Near East Kingdoms

Qaraoun Culture (Mesolithic) (Levant)
c.18,000 - 3000 BC

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The term 'Fertile Crescent' refers to a geographical area in the Near East which arcs between the Jordan Valley of the Levant and the Euphrates and Tigris estuary. It also reaches up into southern and central Anatolia (modern Turkey), which is part of the northern Syrian zone in which true farming first seems to have occurred. It was in this Fertile Crescent that the distant effects of the most recent ice age faded perhaps the quickest, which allowed Neolithic Farmer processes to be undertaken in small but significant steps.

Starting with late Epi-Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, the move towards full-farming went through several cultures which witnessed ever-improving steps being taken towards the creation of civilisation. Early wheat types had grain which was contained in spikelets with tightly adhering glumes, but this had to be domesticated in stages before wheat could be made fully productive.

Almost outside of this progression, the Qaraoun culture is largely undated. Evidence for it has been discovered around the site of the Canaanite city of Sarepta (now in Lebanon), but even the dates given here are only broad generalisations (as with the similarly uncertain Shepherd Neolithic of the same general region). In overall concept, the Levant's Palaeolithic slipped into the Neolithic without experiencing a widespread Mesolithic period. The Qaraoun is an exception to that general rule.

The culture was highly localised in a small area, in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. It was only recognised as an identifiably separate culture by Henri Fleisch after he had collected over a hundred flint tools in just a couple of hours during an inspection on 2 September 1954. He and collaborators Alfred Rust and Dorothy Garrod were able to confirm Neolithic elements in this culture, but realised that it was more of a proto-Neolithic expression of progression than actually being part of the Neolithic.

As such it is labelled 'Mesolithic' (as confirmed by this page's navigation bar, above), even though its potential start date places it well inside the Palaeolithic (which, confusingly, is where its link sits in the 'Early Cultures' index).

At its emergence around - possibly - 18,000 BC the wider region was just emerging from the Palaeolithic Baradostian culture to begin the Kebaran in the west and the Zarzian in the east. By its end the former had been supplanted by the entirety of the Levantine Neolithic and the Zarzian had itself long given way to farming from the west.

Archaeological finds are constantly being made, and archaeological cultures are frequently being updated with new information. Get in touch here if this page also requires updating.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, Peter Bellwood (Second Ed, Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), from Inventory of Stone-Age sites in Lebanon, Lorraine Copeland & P Wescombe (Imprimerie Catholique, 1965), from Nouvelles stations préhistoriques au Liban, Henri Fleisch (Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française, Vol 51, pp 564-565, 1954), and from External Links: Archaeobotany: Plant Domestication, Chris Stevens & Leilani Lucas (Reference Module in Social Sciences, 2023, available via Science Direct).)

c.18,000 BC

The Mesolithic Qaraoun culture of the Levant may first emerge around this time, although dating remains uncertain. This is the point at which the Palaeolithic Baradostian culture is giving way to the Kebaran in the west and the Zarzian in the east.

Lake Qaraoun (otherwise known as Lake Litani) provided a home to the culture of the same name, with the lake being located upstream of Qaraoun village in Lebanon's Beqaa valley

c.12,500 BC

The Levant's Epi-Palaeolithic Kebaran culture is now succeeded by the proto-Neolithic Farmer Natufian culture. Early period mortuary customs are varied, but inhumation dominates, whether individual (the primary form) or collective (sometimes with several inhumations taking place at the same time).

c.9700 BC

The transition to agricultural and plant/animal domestication in the Fertile Crescent takes a significant step forwards. The glacial climate cooling of the Younger Dryas from about 10,800 BC now begins to fade. Now the early Holocene sees a transition to a warmer, wetter, and arguably more stable climate between this point and about 7500 BC (and see feature link).

As the Younger Dryas comes to an end and the climate warms up, the Levant's pre-Neolithic Farmer Natufian culture fades in favour of a great progression towards full-farming in the form of the Khiamian culture.

The Nahal Ein Gev II stone face was produced by people of the Natufian culture as part of a regionally-dominant trend which continued into the Natufian's successor culture, although strong localised variations did emerge

c.9500 BC

By the time the Levant's brief Khiamian prelude eases into the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) proper, the early farming population in the Fertile Crescent is booming. Overpopulation sees many groups migrating outwards, with the Early Aceramic Neolithic about to start on Cyprus.

c.9300 BC

Around now a PPNA sub-phase appears in the form of the Mureybetian. This culture appears on the west bank of the Euphrates (in today's Raqqa governorate of northern Syria), on a settlement mound or tell.

c.9200 BC

Early constitutive elements of emerging early farming soon merge to create sedentary communities which are increasingly reliant upon domesticated plants and animals. Around this point in time Pre-Pottery Neolithic B 'farming villages' first appear in the Euphrates valley. They rapidly spread in use throughout the Near East.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) lasted in the Levant until the middle of the sixth millennium BC, but the lack of pottery certainly did not prevent rapid advances in early farming techniques and the creation of settled town life, as shown by this sample PPN house at Beidha

c.8700 BC

Although it emerges as a successor to the Zarzian culture, the M'lefaatian industry is generally counted as being a descended form of the PPNA, brought in by Neolithic Farmer migrants from the west despite the PPNA already having changed in the Levant.

c.8000 BC

By this date the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B's Sultanian sub-phase is first appearing at Jericho, and the PPNB itself finally enters the Negev Desert to replace the Harifian. An organised community has become capable of building a massive stone wall around the Jericho settlement, which is strengthened at one point before this date by the addition of massive stone towers (although these may even predate the wall).

