Information about Natufian

This time period is part of the Holocene epoch.

Pleistocene Paleolithic :Lower Paleolithic :Middle Paleolithic :Upper Paleolithic ::Châtelperronian culture ::Aurignacian culture ::Gravettian culture ::Solutrean culture ::Magdalenian culture

Holocene Mesolithic or Epipaleolithic :Kebaran culture :Natufian culture Neolithic :Halafian culture :Hassuna culture :Ubaid culture :Uruk culture Chalcolithic :Sumer :Ancient Egypt :Beaker people culture :Kurgan culture

The Natufian culture existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant. It was an Epipalaeolithic culture, but unusual in that it established permanent settlements even before the introduction of agriculture. The Natufians are likely to have been the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. There is also evidence that the Natufians themselves had already begun deliberate cultivation of cereals, and were certainly making use of wild grasses. The Natufians chose central places to stay so that the wild cereals could be harvested in all three zones. However, due to climate changes resulting in drier conditions, the Natufians were forced to stay in areas with permanent water. Evidence for the storage of the grain can also be seen at some sites. The Natufians hunted gazelles as well as harvesting wild grasses.^[1] The culture is a successor of Kebaran culture.

Dating

Radiocarbon dates of 14,500–11,500 BP (Before Present = 1950, calibrated), place this culture just before the end of the Pleistocene.^[2]

The period is commonly divided into two subperiods: Early Natufian (14,500–12,800 BP) and Late Natufian (12,800–11,500 BP). The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the Younger Dryas.

Settlements

The Natufians settled in the woodland belt where oak and pistachio were prevailing species. The underbrush of this open woodland was grass with high frequencies of grain. The high mountains of Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, the steppe areas of the Negev desert in Israel and Sinai, and the Syro-Arabian desert in the east put up only small Natufian living areas due to both their lower carrying capacity and the company of other groups of foragers who denuded this large region.

The houses of the Natufian are semi-subterranean, often with a dry-stone foundation. The superstructure was probably made of brushwood. No traces of mudbricks have been found that became common in the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, abbreviated PPN A. The round houses have a diameter between 3 and 6 m, they contain a central round or subrectangular fireplace. In Ain Mallaha traces of postholes have been identified. These could have been used for rituals by the leader of the group. Villages can cover over 1,000 square meters. Smaller settlements have been interpreted as less permanent abodes (camps). Traces of rebuilding in almost all excavated settlements seem to point to a frequent relocation. This then indicates a temporary abandonment of the settlement. Settlements have been estimated to house 100–150, but there are three categories: small, median, and large, ranging from 15 m sq. to 1,000 m sq. of people. There are almost no indications of storage facilities.

Sedentism

A sedentary life may have been made possible by abundant resources due to a favourable climate at the time, with a culture living from hunting, fishing and gathering, including the use of wild cereals. Tools were available for making use of cereals: flint-bladed sickles for harvesting, and mortars, grinding stones, and storage pits.

Lithics

The Natufian had a microlithic industry, made on short blades and bladelets. The microburin-technique was used. Geometric microliths include lunates, trapezes and triangles. There are backed blades as well. A special type of retouch (Helwan) is characteristic for the early Natufian. In the late Natufian, the Harif-point, a typical arrowhead made from a regular blade, became common in the Negev. Some scholars use it to define a separate culture, the Harifian.

Sickle blades made on blades appear for the first time. The characteristic sickle-gloss shows that they have been used to cut the silica-rich stems of cereals and form an indirect proof for incipient agriculture. Shaft straighteners made of ground stone indicate the practice of archery. There are heavy ground-stone bowl mortars as well.

Other finds

There was a rich bone industry, including harpoons and fish-hooks. Stone and bone was worked into pendants and other ornaments. There are a few human figurines made of limestone (El-Wad, Ain Mallaha, Ain Sakhri), but the favourite subject of representative art seems to have been the gazelle. Ostrich-shell containers that have been found in the Negev.

Subsistence

The Natufian people lived by hunting and gathering. The preservation of plant remains is poor because of the soil conditions, but wild cereals, legumes, almonds, acorns and pistachios may have been collected. Animal bones show that gazelle (Gazella gazella and Gazella subgutturosa) were the main prey. Additionally deer, wild cattle and wild boar were hunted in the steppe zone onagers and caprids (Ibex) as well. Water fowl and freshwater fish formed part of the diet in the Jordan River valley. Animal bones from Salibiya I (12,300–10,800 BP) have been interpreted as evidence for communal hunts with nets.

