Editing 7th millennium BC (section)

==Communities==
[[File:7th millennium BC sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Neolithic stone figures, 7th millennium BC]]
===Population===
[[Neolithic]] culture and technology were established in the Near East by 7000 BC and there is increasing evidence through the millennium of its spread or introduction to Europe and the Far East. In most of the world, however, including north and western Europe, people still lived in scattered [[Palaeolithic]] [[hunting-gathering|hunter-gatherer]] communities. The [[Mehrgarh]] [[Chalcolithic]] civilization began around 7000 BC. The [[World population estimates|world population]] is believed to have been stable and slowly increasing. It has been estimated that there were perhaps ten million people worldwide at the end of this millennium, growing to forty million by 5000 BC and 100 million by 1600 BC, an average growth rate of 0.027% p.a. from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.<ref name="JNB">Jean-Noël Biraben, "Essai sur l'évolution du nombre des hommes", ''Population'' 34-1 (1979), pp. 13–25.</ref>

===Europe===
Neolithic culture and technology reached modern Turkey and Greece c. 7000 BC; and Crete about the same time. The innovations, including the introduction of farming, spread from the Middle East through Turkey and Egypt. There is evidence of domesticated sheep or goats, pigs, and cattle, together with grains of cultivated bread wheat.<ref>{{cite book |title=Europe Between the Oceans |author=Barry Cunliffe |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2011 |page=94}}</ref> The domestication of pigs in Eastern Europe is believed to have begun c. 6800 BC. The pigs may have descended from European wild boar or were probably introduced by farmers migrating from the Middle East.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070903204822.htm |title=Ancient Pig DNA Study Sheds New Light on Colonization of Europe By Early Farmers |website=ScienceDaily |date=4 September 2007 |access-date=31 May 2019}}</ref> There is evidence, c. 6200 BC, of farmers from the Middle East reaching the Danube and moving into Romania and Serbia.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/uow-ids020813.php |title=Isotopic data show farming arrived in Europe with migrants |work=EurekAlert! |publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science |date=11 February 2013 |access-date=31 May 2019}}</ref> Farming gradually spread westward and northward over the next four millennia, finally reaching Great Britain and Scandinavia c. 3000 BC to complete the transition of Europe from the [[Mesolithic]] to the Neolithic.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://library.eb.co.uk/levels/adult/article/Neolithic/55271 |title=Neolithic |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica |date=2019 |access-date=6 November 2019}}</ref>

===Near East===
The [[Ubaid period]] (c. 6500–3800 BC) began in [[Mesopotamia]], its name derived from [[Tell al-'Ubaid]] where the first significant excavation took place.<ref>Carter, Robert A. and Philip, Graham  ''[http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc63.html Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Number 63)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131115070526/http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc63.html |date=15 November 2013 }}'' The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (2010) {{ISBN|978-1-885923-66-0}} p. 2; "Radiometric data suggest that the whole Southern Mesopotamian Ubaid period, including Ubaid 0 and 5, is of immense duration, spanning nearly three millennia from about 6500 to 3800 B.C."</ref><ref>Hall, Henry R. and Woolley, C. Leonard. 1927. ''Al-'Ubaid. Ur Excavations 1''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>

By the end of this millennium, [[Jericho]] had become a large agricultural settlement with some eight to ten acres within its walls. [[Kathleen Kenyon]] reckoned that it was home to about three thousand people. Construction was done using stone implements to mould clay into bricks. The main crop was wheat.<ref>Bronowski, p. 70.</ref>

===The Steppe===
“Sheep and goats were domesticated in South West Asia, probably in the region of eastern Anatolia and northern Syria between 8000 and 7500 BC, and were part of the agricultural package that was transmitted to Greece and the Balkans during the pioneering movements in the seventh millennium. From there the herding of domesticated sheep and goats was gradually taken up by foraging communities in the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the sixth and fifth millennia and became an essential part of the herder economy.”

<ref> — By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia by Barry Cunliffe
https://a.co/3dkOTDJ </ref>