The advent of agriculture took place in the Near East over 10,000 years, and sparked profound changes in the ways human societies were organized. A new study, published in the journal PloS One by Prof. Cheryl Makarewicz of Kiel University and Prof. Bill Finlayson of the University of Reading, demonstrates that specialized buildings regularly featured in the world’s earliest agricultural villages, and were key to maintaining and enhancing community cohesion. Drawing from new archaeological data recovered during excavations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B settlement of Beidha, nestled within the same mountains as the UNESCO World Heritage site of Petra, the study shows how the very architectural fabric of early farming villages helped shape human interaction during a period when new social stresses associated with farming and animal herding emerged.