The 13th millennium BC spanned the years 13,000 BC to 12,001 BC (c. 15 ka to c. 14 ka). This millennium is during the Upper Paleolithic period. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened during this millennium, and all dates associated with this millennium are estimates mostly based on geological analysis, anthropological analysis, and radiometric dating.

Geology

Animals

In France, the first incisor from a red deer is dated to the 13-12th millennium BC.^[1] In Levantine Natufian sites, dogs occur as early as this millennium.^[2]

Environmental changes

More than a century ago, it first became clear how much of the Magdalenian and Azilian underwent change in Western Europe.^[3] Since that time, these mutations succeeding one another between the 14th and 12th millennium BC, particularly during the Lateglacial warming, were often seen as a real revolution, frequently described through the filter of myths of catastrophes which then inspired and at times still influences prehistoric research.^[3]

Human culture

Humans

It is known that obsidian mining in Asia Minor was well underway by this millennium.^[4] Obsidian was a resource that hunter-gatherers may have traded during this millennium.^[4]

Technology and agriculture

The frequency of occurrence of fundamental tool groups such as end-scrapers, burins, truncated pieces, backed pieces, perforators, and combination tools in Moravian inventory is most closely matched and is dated to the late 13th - early 11th millennium BC.^[5] From the 17th to the 9th millennium BC, no surface pressure flaking technology is known to have existed in Europe.^[6] Computer simulations demonstrate that "proto" agriculture might have started far earlier than the Fertile Crescent's conventional "beginning" of agriculture, which is supposed to have occurred around the time of the 13th millennium BC's last glacial maximum (LGM) or the beginning of the 9th millennium BC.^[7] This "proto-agriculture" phases may have begun (perhaps separately) across Eurasia and Africa at various locations.^[7]

Other cultural developments

Jebel Sahaba, a prehistoric battle site, dates to the 17-12th millennium BC.^[8] Round corrals have been discovered in archaeological settings dating back to this millennium.^[9] Boncuklu and Pınarbaşı sites stretch back to this millennium.^[10]