Editing 10th millennium BC (section)

==Beginnings of agriculture==
[[Agriculture]] developed in different parts of the world at different times. In many places, people learned how to cultivate without outside help; elsewhere, as in western Europe, the skills were imported.{{sfn|Roberts|1993|p=22}} A decrease in human height accompanied the rise of agriculture near the start of the Holocene period (10,000 BC) and was later correlated with urban population density.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Özer |first1=Başak Koca |last2=Sağır |first2=Mehmet |last3=Özer |first3=İsmail |title=Secular changes in the height of the inhabitants of Anatolia (Turkey) from the 10th millennium B.C. to the 20th century A.D. |journal=Economics & Human Biology |date=March 2011 |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=211–219 |doi=10.1016/j.ehb.2010.12.003 |pmid=21316315 }}</ref>

The [[Natufian culture]] prevailed in the [[Levant]] through the 10th millennium and was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. An early example is [['Ain Mallaha]], which may have been the first village in which people were wholly sedentary.{{sfn|Mithen|2003|p=29}} The Natufian people are believed to have founded another early settlement on the site of [[Tell es-Sultan|Jericho (Tell es-Sultan)]] where there is evidence of building between 9600 BC and 8200 BC.{{sfn|Freedman|Myers|Beck|2000|pp=689–691}} Dates for the Natufian are indeterminate and range broadly from c. 13,050 BC to c. 7550 BC.{{sfn|Edwards|2012|p=21}}{{sfn|García-Puchol|Salazar-García|2017|p=16}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grosman |first1=Leore |last2=Munro |first2=Natalie |last3=Belfer-Cohen |first3=Anna |date=2008-12-01 |title=A 12,000-year-old Shaman Burial from the Southern Levant (Israel) |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=105 |issue=46 |pages=17665–9 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0806030105 |pmid=18981412 |pmc=2584673|bibcode=2008PNAS..10517665G |doi-access=free }}</ref> It is possible that the early cultivation of [[Ficus|fig]]s began in the [[Jordan River]] valley sometime after the middle of the 10th millennium.<ref>{{harvnb|Kislev|Hartmann|Bar-Yosef|2006a}}; {{harvnb|Kislev|Hartmann|Bar-Yosef|2006b}}; {{harvnb|Lev-Yadun|Ne'Eman|Abbo|Flaishman|2006}}.</ref> Besides the fig trees, the people may have begun cultivation of wild plants such as barley and pistachio; and they possibly began herding goats, pigs and cattle.{{sfn|Roberts|1993|p=23}}<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/first-buildings-may-have-been-community-centers |title=First Buildings May Have Been Community Centers |author=Balter, Michael |journal=Science |date=2 May 2011 |access-date=20 December 2018 |archive-date=12 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151112021720/http://news.sciencemag.org/2011/05/first-buildings-may-have-been-community-centers |url-status=live }}</ref>

Agriculture began to be developed by the various communities of the [[Fertile Crescent]], which included the Levant, but it would not be widely practised for another 2,000 years by which time Neolithic culture was becoming well established in many parts of the Near East.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/worlds-first-farmers-were-surprisingly-diverse |title=The world's first farmers were surprisingly diverse |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |author=Gibbons, Ann |date=14 July 2016 |access-date=20 December 2018 |archive-date=30 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180630035230/http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/worlds-first-farmers-were-surprisingly-diverse |url-status=live }}</ref> Among the earliest cultivated plants were forms of [[millet]] and [[rice]] grown in the Middle East, possibly in this millennium but more likely after 9000 BC.{{sfn|Roberts|1993|p=22}} By about 9500 BC, people in south-eastern Anatolia were harvesting wild grasses and grains.{{sfn|Roberts|1993|p=23}} The earliest evidence of sheep herding has been found in northern Iraq, dated before 9000 BC.{{sfn|Roberts|1993|p=23}}