The World's Oldest Settlements Were Built by a Culture Nobody Expected

Thousands of years before ancient people in Central Eurasia learned to farm, hunter-gatherer groups in the subarctic were building some of the first permanent, fortified settlements, challenging the notion that agriculture was a prerequisite for societies to 'settle down'.

Researchers now think they have dated the earliest known fortifications in the icy north, if not the world, near a curve of the Amnya River in Western Siberia.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-worlds-oldest-settlements-were-built-by-a-culture-nobody-expected

(Don't know what's so surprising, mesolithic people from Star Carr to Jericho to Catal Hoyuk were living in organized settlements without wall art or tools that would indicate early agriculture)