Neolithic and Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic) Periods in Armenia
Gregory E. Areshian University of California at Los Angeles Cotsen Institute of Archaeology DownloadAfter the melting of ice sheets of the earth's last glacial age about 12,000 years ago, the rise of human civilization began in southwestern Asia. Along the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean, i.e. in the Levant, and in the foothills of the southern slopes of the Eastern Taurus Mountains along the northern edge of Mesopotamia (modern southeastern Turkey), bands of hunters-gatherers built their first permanent settlements in areas especially rich in wild plants and game. Within a millennium or so they started experimenting with the domestication of plants and wild animals during the period conventionally known as the I ew Stone Age, or the Neolithic.