Development of agriculture

According to one theory (described in 4), it was a sudden change in climate, the Younger Dryas event, that inspired the development of agriculture. The Younger Dryas was a 1,000-year-long interruption in the higher temperatures prevailing since the last ice age, which produced a sudden drought in the Levant. This would have endangered the wild cereals, which could no longer compete with dryland scrub, but upon which the population had become dependent to sustain a relatively large sedentary population. By artificially clearing scrub and planting seeds obtained from elsewhere, they began to practice agriculture.

Domesticated dog

It is at Natufian sites that the earliest archaeological evidence for the domestication of the dog is found. At the Natufian site of Ein Mallaha in Israel, dated to 12 000 BP, the remains of an elderly human and a four-to-five-month-old puppy were found buried together.^[3] At another Natufian site at the cave of Hayonim, a man was found buried with two canids.^[3]

Burials

Burials are located in the settlements, commonly in pits in abandoned houses but also in caves in Mount Carmel and the Judean Hills. The pits were backfilled with settlement refuse, which sometimes makes the identification of grave-goods difficult. Sometimes the graves were covered with limestone slabs. The inhumations are stretched on their backs or flexed, there is no predominant orientation. There are both single and multiple burials, especially in the early Natufian, and scattered human remains in the settlements that point to disturbed earlier graves. The rate of child mortality is rather high. It consisted of about one-third of the dead between ages five and seven. Skull removal was practiced in Hayonim cave, Nahal Oren and Ain Mallaha. Sometimes the skulls were decorated with shell beads (El-Wad). Grave goods consist mainly of personal ornaments, like beads made of shell, teeth (red deer), bones and stone. There are pendants, bracelets, necklaces, earrings and belt-ornaments as well.

Long distance exchange

At Ein Mallaha, Anatolian obsidian and shellfish from the Nile-valley have been found. The source of malachite-beads is still unknown.

Sites

Natufian sites include:

• Tell Abu Hureyra, Mureybat, Yabrud III (Syria)
• Hayonim Terrace, Ein Mallaha (Eynan), Beidha, Ein Gev, Hayonim Nahal Oren, Salibiya I (Israel)
• Jericho (West Bank)
• Jiita III, Borj el-Barajné, Saaidé, Aamiq II (Lebanon)
• El-Wad and Shuqba.

See also

• Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

References

Further reading

• Balter, Michael (2005). The Goddess and the Bull, New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-4360-9
• Bar-Yosef, Ofer (1998). "The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture", Evolutionary Anthropology 6(5): 159-177. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/anthropology/v1007/baryo.pdf
• Bar-Yosef, Ofer; Belfer-Cohen, Anna (1999). "Encoding information: unique Natufian objects from Hayonim Cave, Western Galilee, Israel", Antiquity 73: 402-409.
• Bar-Yosef, Ofer; Valla, Francois R., eds. (1992). The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory. ISBN 1879621037
• Campana, Douglas V.; Crabtree, Pam J. (1990). "Communal Hunting in the Natufian of the Southern Levant: The Social and Economic Implications", Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 3(2): 223-243.
• id="CITEREFClutton-Brock1995">Clutton-Brock, Juliet (1995), "Origins of the dog: domestication and early history", in Serpell, James, The domestic dog: its evolution, behaviour and interactions with people (2003 reprinting ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. pp. 7–20.
  • Clutton-Brock, Juliet (1999). A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63247-1
  • Dubreuil, Laure (2004). "Long-term trends in Natufian subsistence: a use-wear analysis of ground stone tools", Journal of Archaeological Science 31(11): 1613-1629.
  • Munro, Natalie D. (2004). "Zooarchaeological measures of hunting pressure and occupation intensity in the Natufian: Implications for agricultural origins", Current Anthropology 45: S6-S33. http://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/munro/assets/Munro2004.pdf

  External links

  1. http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Natufian_Culture.html
  2. http://unix.temple.edu/~phansell/65online/lect8.htm

