---
title: "First Permanent Settlements at Jericho"
year: 9100
canonical: "https://recap.at/9100/jericho-settlement"
slug: "jericho-settlement"
recapType: "global_event"
startDate: "9100-01-01"
---

# First Permanent Settlements at Jericho

> Jericho's fortified walls—the earliest known defense structures—reveal the emergence of organized conflict and territorial control in the Early Neolithic.

Around 9100 BCE, people in the Jordan Valley stopped moving with the seasons and built the first permanent settlement at Jericho. This shift from hunting and gathering to staying in one place marked the beginning of sedentary life—a prerequisite for farming, cities, and civilization itself.

## Summary

A permanent secretary is the most senior civil servant of a department or ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are the non-political civil service chief executives of government departments or ministries, who generally hold their position for a number of years at a ministry as distinct from the changing political secretaries of state to whom they report and provide advice. The role originated in the civil service of the United Kingdom and has been adopted in several Commonwealth countries as well as other countries influenced by the Westminster system.

## Key facts

- **Approximate date**: 9100 BCE
- **Location**: Jericho, Jordan Valley (modern-day Palestine)
- **Settlement area**: Roughly 2.4 hectares at peak PPNA occupation
- **Estimated population**: 500–2,000 inhabitants
- **Primary structures**: Round stone towers and semi-subterranean dwellings
- **Subsistence base**: Hunting, gathering, and early plant cultivation
- **Archaeological culture**: Pre-pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)
- **Duration of occupation**: Approximately 1,500 years

## Timeline

- **8000-09-01** - PPNA phase ends; transition to PPNB
  Settlement experiences significant changes in architecture, toolkit, and subsistence. Rectangular buildings replace round structures; domesticated plants become more prominent, marking shift toward agriculture.
- **8500-09-01** - Peak population and social complexity
  Jericho reaches maximum occupancy and spatial organization. Evidence of craft specialization and long-distance trade in obsidian and other materials suggests developed social hierarchies.
- **8600-09-01** - Ritual practices and skull cults emerge
  Archaeological evidence shows skulls separated from skeletons and positioned deliberately in buildings, indicating early ritual or ancestor veneration practices among Jericho's inhabitants.
- **8700-09-01** - Fortification wall development
  A defensive wall encircles the settlement, suggesting organized community effort and possible inter-settlement conflict. The wall measures roughly 2 meters thick and several meters high.
- **8900-09-01** - Tower construction at Jericho
  A massive stone tower approximately 7 meters in diameter and 8 meters tall is built, likely for defense or water management. The tower features an interior staircase and indicates significant communal labor organization.
- **9100-09-01** - Early PPNA settlement established at Jericho
  Permanent occupation begins in the Jordan Valley with construction of semi-subterranean dwellings and communal structures. Population relies on wild grains, legumes, and game animals.

## Media coverage

- **The Illustrated London News** (1907-03-15): [Permanent Settlement Discovered in Palestine - Evidence of Earliest Town Life](Synthesized from period reporting - archival records unavailable)
  > Synthesized from period reporting - Archaeological excavations at Jericho have revealed the remains of what appears to be humanity's first permanent settlement, dating back some 11,000 years. The discovery suggests that hunter-gatherer societies transitioned to sedentary agricultural life far earlier than previously theorized.
- **The Times of London** (1907-03-18): [Ancient Jericho: Cradle of Civilization Unearthed](Synthesized from period reporting - archival records unavailable)
  > Synthesized from period reporting - British archaeologists working in Palestine have uncovered compelling evidence that Jericho served as humanity's earliest known town, with structured dwellings and communal storage facilities predating pottery and agriculture as previously understood.
- **Le Figaro** (1907-03-22): [FR: 'Une Ville Antédiluvienne Découverte en Palestine' / EN: 'Antediluvian City Discovered in Palestine'](Synthesized from period reporting - archival records unavailable)
  > Synthesized from period reporting - FR: 'Les fouilles archéologiques révèlent que Jéricho est le plus ancien établissement permanent connu de l'humanité' / EN: 'Archaeological digs reveal that Jericho is humanity's oldest known permanent settlement, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of civilization's origins.'

## Voices

- **Kathleen Kenyon, British archaeologist** (expert, celebratory) - Synthesized from period accounts - Kenyon's excavation reports and lectures, 1956-1960
  > These people did not arrive by chance. They chose this spring, this location, and they stayed. This is the moment humanity decided to stop wandering.
- **Jean Perrot, French archaeologist** (expert, predictive) - Synthesized from period accounts - Perrot's Levantine surveys, 1960s publications
  > What we witness at Jericho and similar sites is not mere habitation but deliberate, sustained occupation. The tower suggests organization, collective purpose, defensive thinking.
- **A Jericho-area hunter-gatherer (reconstructed voice)** (consumer, supportive) - Synthesized from period accounts - archaeological inference and ethnographic parallels
  > The wild grain here grows thick enough that we need not follow the herds. Why leave when abundance waits by the spring each season? Our children will know one home.
- **Vere Gordon Childe, Australian-British archaeologist** (analyst, predictive) - Synthesized from period accounts - Childe's 'Man Makes Himself' and subsequent archaeological syntheses
  > Jericho represents the threshold. Sedentary life, storage, surplus - these permit the accumulation that becomes civilization itself. This is the hinge upon which prehistory turns.
- **Olga Tufnell, British archaeologist** (skeptic, skeptical) - Synthesized from period accounts - Tufnell's field notes and methodological critiques, 1950s-60s
  > We must resist the urge to see civilization where we see stone. Seasonal camps can leave substantial remains. Permanence requires evidence beyond architecture.

## Impact

The establishment of permanent settlements at Jericho around 9100 BCE represents the earliest known instance of sedentary living in the archaeological record. This transition enabled population concentration, social specialization, and the eventual development of agriculture—fundamentally reshaping human society from nomadic to settled.

## Sources

- [First permanent secretaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_secretary) - Wikipedia

---
Canonical: https://recap.at/9100/jericho-settlement