Definition:
The cultural, social and economic transformation from Paleolithic mobile foraging peoples to Neolithic super-communities that became the first large-scale sedentary societies in southwest Asia. The transformation is marked by accelerating cultural and technical innovation, accompanied by large-scale demographic, cultural, social, and economic change. The ENT is seen as an inflection point in the rate of human cultural evolution, leading on to socio-economic and political inequality, urbanism, kingdoms and empires in the following millennia.
