"At Tell Mureybet, located on the great bend of the Euphrates, American, then French archaeologists have revealed evidence of continuous occupation for more than 1,300 years (from before 8600 to 7300 B.C.) and divided into three phases. The phase I settlement was a camp of hunters and fishers using the 'Natufian' type of stone tools that was then common in the whole of Syria and Palestine. In Phase II, this camp had become a village of round houses built of pressed mud (tauf in Arabic), and in phase III these round houses had partly been replaced by wider, multi-roomed rectangular houses built of limestone blocks."

Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 41. Section titled "Mesolithic."

(Citation for "Between the Rivers, Before the State.")