Editing Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (section)

==Crop cultivation and granaries==
{{further|Origins of agriculture in West Asia}}
[[File:Centres of origin and spread of agriculture.svg|thumb|upright=2.0|Map of the world showing approximate centers of the [[Neolithic Revolution]] and the spread of agriculture in prehistory: the [[Fertile Crescent]] ({{c.|11,000}} BP), the Yangtze and Yellow River basins ({{c.|9,000|lk=no}} BP), the New Guinea Highlands ({{c.|9,000|6,000|lk=no}} BP), Central Mexico ({{c.|5,000|4,000|lk=no}} BP), Northern South America ({{c.|5,000|4,000|lk=no}} BP), sub-Saharan Africa ({{c.|5,000|4,000|lk=no}} BP, exact location unknown), eastern North America ({{c.|4,000|3,000|lk=no}} BP).<ref name="DiamondandBellwood2003">{{Cite journal |last1=Diamond |first1=J. |last2=Bellwood |first2=P. |year=2003 |title=Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions |journal=Science |volume=300 |issue=5619 |pages=597–603 |bibcode=2003Sci...300..597D |citeseerx=10.1.1.1013.4523 |doi=10.1126/science.1078208 |pmid=12714734 |s2cid=13350469}}</ref>]]
[[Sedentism]] of this time allowed for the [[Horticulture|cultivation]] of local grains, such as [[barley]] and [[Avena|wild oats]], and for storage in [[Granary|granaries]]. Sites such as [[Dhra′]] and [[Jericho]] retained a hunting lifestyle until the PPNB period, but granaries allowed for year-round occupation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Qu |first1=Yating |last2=Zhu |first2=Junxiao |last3=Yang |first3=Han |last4=Zhou |first4=Longlong |date=2023-05-17 |title=Food, cooking and potteries in the Neolithic Mijiaya site, Guanzhong area, North China, revealed by multidisciplinary approach |journal=Heritage Science |language=en |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=107 |doi=10.1186/s40494-023-00950-3 |issn=2050-7445 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

This period of cultivation is considered "pre-[[domestication]]", but may have begun to develop plant species into the domesticated forms they are today. Deliberate, extended-period storage was made possible by the use of "suspended floors for air circulation and protection from rodents". This practice "precedes the emergence of domestication and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years".<ref name="PNAS09">{{Cite journal |last1=Kuijt |first1=I. |last2=Finlayson |first2=B. |date=Jun 2009 |title=Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=106 |issue=27 |pages=10966–10970 |bibcode=2009PNAS..10610966K |doi=10.1073/pnas.0812764106 |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=2700141 |pmid=19549877 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Granaries are positioned in places between other buildings early on {{c.|11,500}} BP, however, beginning around 10,500 BP, they were moved inside houses, and by 9,500 BP, storage occurred in special rooms.<ref name="PNAS09" /> This change might reflect changing systems of ownership and property as granaries shifted from communal use and ownership to become under the control of households or individuals.<ref name="PNAS09" />

It has been observed of these granaries that their "sophisticated storage systems with subfloor ventilation are a precocious development that precedes the emergence of almost all of the other elements of the Near Eastern Neolithic package—domestication, large scale sedentary communities, and the entrenchment of some degree of social differentiation". Moreover, "building granaries may [...] have been the most important feature in increasing sedentism that required active community participation in new life-ways".<ref name="PNAS09" />