The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent, dating to c. 12,000 – c. 8,500 years ago,. It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic Near East, as the domestication of plants and animals was in its formative stages, having possibly been induced by the Younger Dryas.

Göbekli Tepe is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from c. 9500 to at least 8000 BCE, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It is famous for its large circular structures that contain massive stone pillars – the world's oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period. The 15 m (50 ft) high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell is densely covered with ancient domestic structures and other small buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods.