What is "aceramic"

a. {{context|archaeology|of a culture, period(,) or site|lang=en}} having no pottery (or no ceramic remains)

Aceramic is defined as "not producing pottery". In archaeology, the term used means "without pottery". Aceramic societies mostly used bark, basketry, gourds, leather, etc. for containers. It is sometimes used to refer to a specific early Neolithic period before a culture develops ceramics, such as the Middle Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, in which case it is a synonym of preceramic (or pre-pottery). "Aceramic" is also used to describe a culture at any time prior to its development of pottery, and cultures which lack pottery altogether. A preceramic period is traditionally regarded as occurring in the early stage of the Neolithic period of a culture, however recent findings in Japan and China have pushed the origin of ceramic technology there well back into the Paleolithic era.

The Aceramic Neolithic period began roughly around 8500 BC, and can be identified with over a half a dozen sites. The period was most prominent in Western Asia in an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of animals or both. Aceramic Neolithic groups are more rare outside Western Asia. Aceramic Neolithic villages had many attributes of agricultural communities: large settlement size, substantial architecture, long settlement duration, intensive harvesting of seeds with sickles, equipment and facilities for storing and grinding seeds, and containers. Morphological evidence for domestication of plants comes only from Middle PPNB, and by Late PPNB some animals, notably goats, were domesticated or at least managed in most of the sites.