The Birth of Civilisation - The First Farmers (20000 BC to 8800 BC)

General sources: Chris Scarre (2018) The Human Past. Fourth Edition. Klaus Schmidt (2012) Gobekli Tepe: A Stone Age Sanctuary in South-Eastern Anatolia. Marc Van De Mieroop (2016) A History of the Ancient Near East. Third Edition. Amanda H. Podany (2014) The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction. Video References: Stefan Milo (2019) How bad was the Younger Dryas? Causes-Megafauna-Civilisation. References: Gautney and Holliday (2015) New estimations of habitable land area and human population size at the last glacial maximum. Journal of Archaeological Science. Watkins (2010) New Light on Neolithic Revolution in south-west Asia. Antiquity. Revedin et al. (2010) Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. PNAS. Spivak and Nadel (2016) The use of stone at Ohalo II, a 23,000 year old site in the Jordan Valley, Israel. Journal of Lithic Studies. Groman-Yaroslavski et al. (2016) Composite Sickles and Cereal Harvesting Methods at 23,000-Years-Old Ohalo II, Israel. PLOS ONE. Snir et al. (2015) The Origin of Cultivation and Proto-Weeds, Long Before Neolithic Farming. PLOS ONE. Maher et al. (2012) Twenty Thousand-Year-Old Huts at a Hunter-Gatherer Settlement in Eastern Jordan. PLOS ONE. Ramsey et al. (2018) Risk, Reliability and Resilience: Phytolith Evidence for Alternative ‘Neolithization’ Pathways at Kharaneh IV in the Azraq Basin, Jordan. PLOS ONE. Maher et al. (2015) Occupying wide open spaces? Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer activities in the Eastern Levant. Quaternary International. Grosman et al. (2016) Nahal Ein Gev II, a Late Natufian Community at the Sea of Galilee. PLOS ONE. Liu et al. (2018) Fermented beverage and food storage in 13,000 y-old stone mortars at Raqefet Cave, Israel: Investigating Natufian ritual feasting. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Richter et al. (2017) High Resolution AMS Dates from Shubayqa 1, northeast Jordan Reveal Complex Origins of Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant. Scientific Reports. Arranz-Otaegui (2018) Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan. PNAS. Eitam et al. (2015) Experimental Barley Flour Production in 12,500-Year-Old Rock-Cut Mortars in Southwestern Asia. PLOS ONE. Grosman et al. (2008) A 12,000-year-old Shaman burial from the southern Levant (Israel). PNAS. Dubreuil et al. (2019) Evidence of ritual breakage of a ground stone tool at the Late Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit cave (12,000 years ago). PLOS ONE. Olszewski (2012) The Zarzian in the Context of the Epipaleolithic Middle East. International Journal of the Humanities. Rosen and Rivera-Collazo (2012) Climate change, adaptive cycles, and the persistence of foraging economies during the late Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Levant. PNAS. Lorenzo Nigro (2014) The Archaeology of Collapse and Resilience: Tell es-Sultan/Ancient Jericho as a case study. ROSAPAT 11. Dietrich et al. (2012) The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Gobekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey. Antiquity. Dietrich et al. (2017) Feasting, Social Complexity, and the Emergence of the Early Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia. In book: Feast, Famine or Fight?: Multiple Pathways to Social Complexity. Dietrich et al. (2019) Cereal Processing at Early Neolithic Gobekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey. PLOS ONE.

Those ancient villagers didn't realize that if they would just collect 500 food and 200 gold they could level up to the Castle age at their town center then have Knights to fight with.

It really puts your life in perspective when you think about how many generations of people have come before.

The three videos in this series just might be the best videos on YouTube.

The tower certainly could be defensive. Defensive towers are common inside settlements and walls too, a fallback point, to protect a powerful person, to protect supplies, or all three. An ancient keep as such. I know it's a more modern thing but if you can build a tower it's not a huge jump to see it can be used defensively from the inside of the wall.

Thanks for the video. I am so fed up with YouTube suggesting all these conspiracy history videos; ancient aliens, hidden history, unbelievable ancient technology. And the videos have millions of views and worst part the viewers believe them to be facts. Saddens me, but I'm glad to have your videos

Imagine how rich and old our culture is, evolving for thousands and thousands of years before recorded history. The amount of information on our ancestors we'll never know is simply unfair. Civilizations, cultures and histories remaining unknown for all time.... all that's left are pieces and gravel.

This may sound wierd, but anyone else fantasizes about living on the time period talked about in the video? A feeling that modern society has become too complex, stressful and overcomplicated and you'd just wanna move into simpler times where all the things were still undiscovered.

Very well researched. Easy to listen to and very informative. A lot of work went into providing this, W.

Fascinating. I really like the way the presenter is not bound to any narrative, but freely states if something is unknown. The sign of a real historian.

A pretty major correction at 1:02, I was supposed to say 300,000 years ago. This is what it said in my script, for some stupid reason I read out 30,000 and never noticed whilst making the video. Also two minor corrections: 1. Where I say '"Global temperatures were on average lower by 20 degrees C", a more accurate version is temperatures were lower by 20 degrees in some places, not on average. My sources got this right, I just misread it. 2. its El Wad cave not "El Wadi" as I said in the video. I didn't notice this until now despite hearing it back about 20 times.

I can’t thank you enough for having proper ENG subtitle. Now I can watch and understand each word slowly and effectively 😊

One of the things I’m really interested about is pre-early history and it sucks because there’s so little known about it but this is a great video

Histocrat - uploads. Me - yes.

I find the period between 11,000BCE - 1,500BCE exceptionally fascinating. Your video really could take the place of an introductory course it’s that good.

Gebekli Tepe is such a stark contrast to everything else shown in this video. Shockingly different, actually.

I love these documentaries and your narrations are great to listen to, while resting,housee work,hiking,etc

Other scientists: I don't know what purpose this thing serves. Archaeologists: R I T U A L P U R P O S E S

I wish time travel was real. It would be so interesting to go back in a time and see all these ancient prehistoric places when they were new and thriving with our ancestors.

This channel and the Fall of Civilizations channels are great those of us interested in anthropology. Thanks!