Gäubodenvolksfest
The Gäubodenvolksfest in Straubing is one of the largest Volksfests in Bavaria. The Gäubodenvolksfest was founded by Maximilian I Joseph, King of Bavaria in the year 1812 as an agricultural festival to organize an annual meeting of the people in the Danube region; the Gäubodenvolksfest is a modern and family-friendly festival with about 120 carousels, roller coasters and seven large beer tents with 26,400 seats in an area of about 100,000 m². The event has maintained the historic character of Bavarian festivals, many of the 1.4 million visitors wear traditional Bavarian clothing. The festival combines Bavarian tradition with vitality, it is one of Bavaria's oldest and most popular festivals and it has increased to one of the biggest events in Germany. Beer plays a central role in the fair; the beer is specially brewed, only breweries from Straubing or the district Straubing-Bogen are allowed to serve beer there. On the first day of the festival there is a "Bierprobe", which means "beer tasting,” and a parade with 2,000 participants in native attire on foot, on horses, or in horse carriages.
On the second day there is the official opening with a representative of the Bavarian or German government. The festival lasts 11 days; the festival is celebrated by the whole city as a "fifth season", many companies are closed down during this time. Combined with the Gäubodenvolksfest is the Ostbayernschau, the biggest trade show of eastern Bavaria. Number of visitors: 1.35 millions Beer: 730,000 litre Breweries: 7 with 26,400 seats Length: 2,500 metres Price of a one-liter mug of beer: €9,15 Olympia Looping – The biggest moveable roller coaster of the world with five loopings – every two or three years Star World – The biggest movable Indoor roller coaster of the world – every two or three years Wilde Maus – a family roller coaster Feuer und Eis – a roller coaster Free fall tower – not every year Chairoplane Bumper car Transformer – a great carousel – not every year Bavarian Big Wheel Whitewater channel Horse riding children and family friendly carousels Revues and shows Bavarian and international food and beverages a parade with Bavarian and international folklore and beer carriages a romantic parade with boats and torches on the Danube a boxing match and other sport events two fireworks displays the beer tents with Bavarian folk music and mood music 2010: 13 to 23 August 2011: 12 to 22 August 2012: 10 to 20 August 2013: 09 to 19 August 2014: 08 to 18 August 2017: 11 to 21 August WeckmannBrewery:, Röhrl Straubing KrönnerBrewery: Irlbacher, Irlbach LechnerBrewery: Irlbacher, Irlbach NothaftBrewery: Karmeliten, Straubing ReisingerBrewery: Arcobräu, Moos WenischBrewery: Erl-Bräu, Geiselhöring GreindlBrewery: Karmeliten, Straubing Official Website of the Gäubodenvolksfest Information in English about Gäubodenvolksfest A lot of pictures about the people, the fun, the beer tents, the nice atmosphere, the ostbayernschau-fair, the rides and so on... gäubodenvolksfest.de Photos Gäubodenvolksfest Lechners Schmankerlzelt Wenisch Reisinger Krönner Ochsenbraterei Beck Nothaft Röhrlbräu
Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Louis IV, called the Bavarian, of the house of Wittelsbach, was King of the Romans from 1314, King of Italy from 1327, Holy Roman Emperor from 1328. Louis IV was Duke of Upper Bavaria from 1294/1301 together with his elder brother Rudolf I, served as Margrave of Brandenburg until 1323, as Count Palatine of the Rhine until 1329, he became Duke of Lower Bavaria in 1340, he obtained the titles Count of Hainaut, Holland and Friesland in 1345 when his wife Margaret inherited them. Louis was born in Munich, the son of Louis II, Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine, Matilda, a daughter of King Rudolph I. Though Louis was educated in Vienna and became co-regent of his brother Rudolf I in Upper Bavaria in 1301 with the support of his Habsburg mother and her brother, King Albert I, he quarrelled with the Habsburgs from 1307 over possessions in Lower Bavaria. A civil war against his brother Rudolf due to new disputes on the partition of their lands was ended in 1313, when peace was made at Munich.
