- transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer life to settled agriculture ~10000 BCE
- domestication of wheat, barley, rice, sheep, goats, cattle
- first permanent settlements: Jericho, Catalhoyuk, Mehrgarh
- enabled population density, surplus storage, division of labor, social hierarchy
- origin of pottery, weaving, grinding tools, irrigation
- precondition for writing (invention), law, trade, and urban civilization
- preceded the Bronze Age by several thousand years
- one of the deepest transitions in the human epoch