8000 B.C.

The 8th millennium BC spanned the years 8000 BC to 7001 BC

Neolithic culture and technology had become widespread in the Near East by 8000 BC. It was gradually spreading westward but is not believed to have reached Europe, still Palaeolithic, until about the end of this millennium. Planting and harvesting techniques were transferred through Asia Minor and across the Aegean Sea to Greece and the Balkans. The techniques were, in the main, cultivation of wheats and barleys; and domestication of sheep, goats and cattle.^[1]

Though the Neolithic was now established throughout much of the Fertile Crescent, most people around the world still lived in scattered hunter-gatherer communities which remained firmly in the Palaeolithic. The world population was probably stable and slowly increasing. It has been estimated that there were some five million people c. 10,000 BC growing to forty million by 5000 BC and 100 million by 1600 BC. That is an average growth rate of 0.027% p.a. from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.^[2]

Fertile Crescent

By c. 7500 BC (see map above right), important sites in or near the Fertile Crescent included Jericho (Tell es-Sultan), 'Ain Ghazal, Huleh, Tell Aswad, Tell Abu Hureyra, Tell Qaramel, Tell Mureibit, Jerf el Ahmar, Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori, Hacilar, Çatalhöyük, Hallan Çemi Tepesi, Çayönü Tepesi, Shanidar, Jarmo, Zrebar, Ganj Dareh and Ali Kosh. Jericho in the Jordan Valley continued to be the world's most significant site through this millennium.^[3]

Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia which flourished from c. 7500 BC until it was abandoned c. 5700 BC.^[4] See image above right.

Pottery

Pottery found in the Near East at this time is classified as Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) until c. 6500 BC. The Natufian culture co-existed with PPNB. The potter's wheel had not yet been invented and pottery was still hand-built, often by means of coiling, and pit fired