9.1 Introduction

Because of their different circumstances, the various areas in this region developed in different ways. Using present-day country borders, Egypt started to become settled about the same time that the Late Natufians lived in the Levant, around 12,000 years ago (10,000 BC), but the Egyptians had the advantage of the Nile Valley and were able to live adequately off fish and wild cereals. So Egypt was later with agriculture, which spread to it around 6,000 BC from the base left by the Natufians, Khiamians and probably the Karim Shahir tribe in present Iraq and Iranian Kurdistan. It was, however, as advanced with pottery, as there were large well-fired pots in settlements by the Nile around 8,000-7,000 BC, mainly to carry and store water. By 5,000 BC, the Egyptians were glazing the surface of soapstone beads and making faience. Iran (Persia) was using both crude (soft, low-fired) earthenware pottery and primitive agriculture around 8,000 BC. In Afghanistan they had domesticated goats and sheep by 9,000 BC with its earliest pottery about 6,000 BC; perhaps it was later because animal husbandry requires people to be less sedentary than crop management. Goats replaced gazelles as a source of meat as they could be fed a wider variety of food and also provided milk.

Physical and Political maps of Middle East
- source freeworldmaps.net

By 7,000 BC the development of agriculture had become widespread in much of South West Asia, from Anatolia (Turkey) to Pakistan, and was the main source of subsistence for the inhabitants. Villages became farming communities, and technology would be passed on between neighbouring tribes. Domesticated wheat, barley and pulses dominated agriculture in the basins of the major river valleys such as the semi-arid regions around the Euphrates and Tigris. It then spread to areas besides the Nile and onwards to the Indus. Goat and sheep farming was practised from Anatolia to the Persian Gulf, and from Egypt to the Zagros Mountains in Iran. Dogs that had been domesticated from wolves (probably three females) by the Chinese around 15,000 BC were used, making herding much easier (today’s 350 breeds come from this source). Pigs were domesticated by 7,000 BC in South Anatolia.

Tell Brak

By 6,500 BC, it was also common to find pottery figurines and utility pottery in many villages that were often built on the hilly woodlands where the pigs, goats and sheep roamed. Around 6,000 BC cattle joined these animals as major food sources. Most of the dispersed villages were fairly small with perhaps a maximum of a few hundred people. Trading occurred between the villages when some had surpluses that others wanted. A few villages grew to greater significance, perhaps because of their location. Many settlement names are prefixed “Tel or Tell” which is the name for the mound created by the continued renewal of the mud brick houses. After about 80 years or so the houses had deteriorated so much they had to be renewed by levelling and new mud brick houses built on the compacted foundations. Over thousands of years these mounds could become over 20m high, as at Catal Huyuk.