ABSTRACT
The first pottery Neolithic appears in the Syrian sites of Ras Shamra and Ramad in the second half of the eighth millennium BCE, and slightly later in the Israeli sites (Kujit and BarYosef, 1994). Mellaart (1975) and others have suggested a phase of depopulation at the end of PPNB because of climatic aridification, although the summary of dates produced by Kujit and Bar-Yosef suggests a clear overlap between PPNB and PPNA, albeit with a smaller number of sites in the latter period. Some of the pottery is decorated with impressions of cockle
Figure 10.1 Stratigraphy of the PPNA-PPNB settlement of Jericho showing potential evidence of a floodcontrol structure
(Cardium) shells (Mellaart, 1975), which was to become a common motif throughout the Mediterranean as the technology spread. By this time, though, most of the elements of agriculture and related technologies are in place in the Levant.
