Neolithic architecture is the architecture of the Neolithic period. In Southwest Asia, Neolithic cultures appear soon after 10000 BC, initially in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) and from there spread eastwards and westwards. There are early Neolithic cultures in Southeast Anatolia, Syria and Iraq by 8000 BC, and food-producing societies first appear in southeast Europe by 7000 BC, and Central Europe by c. 5500 BC (of which the earliest cultural complexes include the Starčevo-Koros (Cris), Linearbandkeramic, and Vinča).
With very small exceptions (a few copper hatchets and spear heads in the Great Lakes region), the peoples of the Americas and the Pacific remained at the Neolithic level of technology up until the time of European contact.
The Neolithic peoples in the Levant, Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Central Asia were great builders, utilising mud-brick to construct houses and villages. At Çatalhöyük, houses were plastered and painted with elaborate scenes of humans and animals. In Europe, long houses built from wattle and daub were constructed.
Elaborate tombs for the dead were also built. These tombs are particularly numerous in Ireland, where there are many thousand still in existence. Neolithic people in the British Isles built long barrows and chamber tombs for their dead and causewayed camps, henges flint mines and cursus monuments.
Neolithic settlements include:
- Jericho in the Levant, Neolithic from around 8350 BC, arising from the earlier Epipaleolithic Natufian culture.
- Çatalhöyük in Turkey, 7500 BC
- Mehrgarh in South Asia, 7000 BC
- Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, ca. 9000 BC.
- Nevali Cori in Turkey, ca. 8000 BC.
- Knap of Howar and Skara Brae, the Orkney Islands, Scotland, from 3500 BC.
- around 2000 settlements of Trypillian culture, 5400 BC – 2800 BC
The world’s oldest known engineered roadway, the Sweet Track in England, also dates from this time.
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