In the same year, on November 9, Louis defeated his Habsburg cousin Frederick the Fair, further aided by duke Leopold I. He was a friend of Frederick, with whom he had been raised. However, armed conflict arose when the guardianship over the young Dukes of Lower Bavaria was entrusted to Frederick though the late Duke Otto III, the former King of Hungary, had chosen Louis. On 9 November 1313, Frederick was defeated by Louis in the Battle of Gammelsdorf and had to renounce the tutelage; this victory caused a stir within the Holy Roman Empire and increased the reputation of the Bavarian Duke. The death of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII in August 1313 necessitated the election of a successor. Henry's son John, King of Bohemia since 1310, was considered by many prince-electors to be too young, by others to be too powerful. One alternative was Frederick the Fair, the son of Henry's predecessor, Albert I, of the House of Habsburg. In reaction, the pro-Luxembourg party among the prince electors settled on Louis as its candidate to prevent Frederick's election.
On 19 October 1314, Archbishop Henry II Cologne chaired an assembly of four electors at Sachsenhausen, south of Frankfurt. Participants were Louis' brother, Rudolph I of the Palatinate, who objected to the election of his younger brother, Duke Rudolph I of Saxe-Wittenberg, Henry of Carinthia, whom the Luxembourgs had deposed as King of Bohemia; these four electors chose Frederick as King. The Luxembourg party did not accept this election and the next day a second election was held. Upon the instigation of Peter of Aspelt, Archbishop of Mainz, five different electors convened at Frankfurt and elected Louis as King; these electors were Archbishop Peter himself, Archbishop Baldwin of Trier and King John of Bohemia - both of the House of Luxembourg - Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg and Duke John II of Saxe-Lauenburg, who contested Rudolph of Wittenberg's claim to the electoral vote. This double election was followed by two coronations: Louis was crowned at Aachen - the customary site of coronations - by Archbishop Peter of Mainz, while the Archbishop of Cologne, who by custom had the right to crown the new king, crowned Frederick at Bonn.
In the following conflict between the kings, Louis recognized in 1316 the independence of Switzerland from the Habsburg dynasty. After several years of bloody war, victory seemed within the grasp of Frederick, supported by his brother Leopold. However, Frederick's army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Mühldorf on 28 September 1322 on the Ampfing Heath, where Frederick and 1300 nobles from Austria and Salzburg were captured. Louis held Frederick captive in Trausnitz Castle for three years, but the determined resistance by Frederick's brother Leopold, the retreat of John of Bohemia from his alliance, the Pope's ban induced Louis to release Frederick in the Treaty of Trausnitz of 13 March 1325. In this agreement, Frederick recognized Louis as legitimate ruler and undertook to return to captivity if he did not succeed in convincing his brothers to submit to Louis; as he did not manage to overcome Leopold's obstinacy, Frederick returned to Munich as a prisoner though the Pope had released him from his oath.
Louis, impressed by such nobility, renewed the old friendship with Frederick, they agreed to rule the Empire jointly. Since the Pope and the electors objected to this agreement, another treaty was signed at Ulm on 7 January 1326, according to which Frederick would administer Germany as King of the Romans, while Louis would be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in Italy. However, after Leopold's death in 1326, Frederick withdrew from the regency of the Empire and returned to rule only Austria, he died on 13 January 1330. Despite Louis' victory, Pope John XXII still refused to ratify his election, in 1324 he excommunicated Louis, but the sanction had less effect than in earlier disputes between emperors and the papacy. After the reconciliation with the Habsburgs in 1326, Louis marched to Italy and was crowned King of Italy in Milan in 1327. In 1323, Louis had sent an army to Italy to protect Milan against the Kingdom of Naples, together with France the strongest ally of the papacy, but now the Lord of Milan Galeazzo I Visconti was deposed since he was suspected of conspiring with the pope.
In January 1328, Louis entered Rome and had himself crowned emperor by the aged senator Sciarra Colonna, called captain of the Roman people. Three months Louis published a decree declaring Pope John XXII deposed on grounds of heresy, he installed a Spiritual Franciscan, Pietro Rainalducci as Nicholas V, but both left Rome in August 1328. In the meanti
Gäuboden
The Gäuboden is a region in Lower Bavaria in southern Germany without any clear geographic or cultural boundaries, that covers an area about 15 kilometres wide south of the River Danube and the Bavarian Forest, beginning opposite Wörth an der Donau and stretching as far as Künzing. The largest town in the region is Straubing, called the centre of the Gäuboden; the Gäuboden is one of the largest loess regions in southern Germany. Franz Krojer: Aufschluss des Gäubodens. Differenz, München 2006. Erwin Rutte: Rhein – Main – Donau. Eine geologische Geschichte. Thobecke, Sigmaringen 1987, ISBN 3-7995-7045-4. Dieter Vogel: Der Gäuboden. Heimatbuch. Kiebitz Buch, Vilsbiburg 1996, ISBN 3-9804048-2-X. Bayerisches Landesamt für Umweltschutz. Ornithologische Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ostbayern: Lebensraum Donautal. Ergebnisse einer ornitho-ökologischen Untersuchung zwischen Straubing und Vilshofen, München, Wien, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1978, ISBN 3-486-22921-4
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Albert I, Duke of Bavaria
Albert I, Duke of Bavaria KG, was a feudal ruler of the counties of Holland and Zeeland in the Low Countries. Additionally, he held a portion of the Bavarian province of Straubing, his Bavarian ducal line's appanage and seat. Albert was born in Munich, the third son of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, by his second wife Margaret II, Countess of Hainaut and Holland. Albert was a younger son, apportioned at best an appanage, he was only 10 years old when his father died, leaving most of his Bavarian inheritance to his eldest half-brother, Louis V, Duke of Bavaria, but some appanages to the younger sons. His elder brother, William V, Count of Holland, had engaged in a long struggle with their mother, obtaining Holland and Zeeland from her in 1354, Hainaut on her death in 1356. William was supported by the party of burghers of the cities, they were opposed in this by the Hook faction, the party of disaffected nobles who were supporters of Empress Margaret. Margaret had resigned her sovereignty in favour of her son William V, but the result was a period of great upheavals and chaos which gave rise to the formation of these two opposing parties.
However, William's insanity resulted in the appointment of the 22-year-old Albert as governor of his brother's territories from 1358 onwards. During Albert's regency, affairs ran smoothly and trade improved. Troubles between the two political parties, the Hoeks and Kabeljauws, remained beneath the surface. William lived for another thirty years. Albert did not formally succeed him until his death in 1388, by which time he had arranged the marriage of his daughters to a number of Imperial princes and other nobles; the eldest daughter to have children was Margaret. In Albert's own reign, troubles erupted between the Hoeks and the Kabeljauws because of a woman. Albert always had mistresses, but this time his attentions were drawn to Aleid van Poelgeest, a member of the Kabeljauw party, she was considered beautiful and was able to gain political influence, resented. A plot was hatched among the Hoeks as well as members of Albert's household. On 22 September 1392 Aleid was murdered in The Hague. In his rage Albert persecuted the Hoeks, by fire, conquering one castle after the other.
His own son and heir, did not feel safe and went to live in Hainault. During his last years, Albert fought the Frisians, they were beaten time and time again, but were never conquered. On Albert's death in 1404, he was succeeded by William. A younger son, John III, became Bishop of Liège. However, on William's death in 1417, a war of succession broke out between John and William's daughter Jacqueline of Hainaut; this would be the last episode of the Hook and Cod wars and would lead to the counties being placed into Burgundian hands. Albert married in Passau after 19 July 1353, Margaret of Brieg from Silesia, had seven children, all of whom lived to adulthood: Katherine of Bavaria, married in Geertruidenberg in 1379 William I of Gelders and Jülich. Johanna of Bavaria, married Wenceslaus, King of the Romans. Margaret of Bavaria, married in Cambrai in 1385 John the Fearless. William VI, Count of Holland, father of Jacqueline of Hainault. Albert II, Duke of Bavaria-Straubing. Joanna Sophia, married on 15 June 1395 Albert IV, Duke of Austria.
