Region

Middle East

Domestication of Cattle: From Wild Aurochs to Farm Herds

The aurochs was domesticated into taurine cattle in the Near East and into zebu cattle in South Asia, creating one of humanity's most important farm animals.

c. 8500 BC · 6 min read

Prehistory

Domestication of Sheep and Goats in the Neolithic Near East

Sheep and goats became the first domestic livestock, giving farmers a reliable supply of meat, milk, hides and later wool.

c. 8500–8000 BC · 6 min read

Prehistory

Nevalı Çori: Neolithic Cult Building on the Euphrates

Excavated in 1983–1991, the site revealed early monumental sculpture and T-shaped pillars before it was submerged by the Atatürk Dam reservoir in 1992.

c. 8400–8100 BC · 4 min read

Prehistory

Tower of Jericho: The Neolithic Walls of an Ancient Town

Neolithic Jericho built a massive stone tower and wall, among the earliest known monumental structures, and later produced plastered human skulls.

c. 8000 BC · 8 min read

Prehistory

Domestication of the Cat: How Wildcats Joined Early Farmers

The Near Eastern wildcat became the domestic cat, which spread with farmers and traders to nearly every part of the world.

c. 7500 BC · 8 min read

Prehistory

Çatalhöyük: Life in a 9,000-Year-Old Neolithic Town

One of the largest and best-preserved Neolithic settlements, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.

c. 7400–6200 BC · 8 min read

Prehistory

Ain Ghazal Statues: Neolithic Plaster Figures from Jordan

Two caches of about 32 plaster statues and busts were found in 1983 and 1985, revealing early large-scale human sculpture.

c. 6500 BC · 6 min read

Prehistory

Spread of Farming into Europe: The Neolithic Expansion

Over roughly 2,500 years farming replaced foraging across most of Europe, largely carried by migrant farmers of Anatolian ancestry who gradually mixed with local hunter-gatherers.

c. 6700-4000 BC · 8 min read

Prehistory

Ubaid Period: Mesopotamia's First Farming Villages and Temples

The first farming society of the southern Mesopotamian plain, whose villages, irrigation and temples laid the foundations for the Uruk period and Sumerian civilisation.

c. 6500-3800 BC · 6 min read