This site is designed to hold my recent research into  the origins of agriculture in the Levant, together with its subsequent spread into Europe and Egypt. It forms part of a larger project looking at the origins and development of agriculture in Egypt.

The site aggregates information that is has been published, in often fragmentary form, as a series of books and papers.  Although it is a complete work as it stands, I view it very much as a work in progress. There is much more that I need to do to it to refine it, and some areas and subjects are dealt with in less detail than others, which needs to be remedied in later versions.  In addition, new information is published on a fairly frequent basis, and this will be incorporated as it becomes available. All changes are listed in the version control table at the bottom of this page.

As with my Egypt-focused sites, this website retains the numbering as it appeared in the original document, which  enables me to keep the document and the site at the same version level without difficulty.  However, although it certainly makes life easier for me, it does look slightly strange on a web page.

Images will be added later.

Any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact me (Andie Byrnes) - I am always on the lookout for feedback:
a.byrnes@ucl.ac.uk

Kind regards
Andie
 

My other websites are as follows:
Predynastic Egypt
Prehistoric and Predynastic Faiyum
Egyptology News
Predynastic Photo Gallery
Egyptology Portal

Version Control:

Version Date Details v.2.1.1 3rd September 2005 My apologies to Dr Bonogofsky for my failure to provide a citation for her work on Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic skulls, and my thanks to her for pointing this out. The citation has now been corrected both in paragraph 5.4.7 (Burials and Religion) on the PPNB page, and in the Bibliography.  V2.1.1 21st August 2005 Chalcolithic section updated v.2.1 29th May 2005 Dates for all periods standardized by reference to a single text (Rosen 1997) - thanks to John Brooke for pointing out that this needed doing! Revision of menu structure for Earlier Neolithic and Appendices pages Some of the dodgy paragraph numbering fixed! v.2.0 28th May 2005 Chalcolithic section added Additional details re Yarmoukian, Jericho IX and Wadi Rabah phases added Bibliography updated v.1.3.1 10th May 2005 Whole site re-edited for spelling errors and typos. v.1.3 24th April 2005 Additional notes re the Natufian Updates to Bibliography v.1.2 21st April 2005 Bibliography added (one or two references still to be added) v. 1.1 29th March 2005 Additional references Geology section added v. 1.0 3rd March 2005 First complete version, distributed for comment Draft 0.2 26th February 2005 Second Draft – Edited version of first draft Draft 0.1 7th February 2005 First Draft – shelved pending edit-review

Copyright (text and images) Andie Byrnes 2005, unless otherwise stated