Conclusion
The development of domestic economies was one of humankind's major milestones. Had this not happened, the modern world, for better or worse,
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82 T. Watkins, ‘New light on Neolithic revolution in South-west Asia', Antiquity, 84 (2010), 621-34.
83 Asouti and Fuller, ‘Contextual approach'.
simply would not exist. This phenomenon is best represented by the Near Eastern Neolithic, and considerable insights have been achieved in addressing how and why it occurred. At the same time, the Near Eastern Neolithic has contributed substantially to the broader development of contemporary archaeological theory.
Many scholars of the Neolithic now talk about the domestication not only of plants and animals, but also of the landscape and of people themselves.[465] This tacitly assumes that with the advent of the Neolithic nothing was ‘natural' any more. While not belittling the undisputed success of hunting and gathering for most of humankind's existence, without the security and surplus provided by food production, subsequent cultural achievements, manifest in the development of urban cultures in the Near East and elsewhere, but ultimately culminating in contemporary society, would never have occurred.