Aceramic Neolithic

The early part of the Neolithic period in Western Asia before the widespread use of pottery (c. 8500-6000 BC) in an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of animals or both. Aceramic Neolithic groups were in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B), Zagros area (Karim Shahir, Jarmoan), and Anatolia (Hacilar Aceramic Neolithic). Aceramic Neolithic groups are more rare outside Western Asia.

Term applied to groups demonstrating evidence of a Neolithic economy — that is, an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of stock or both — but without the use of pottery (which was regarded by an earlier generation of archaeologists as a defining characteristic of the Neolithic). Aceramic Neolithic groups were widespread in Western Asia during the early stages of the development of farming, being found in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B), the Zagros area (e.g. Karim Shahir and Jarmoan), in Anatolia (Hacilar Aceramic Neolithic) and probably in other areas also. Outside Western Asia, Aceramic Neolithic groups are rarer; in Europe, for instance, an Aceramic Neolithic phase has been identified only in Greece, where it appears to have been short-lived.

Early part of the Neolithic period in western Asia before the widespread use of pottery (c. 8500-6000 bc in an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of animals or both. Aceramic Neolithic groups were in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B), Zagros area (Karim Shahir, Jarmoan), and Anatolia (Hacilar Aceramic Neolithic). Aceramic Neolithic groups are rarer outside western Asia.