, barley, sickle gloss, grinding stones and storage together demonstrate cultivation. Sheep, goat and cattle management is inferred from morphology, kill profiles and changing abundance. Later phases add pottery, specialised crafts, ornaments and wider exchange. The site shows both western connections and strong local development, especially around zebu cattle. Mehrgarh is a long predecessor to Indus urbanism, not an early Harappan city.
Q5(c) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
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