Pre-Pottery Neolithic
As preceramic Neolithic ( Preceramic Neolithic ) is called the early Neolithic in various regions of the Middle East, during which it indeed was already beginnings of the Neolithic economy, the pottery, however, still did not matter. The Preceramic Neolithic is (in short: Akeramikum ) also Akeramisches Neolithic ( ceramic lots Neolithic ), called.
One of the key regions include Anatolia, Northern Syria and the Levant, as well as areas in Iran and the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
Structure
The division is made into a preceramic Neolithic A and A preceramic Neolithic B, which is internationally recognized as PPNA and PPNB (abbreviated by the English Pre - Pottery Neolithic ). Only in Palestine there is also a Level C ( PPNC ).
The end of the PPN is brought by some researchers with the Misox variation (also 8.2 kilos year event ) in conjunction, as these climate change has resulted in Anatolia to a transformation of the traditional settlement areas.
Early ceramic world
From the archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, the term " Akeramikum " was coined in the 1950s when she was a basal layer sequence without pottery found during excavations at Tell es-Sultan Jericho ( 1952-58 ). As was the hypothesis of a " Neolithic Revolution " with the abrupt transition to the rural economy at this time, the temporal separation of agriculture ( crops, farming, domestication of animals ) caused introduced as the same time of the hitherto respected pottery stir.
Ceramics - in the sense of pottery - was in other regions of the world known at that time: the oldest pottery in the world come from the Jomon culture of Japan and was created around 13,000 BC. From there, the knowledge of making pottery by hunter-gatherer cultures further spread to Korea and in the Amur region, without that this was accompanied by a Neolithic economy. New discoveries also prove very old (possibly the oldest) ceramic in China. Ceramic is detected around 6000 BC, the Southern Bug in Ukraine, these cultures began by 7000 BC as akeramische Mesolithic cultures.
Also in Sudan and Mali pottery was produced already in semi- sedentary hunter-gatherers and probably invented independent of Asia. In the Nile Delta, there are earliest pottery in the 9th - 8th millennium BC.
In the Near East took place since the 9th millennium BC vessels made of stone, plaster and lime ( vaiselles blanches or white ware ). The so -called white goods consisting of a mixture of limestone and ash. Whether present here an imitation of Asian pottery, is currently unoccupied.