The beginning of the Holocene is characterized by an increasingly warm and wet climate in most of the Near East, during which Neolithic societies developed, potentially as a result of fairly stable and favourable climatic conditions. It has also been argued that the Neolithic had roots in cold and arid conditions of the preceding Younger Dryas. Within the Department of Archaeology, the Central Zagros Archaeological Project and the WF16 project focus on the Early Neolithic period.