8500-6000 BC -expansion in varieties of cereals cultivated, addition of critical new crops -hunting of herd animals still important, esp. gazelle -development of herding sheep and goats -architecture: mudbrick houses, multi-room, rectangular, for extended families -sometimes have hearths, ovens, benches, basins, and storage containers or bins -extremely fine, hard plaster on floors and walls (decorated in south) -similarities of houses across long distances -revolution of symbols -differences in rituals between Levant & SE Anatolia -social function of PPNB rituals = group cohesion -4 structuring principles underlying PPNB rituals and ideology: -communality (public display): integrate communities, conflict resolution -BUT only a few people could fit into ritual buildings—were they in use simultaneously? Used by certain people for specific purposes? -dominant symbolism: use of highly visual, powerful, and evocative symbols (coming to terms with socioeconomic changes?) -vitality: focus on head (artificial deformation of heads, auroch horns) -human-animal linkage (counteraction to domestication?) -skull separation, plastering, and display characterizes Levant -cranial deformation -3 burial styles in MPPNB: -subfloor and courtyard, decapitated -courtyard, skull intact (lower status than decapitated?) -infant -rectangular houses in large settlements sometimes referred to as “megavillages” -non-domestic buildings and stone stelae at Nevalı Çori, Çayönü, and Göbekli Tepe -burgeoning of anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and geometric figurines in middle PPNB -animal and human figurines recovered from almost all PPNB sites -religious shift to bull/masculine god -chipped stone -blades from bipolar cores, stemmed projectile points, sickle blades, burins, borers -ground stone in profusion (slabs, mortars, pestles, beads, pendants) | 