structural:expansion, structural:summarization, structural:reformatting, quality:correction, quality:corruption
Lifestyle

Much of what is understood about Neolithic life comes from individual settlements with particularly preserved archaeological records, such as Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia. Çatalhöyük was settled for a particularly long period of time, from around 7100 BC to 6000 BC, and provides a snapshot of a changing era. Residents of Çatalhöyük lived in shared houses with non-relatives, drawing their closest connections to "practical kin" rather than "official kin"; they seem to have been divided into two sub-communities going by different dental patterns in their skeletal remains, and were possibly patrilocal, with men staying in the community of their birth and women moving away. Nonetheless, Çatalhöyük is not in all ways representative of Neolithic communities; most such communities demonstrated poor nutrition and stunted growth, but the people of Çatalhöyük appeared to have adequate nutrition and indeed were able to support substantial population growth.

From these preserved settlements, archaeologists try to extract religious practices in day-to-day Neolithic life. In 'Ain Ghazal, "mundane archaeological remains" coincide with striking findings such as caches of skulls, ceremonially buried statues, and hundreds of clay figurines. Many of these figurines seem to have been fertility and birth charms; birth during the Neolithic was "the most dangerous time of a woman's life", and spiritual protection against maternal death of the utmost importance. Other figurines seem to have been used as pseudo-sacrifices, ritually 'killed' and buried around human habitations. Clay figurines broadly have been found in many Neolithic communities, and the individual communities that made them are extrapolated based on their features. Sites in North China, for instance, find a paucity of figurines of humans compared to those of animals, while their southern peers made more human figurines and particularly sexually explicit ones. It is often unclear exactly what role such figurines held to the societies that made them; in addition to religious objects, they may have held more mundane functions such as toys, or even been both at once.

The theological practices of people in early state societies with written records, somewhat later than the Neolithic, revolved around their daily lives. In particular, these societies focused on the growing and harvest of grains, and their religions followed; they worshipped gods of grains and had liturgical calendars revolving around the harvest. Early agricultural societies also suffered high rates of zoonotic diseases, which they opposed with ritual practice, sympathetic magic, and prayers to healing deities. Like other prehistoric-like societies described in written records, these experiences may be comparable to those of Neolithic agriculturalists.