` :That lead sentence is terrible. Along with the dating problem you rightly point out, the six independent centers of domestication is unsourced and makes little sense and doesn't really correlate with the archaeological data I have read on this subject, I find it positively misleading! The neolithic revolution happened after the Late Natufian with domestication of emmer wheat, and possibly barley at Tell Aswad, Jericho and Netiv Hagdud at around 8800 to 8000 BCE in the Levantine corridor. This really kicks off the Neolithic Revolution proper (possibly earlier based on evidence from Iraq ed-Dubb). You can't really go forming a sedentary population based on the odd domesticated fig at Olaho II, but it's nice they were learning the skills back then. Graeme Barker is the authority here since Jacques Cauvin passed on, and he documents the neolithic revolution in different areas and he doesn't entirely rule out cultural diffusion, especially in the spread of the revolution into the fertile crescent, Anatolia and up into Europe. I am not saying that other cultures didn't independently domesticate later but I would like to see a source for this six centers theory or strongly suggest that the lead sentence is revised along the lines of something Barker would say, i.e. ``The first clear evidence for activities that can be recognized as farming is commonly identified by scholars as at about 12,000 years ago``. (Barker, Graeme., The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory, p. 1, Oxford University Press, 2009.)  ❉❉ `