Stone tools from the briefly-occupied site of Gesher in the central Jordan valley, approximately one kilometre away from the PPNB site of Munhata, although the Gesher site has sometimes been interpreted (inaccurately according to a 1989 report - see sources) as being part of the long-expired Khiamian

In the same approximate period PPNA-founded settlements in Anatolia exist from at least this date, and perhaps earlier given their PPNA origins. Both are major settlements - at Aşıklı Höyük in the later Cappadocia and Boncuklu on the Konya plain, directly north of the Taurus Mountains (and of Cyprus).

Both exhibit the transition from PPNA circular houses to PPNB rectangular ones, but neither exhibits traces of farming. Instead they seem to be pastoralist societies on the edge of the Fertile Crescent's farming belt, just like early societies of the M'lefaatian at the eastern end of the belt. Boncuklu's population may even continue a bit of hunter-gathering on the side to supplement their diet.

As the same time as pastoralism and early farming are being adopted, the religious constructions of Göbekli Tepe are deliberately being buried. Possibly the temple is no longer required.

The site of Göbekli Tepe proves that hunter-gatherers were capable of complex art and organised religion, with the carving of a boar, and ducks flying into nets, seemingly celebrating the chase, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, before their way of life went out of style with the onset of the farming craze

The site is theorised to be a celebration of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, something with which the large majority of farming PPNB folk have little connection (see feature link). Instead figures of females, so-called 'Mother Goddess' types, now become widespread.

c.7600 BC

With the tools of the PPNB now heavily infiltrating the South Caucasus, the localised PPNA-influenced culture of the Trialetian fades out, presumably in favour of others in the broader region such as the Chokh and Imereti. Perhaps only coincidentally, the PPNA-influenced M'lefaatian also fades out now, in favour of the PPNB.

c.7500 - 7000 BC

Neolithic Farmers now enter a phase of fully-domesticated cultivation, by which time non-shattering grains account for eighty percent or more of total archaeological remains, with other, wild plant foods retreating into minor status. At this point the Sultanian PPNB sub-phase fades out in favour of full PPNB adoption.

Phases 3A and 3B of the Mureybet type site date to 9300-8600 BC and represent the Mureybetian culture, a sub-phase of the PPNA which saw architecture diversify, with rectangular, multi-cellular buildings appearing next to the older round buildings of the Khiamian culture

Many of those other wild plant foods are later to be domesticated alongside developing urbanisation, especially in terms of Fertile Crescent foods such as figs, olives, dates, and grapes. Crop-based agricultural communities may already have appeared in the foothills of the Zagros mountains as part of the former M'lefaatian Industry.

c.7200 BC

The famous site of Çatalhöyük is founded around now (and Fikirtepe is not far behind it). Food production is certainly a mainstay of the economy here.

In its classic phase the settlement is constructed as an almost solid network of conjoined single-storey rectangular rooms which are entered from above via ladders. Roofs are probably used for activities (the site is abandoned around 5900 BC, at the start of the Pottery Neolithic).

Excavations at the Fikirtepe cultural settlement of Pendik (now within the eastern boundaries of Istanbul) have revealed that the settlement's ancient residents placed mussel shells below their houses to provide permeability, while burials were in the foetal position

c.6500 BC

The Fertile Crescent's farming population is experiencing its second great boom at this time (the first being around 8500 BC around the end of the Zarzian and the beginning of the M'lefaatian in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains).

Anatolia is a hotspot of migration into Neolithic Farmer Europe, with the Sesklo culture already having formed in Greece and the Cardial Pottery and Karanovo cultures already in the process of being formed by further migrant bodies.

The Fikirtepe culture in western Anatolia is likely also a product of this migratory stream, just as the Faiyum A is a product of further migration into the Nile region.

PPNB farming also reaches Mehrgarh on the edge of the Indus plains, where in time it will inform the rise of the Indus Valley civilisation there. By this time the use of fired earthenware pottery has begun, and this leaves distinct archaeological traces for future generations to examine, not only within PPNB settlements but in the early outward-migrant communities too.

This map shows the general area of the Fertile Crescent from where - especially along its northern edges - the origins of agricultural farming emerged between about 10,000-6000 BC (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Settlement sizes in the Levant reach as much as sixteen hectares in ground space, leaving no doubt that these are occupied by food-producing populations. Mud bricks are commonly used to replace the old round houses of the Natufian and PPNA with rectangular dwellings which are sub-divided into rooms for specific purposes.

