Write short notes Neolithic 'jericho'
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Jericho, Arabic Arīḥā, town located in the West Bank. Jericho is one of the earliest continuous settlements in the world, dating perhaps from about 9000 BCE. Archaeological excavations have demonstrated Jericho’s lengthy history. The city’s site is of great archaeological importance; it provides evidence of the first development of permanent settlements and thus of the first steps toward civilization.
Traces have been found of visits of Mesolithic hunters, carbon-dated to about 9000 BCE, and of a long period of settlement by their descendants. By about 8000 BCE the inhabitants had grown into an organized community capable of building a massive stone wall around the settlement, strengthened at one point at least by a massive stone tower. The size of this settlement justifies the use of the term town and suggests a population of some 2,000–3,000 persons. Thus, this 1,000 years had seen movement from a hunting way of life to full settlement. The development of agriculture can be inferred from this, and grains of cultivated types of wheat and barley have been found. Jericho is thus one of the places providing evidence of very early agriculture. It is highly probable that, to provide enough land for cultivation, irrigation had been invented. This first Neolithic culture of Palestine was a purely indigenous development.
These occupants were succeeded about 7000 BCE by a second group, bringing a culture that was still Neolithic and still not manufacturing pottery, though it was not indigenous. This occupation probably indicates the arrival of newcomers from one of the other centres, possibly in northern Syria, in which the Neolithic way of life based on agriculture had developed. This second Neolithic stage ended about 6000 BCE.
For the next 1,000 years there is little evidence of occupation at Jericho. Only about 5000 BCE did Jericho show the influences of developments that had been taking place in the north, where an ever-increasing number of villages had appeared, still Neolithic but marked by the use of pottery. The first pottery users of Jericho were, however, primitive compared with their predecessors on the site, living in simple huts sunk in the ground. They were probably mainly pastoralists. Over the next 2,000 years, occupation was sparse and possibly intermittent.