(PPNB), which includes the entire 8th millennium, from c. 8800 BC to c. 6500 BC; and then Pottery Neolithic (PN), which had varied start-points from c. 6500 BC until the beginnings of the Bronze Age towards the end of the 4th millennium (c. 3000 BC). Agriculture in the Americas It was from c. 8000 BC that agriculture developed throughout the Americas, especially in modern Mexico. There were numerous New World crops, as they are now termed, and domestication began with the potato and the cucurbita (squash) about this time. Other crops began to be harvested over the next 7,500 years including chili peppers, maize, peanut, avocado, beans, cotton, sunflower, cocoa and tomato. Other cultural developments The Mount Sandel Mesolithic site in Ireland is dated to c. 7900–7600 BC. This was long thought to be the earliest human activity on the island, until the discovery of the Alice and Gwendoline Cave pushed the date back to 10,000 BC. The date for construction of a round-house near Howick, Northumberland is calculated c. 7600 BC by radiocarbon dating. The site is believed to have been occupied for about 100 years. The Homo sapiens fossil from Combe-Capelle in southern France, discovered in 1909, is estimated to be 9,500 years old (c. 7500 BC). References Bibliography -92