Widely recognized as one of the most important transformative changes to human societies, the shift to farming and domesticated animal husbandry was underway before the famous “Neolithic Revolution”. The examination of fundamental origins is an important avenue for the past century of research, of course, but focused primarily on the arable lands frequently termed the Fertile Crescent. Barely examined are the later phases of the Neolithic period, and this is particularly true in the marginal, arid environmental zones that extend from Egypt, across the Negev, northern Arabian Peninsula and Jordan to western Iraq. The assumption that these regions had few people and were irrelevant to this long process of neolithization is challenged by data from new and recent research projects. These projects indicate the active participation of prehistoric people in these arid regions in the technological, economic and cultural changes occurring in Neolithic societies during the 8th to 6th millennia BCE. This workshop will bring together anthropologists, prehistorians, remote sensing and geoscience experts to explore the complexity of settlement patterns, material culture, subsistence economies, and technological change, within the networks that extended across the margins, and interacted with other areas of SW Asia.