Late Neolithic

Pottery Neolithic
	After the initial Pre-Pottery Neolithic phase from northwestern Mesopotamia to Jarmo (red dots, circa 7500 BCE), the Pottery Neolithic culture of Mesopotamia in the 7th–5th millennium BCE was centered around the Hassuna culture in the north, the Halaf culture in the northwest, the Samarra culture in central Mesopotamia and the Ubaid culture in the southeast, which later expanded to encompass the whole region.
Geographical range	Old World
Period	Pottery Neolithic
Dates	c. 6,400–3,500 BCE
Preceded by	Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
Followed by	Bronze Age

Prehistoric Southwest Asia

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↓ Historic ↓

↑ Palaeolithic ↑

Axis scale is years Before Present

In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is sometimes further divided into Pottery Neolithic A (PNA) and Pottery Neolithic B (PNB) phases.^[1]

The Late Neolithic began with the first experiments with pottery, around 7000 BCE, and lasted until the discovery of copper metallurgy and the start of the Chalcolithic around 4500 BCE.

^ Killebrew, Ann E.; Steiner, Margreet; Goring-Morris, A. Nigel; Belfer-Cohen, Anna (2013-11-01). "The Southern Levant (Cisjordan) During the Neolithic Period". The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199212972.013.011. ISBN 9780199212972.

[1] Killebrew, Ann E.; Steiner, Margreet; Goring-Morris, A. Nigel; Belfer-Cohen, Anna (2013-11-01). "The Southern Levant (Cisjordan) During the Neolithic Period". The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199212972.013.011. ISBN 9780199212972.

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