However, there are also indications of environmental decline in the southern Levant, fuelled by a combination of intense human activity, a climatic trend which tends to veer towards aridity (highly notably so in the case of the European Rakushechny Yar culture and its contemporaries), and by continuously-rising sea levels (which will not balance out until about 5000 BC).

Many PPNB sites gradually shrink or are eventually abandoned by the start of the succeeding Pottery Neolithic period, but with no great calamity to signal a dramatic ending. They simply fade and change or are finally abandoned after some attempts at clinging on prove pointless. Migration to Europe would certainly be one way out of this situation.

Pottery and ceramics at the Habonim North site include light-coloured ware with coarse temper, the knob handle from a storage jar, and the painted rim of a hole-mouth jar, all of which has been linked to Yarmukian and Lodian sites based on style and form

c.6400 BC

Perhaps as a result of the PPNB's various disruptions and decline, localised successors of the PPNB begin to appear in sites around the Levant as a prelude to the adoption of the full-blown Pottery Neolithic period. The Yarmukian culture is one of the first sites to use pottery in what will become ancient Syria. The Lodian and Nizzanim also follow this progression.

c.6200 BC

The earliest layers of occupation for the city of Damascus date to between 6000-5000 BC. This is while the region's earliest nomadic pastoralists are extending southwards towards the Red Sea, at the tail end of the PPNB. Such early layers of occupation may not be permanent at first, but they soon become so.

This is the location of a sampled burned patch in the Habonim North settlement which contained wood charcoal and a mud-brick fragment, having been submerged by the rising Mediterranean waters in the sixth millennium BC

However, the late PPNB is continuing its agricultural and economic decline, especially in the southern Levant. Towns also decline and pastoralism appears to flourish (especially with sheep and goats). Black clay pottery has come into common use, which is also to be found in PPNB migrant cultures in Africa, Europe, and adjacent regions of Asia.

The '8.2 kiloyear event' is a recognised climatic cooling event which persists for two hundred years and, when it relents, provides a climatic bounce-back which triggers the start of the Pottery Neolithic.

These stone 'sinkers' were most likely used to weigh down fishing nets which were found by archaeologists at the 'Habonim North' martime site off northern Israel's coast, with the village being on dry land before 5000 BC

c.6000 BC

The Pottery Neolithic culture succeeds the PPNB in the Levant and its broader Near East locations. It also absorbs several 'pocket' pre-Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in the form of the Lodian, Nizzanim, and Yarmukian.

With large, and sometimes huge, communal Near East Neolithic Farmer settlements having become the norm during the later PPNB, rectangular buildings and their more adaptable internal partitioning had also become highly popular. This switch from circular to rectangular is commonplace around the world wherever hunter-gatherers become sedentary, but the Fertile Crescent provides the earliest examples.

From about 6000 BC, very large multi-roomed buildings become common where they are constructed around courtyards. This is especially the case on the plains of northern Mesopotamia, and in the earliest stages of civilisation in Sumer (during the Hassuna and Samarra cultures), Egypt (as part of the ongoing Faiyum A), and the Indus Valley.

Abu Salem is the oldest-known site (by 2023) in the Negev Desert to have early Neolithic affinities, as seen during the Epi-Palaeolithic (or proto-Neolithic) Harifian and also during the subsequent Pre-Pottery Neolithic

c.5200 BC

The Pottery Neolithic of the Fertile Crescent most firmly arrives in the Nile region, with the recent Faiyum culture there having been the local expression of early Neolithic practises from the Near East. That has recently been replaced by the introduction of full-blown farming as part of the Faiyam Neolithic. At about the same time the Wadi Rabah Pottery Neolithic B culture emerges in the Levant.

c.5000 BC

A re-inhabited Jericho of the Wadi Rabah culture begins to display a degree of influence from developments which have been taking place in the north. There, in Syria, an ever-increasing number of villages have already appeared. These are still Neolithic but are now marked by the use of pottery.

Jericho's first pottery users live relatively primitive lives compared to those of the first two waves of settlement (the PPN phases). They occupy simple huts which are sunk into the ground, probably being pastoralists for the most part. Occupation remains sparse and possibly intermittent for the next two millennia, possibly also with these pastoralists using the site on a seasonal basis.

During the third millennium BC Jericho was gradually expanded and enriched with improved building work and stone walls

c.4500 BC

The discovery of copper metallurgy has developed into an industry which can be used as part of everyday life. This now heralds the start of a regional Chalcolithic or 'Copper Age'. The Wadi Rabah culture in the Levant and, especially, around Jericho, soon transitions into the Ghassulian as part of this transition.

c.4000 BC

Both Arad and Sidon are founded as permanent settlements, although on somewhat different scales. This is at the same time as a structure of concentric stone circles known as Rujm al-Hiri is built as an astrological temple or observatory, or perhaps a burial complex.

Jacob Kaplan in the late 1950s recognised the Wadi Rabah culture as a distinct cultural entity of the southern Levant, and suggested possible interconnections to the northern Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt