By 8500 BC farming societies had established small settlements throughout the Fertile Crescent. One of the earliest sites, occupied before 9500 BC, was at Jericho, lying in an oasis in the Jordan Valley north of the Dead Sea. However, during the so-called Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, about 9300-8500 BC, Jericho was resettled and expanded. The site was at least partially surrounded by a stone wall, nearly two metres broad at its base, with a wide ditch and a massive stone tower over eight metres high. The function of these structures is unclear but they may have served to defend the inhabitants from wild animals and floods. The simple houses inside the wall were round and built of mud-brick.

In the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (about 8500-7000 BC) the number of large settlements increased. Houses at Jericho and elsewhere were now rectangular with plastered floors and walls. There was an increasing use of clay and plaster to make figurines and statues of humans which had ritual significance. This was part of a wider practice of commemorating individuals through the veneration of their plastered skulls. The large size and fragile nature of the figures mean that only a settled community rather than mobile herders and hunters could have used them.