John, Count of Holland, Bishop of Liège. He had several illegitimate children. Albert contracted a second marriage in 1394 in Heusden with Margaret of Cleves, sister of Adolph I, Duke of Cleves, but they had no children, he died in The Hague, aged 68. Van Oostrom, F. P.. Court and Culture: Dutch Literature, 1350-1450. Translated by Pomerans, Arnold J. University of California Press. Wavrin, Jean de. Hardy, William, ed. Recueil Des Chroniques Et Anchiennes Istories de la Grant Bretaigne, A Present Nomme Engleterre: From 1422-1431. Vol.3. Cambridge University Press. Counts of Hainaut family tree
Duchy of Bavaria
The Duchy of Bavaria was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was ruled by dukes under Frankish overlordship. A new duchy was created from this area during the decline of the Carolingian Empire in the late ninth century, it became one of the stem duchies of the East Frankish realm which evolved as the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. During internal struggles of the ruling Ottonian dynasty, the Bavarian territory was diminished by the separation of the newly established Duchy of Carinthia in 976. Between 1070 and 1180 the Holy Roman Emperors were again opposed by Bavaria by the ducal House of Welf. In the final conflict between the Welf and Hohenstaufen dynasties, Duke Henry the Lion was banned and deprived of his Bavarian and Saxon fiefs by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick passed Bavaria over to the House of Wittelsbach, which held it until 1918; the Bavarian dukes were raised to prince-electors during the Thirty Years' War in 1623.
The medieval Bavarian stem duchy covered present-day Southeastern Germany and most parts of Austria along the Danube river, up to the Hungarian border which ran along the Leitha tributary in the east. It included the Altbayern regions of the modern state of Bavaria, with the lands of the Nordgau march, but without its Swabian and Franconian regions; the separation of the Duchy of Carinthia in 976 entailed the loss of large East Alpine territories covering the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria as well as the adjacent Carniolan region in today's Slovenia. The eastern March of Austria —roughly corresponding to the present state of Lower Austria— was elevated to a duchy in its own right by 1156. Over the centuries, several further seceded territories in the territory of the former stem duchy, such as the County of Tyrol or the Archbishopric of Salzburg, gained Imperial immediacy. From 1500, a number of these Imperial states were members of the Bavarian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire.
The origins of the older Bavarian duchy can be traced to the year 551/555. In his Getica, the chronicler Jordanes writes: "That area of the Swabians has the Bavarii in the east, the Franks in the west..." Until the end of the first duchy, all rulers descended from the family of the Agilolfings. The Bavarians colonized the area from the March of the Nordgau along the Naab river up to the Enns in the east and southward across the Brenner Pass to the Upper Adige in present-day South Tyrol; the first documented duke was Garibald I, a scion of the Frankish Agilolfings, who ruled from 555 onward as a independent Merovingian vassal. On the eastern border, changes occurred with the departure of the West Germanic Lombard tribes from the Pannonian basin to northern Italy in 568 and the succession of the Avars, as well as with the settlement of West Slavic Czechs on the adjacent territory beyond the Bohemian Forest at about the same time. At around 743, the Bavarian duke Odilo vassalised the Slavic princes of Carantania, who had asked him for protection against the invading Avars.
The residence of the independent Agilolfing dukes was Regensburg, the former Roman Castra Regina, on the Danube river. During Christianization, Bishop Corbinian laid the foundations for the Diocese of Freising before 724. In the adjacent Alamannic lands west of the Lech river, Augsburg was a bishop's seat; when Boniface established the Diocese of Passau in 739, he could build on local Early Christian traditions. In the south, Saint Rupert had founded in 696 the Diocese of Salzburg after he had baptized Duke Theodo of Bavaria at his court in Regensburg, becoming the "Apostle of Bavaria". In 798 Pope Leo III created the Bavarian ecclesiastical province with Salzburg as metropolitan seat and Regensburg, Freising and Säben as suffragan dioceses. With the rise of the Frankish Empire under the Carolingian dynasty, the autonomy of the Bavarian dukes under the Merovingians was terminated: In 716 the Carolingians had incorporated the Franconian lands in the north held by the Dukes of Thuringia, whereby the bishops of Würzburg gained a dominant position.