  The Holocene epoch is a geological period, which began approximately 11,550 calendar years BP (about 9600 BC) and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Neogene and Quaternary periods.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Pleistocene epoch (IPA: /'plaɪstəsi:n/) on the geologic timescale is the period from 1,808,000 to 11,550 years BP. The Pleistocene epoch had been intended to cover the world's recent period of repeated glaciations.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Paleolithic is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools. It covers virtually all of humanity's time on Earth, extending from 2.5 million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between around 300,000 and 30,000 years ago.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of "high"
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  Châtelperronian was the earliest industry of the Upper Palaeolithic in central and south western France, extending also into Northern Spain. It derives its name from the site of la Grotte des Fées, in Châtelperron, Allier, France.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  Aurignacian is the name of a culture of the Upper Palaeolithic located in Europe and southwest Asia. It dates to between 32,000 and 21,000 BC. The name originates from the type site of Aurignac in the Haute Garonne area of France.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Gravettian was an industry of the European Upper Palaeolithic. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France. It dates from between 28,000 and 22,000 years ago and succeeded the Aurignacian.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Solutrean industry was a relatively advanced flint tool making style of the Upper Palaeolithic.
  
  It is named after the type-site of Solutré in the Mâcon district, Saône-et-Loire, eastern France and appeared around 19,000 BCE.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Magdalenian, also spelled Magdalénien, refers to one of the later cultures of the Upper Palaeolithic in western Europe. It is named after the type site of La Madeleine in the Dordogne region of France.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Holocene epoch is a geological period, which began approximately 11,550 calendar years BP (about 9600 BC) and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Neogene and Quaternary periods.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Mesolithic (Greek mesos=middle and lithos=stone or the 'Middle Stone Age'^[1]) was a period in the development of human technology between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic was a period in the development of human technology that precedes the Neolithic period of the Stone Age. It is preferred as an alternative to Mesolithic in areas with limited glacial impact.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  Kebarans were the first anatomically modern humans and to live in the eastern Mediterranean area (c. 18,000 to 10,000 BCE). It is also a name of archaeological culture of this society.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Natufian culture existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant. It was an Epipalaeolithic culture, but unusual in that it established permanent settlements even before the introduction of agriculture.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Neolithic^[1] or "New" Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic era follows the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Tell Halaf (Arabic: تل حلف) is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, near the Turkish border, just opposite Ceylanpınar.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  Hassuna is an ancient Mesopotamian site situated in Iraq, south of Mosul.
  
  By around 6000 BC people had moved into the foothills (piedmont) of northernmost Mesopotamia where there was enough rainfall to allow for "dry" agriculture in some places.
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The tell (mound) of Ubaid (Arabic: عبيد) near Ur in southern Iraq has given its name to the prehistoric Pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic culture, which represents the earliest settlement on the alluvial plain
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Ancient Mesopotamia
  
  Euphrates Tigris
  Cities / Empires
  Sumer: Uruk ' Ur ' Eridu
  Kish ' Lagash ' Nippur
  Akkadian Empire: Akkad
  Babylon ' Isin ' Susa
  Assyria: Assur Nineveh
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Chalcolithic (Greek khalkos + lithos 'copper stone') period or Copper Age period (also known as the Eneolithic (Æneolithic
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Ancient Mesopotamia
  
  Euphrates Tigris
  Cities / Empires
  Sumer: Uruk ' Ur ' Eridu
  Kish ' Lagash ' Nippur
  Akkadian Empire: Akkad
  Babylon ' Isin ' Susa
  Assyria: Assur Nineveh
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism.
  If you are prevented from editing this page, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or .
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  This article requires authentication or verification by an expert.
  Please assist in recruiting an expert or [ improve this article] yourself. See the talk page for details. This article has been tagged since August 2007.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Yamna (from Ukrainian, Russian яма "pit") or Pit Grave or Ochre Grave culture is a late copper age/early Bronze Age culture of the Bug/Dniester/Ural region (the Pontic steppe), dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Mediterranean is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia. It covers an approximate area of 2.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  The Levant (IPA: /lə'vænt/) is an imprecise geographical term historically referring to a large area in the Middle East south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and by the northern
  ..... Click the link for more information.

  The Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic was a period in the development of human technology that precedes the Neolithic period of the Stone Age. It is preferred as an alternative to Mesolithic in areas with limited glacial impact.
  ..... Click the link for more information.
  Agriculture (from Agri Latin for ager ("a field"), and culture, from the Latin cultura "cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil". A literal reading of the English word yields "tillage of the soil of a field".
  ..... Click the link for more information.