In the west, the Carolingian mayor of the palace Carloman had suppressed the last Alamannic revolt at the 746 Blood court at Cannstatt. The last tribal stem duchy to be incorporated was Bavaria in 788, after Duke Tassilo III had tried in vain to maintain his independence through an alliance with the Lombards; the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by Charlemagne entailed the fall of Tassilo, deposed in 788. Bavaria was administrated by Frankish prefects. In his 817 Ordinatio Imperii, Charlemagne's son and successor Emperor Louis the Pious tried to maintain the unity of the Carolingian Empire: while imperial authority upon his death was to pass to his eldest son Lothair I, the younger brothers were to receive subordinate realms. From 825 Louis the German styled himself "King of Bavaria" in the territory, to become the centre of his power; when the brothers divided the Empire by the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Bavaria became part of East Francia under King Louis the German, who upon his death bequested the Bavarian royal title to his eldest son Carloman in 876.
Carloman's natural son Arnulf of Carinthia, raised in the former Carantanian lands, secured possession of the March of Carinthia upon his father's death in 880 and became King of East
Neolithic
The Neolithic, the final division of the Stone Age, began about 12,000 years ago when the first development of farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East, in other parts of the world. The division lasted until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic from about 6,500 years ago, marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age. In Northern Europe, the Neolithic lasted until about 1700 BC, while in China it extended until 1200 BC. Other parts of the world remained broadly in the Neolithic stage of development, although this term may not be used, until European contact; the Neolithic comprises a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops and of domesticated animals. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, "new" and λίθος líthos, "stone" meaning "New Stone Age"; the term was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. Following the ASPRO chronology, the Neolithic started in around 10,200 BC in the Levant, arising from the Natufian culture, when pioneering use of wild cereals evolved into early farming.
The Natufian period or "proto-Neolithic" lasted from 12,500 to 9,500 BC, is taken to overlap with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of 10,200–8800 BC. As the Natufians had become dependent on wild cereals in their diet, a sedentary way of life had begun among them, the climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas are thought to have forced people to develop farming. By 10,200–8800 BC farming communities had arisen in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa and North Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat and spelt, the keeping of dogs and goats. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, the use of pottery. Not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order: the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery.
In other parts of the world, such as Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, independent domestication events led to their own regionally distinctive Neolithic cultures, which arose independently of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC. Early development occurred from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC; the prehistoric Beifudi site near Yixian in Hebei Province, contains relics of a culture contemporaneous with the Cishan and Xinglongwa cultures of about 6000–5000 BC, neolithic cultures east of the Taihang Mountains, filling in an archaeological gap between the two Northern Chinese cultures. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the collection of neolithic findings at the site encompasses two phases.
The Neolithic 1 period began around 10,000 BC in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe, dated to around 9500 BC, may be regarded as the beginning of the period; this site was developed by nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes, as evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity, may be the oldest known human-made place of worship. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals and birds. Stone tools were used by as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, West Bank, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, Byblos, Lebanon; the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming. In the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, early seed selection and re-seeding occurred; the grain was ground into flour. Emmer wheat was domesticated, animals were herded and domesticated.
In 2006, remains of figs were discovered in a house in Jericho dated to 9400 BC. The figs are of a mutant variety that cannot be pollinated by insects, therefore the trees can only reproduce from cuttings; this evidence suggests that figs were the first cultivated crop and mark the invention of the technology of farming. This occurred centuries before the first cultivation of grains. Settlements became more permanent, with circular houses, much like those of the Natufians, with single rooms. However, these houses were for the first time made of mudbrick; the settlement had a surrounding stone wall and a stone tower. The wall served as protection from nearby groups, as protection from floods, or to keep animals penned; some of the enclosures suggest grain and meat storage. The Neolithic 2 began around 8800 BC according to the ASPRO chronology in the Levant; as with the PPNA dates, there are two versions from the same laboratories noted above. This system of terminology, however, is not convenient for southeast Anatolia and settlements of the middle Anatolia basin.
A settlement of 3,000 inhabitants was found in th
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