The Natufian culture () is a Late
Epipaleolithic
In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are someti ...
archaeological culture
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
of the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a
sedentary
Sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like soci ...
or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
. The Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of
cereal
A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...
s, specifically
rye, by the Natufian culture, at
Tell Abu Hureyra
Tell Abu Hureyra ( ar, تل أبو هريرة) is a prehistoric archaeological site in the Upper Euphrates valley in Syria. The tell was inhabited between 13,000 and 9,000 years ago in two main phases: Abu Hureyra 1, dated to the Epipalaeolithi ...
, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world.
The world's oldest known evidence of the production of bread-like foodstuff has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,400-year-old site in
Jordan's northeastern desert, 4,000 years before the emergence of agriculture in
Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Anat ...
In addition, the oldest known evidence of possible
beer-brewing, dating to approximately 13,000
BP, was found at the
Raqefet Cave
Raqefet Cave (''Cyclamen Cave'') is a Late Natufian archaeological site located in Mount Carmel in the north of Israel. It was discovered in 1956. The site indicates plants were already used as food at Raqefet, before the advent of agriculture.
...
in
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ( he, הַר הַכַּרְמֶל, Har haKarmel; ar, جبل الكرمل, Jabal al-Karmil), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias ( ar, link=no, جبل مار إلياس, Jabal Mār Ilyās, lit=Mount Saint Elias/Elijah), is a c ...
near
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, although it may simply be a result of an organic and unintentional
fermentation.
Generally, though, Natufians exploited wild cereals and hunted animals, including
gazelle
A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, '' Eudorcas'' and '' Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third ...
s.
[ Archaeogenetic analysis has revealed derivation of later (Neolithic to Bronze Age) Levantines primarily from Natufians, besides substantial admixture from Chalcholithic Anatolians.
]Dorothy Garrod
Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod, CBE, FBA (5 May 1892 – 18 December 1968) was an English archaeologist who specialised in the Palaeolithic period. She held the position of Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 1 ...
coined the term Natufian based on her excavations at the Shuqba cave
Shuqba cave is an archaeological site near the town of Shuqba in the western Judaean Mountains in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the West Bank.
Location
Shuqba cave is located on the northern bank of Wadi en-Natuf. This wadi is a kilo ...
(Wadi an-Natuf) near the town of Shuqba
Shuqba ( ar, شقبة) is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 17 kilometers northwest of the city of Ramallah in Palestine.
Shuqba has a total area of 13,990 dunams, and the built-up area comprises 616 dunams. Sh ...
in the western occupied Palestinian Territories
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The In ...
.
Discovery
The Natufian culture was discovered by British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod
Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod, CBE, FBA (5 May 1892 – 18 December 1968) was an English archaeologist who specialised in the Palaeolithic period. She held the position of Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 1 ...
during her excavations of Shuqba cave
Shuqba cave is an archaeological site near the town of Shuqba in the western Judaean Mountains in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the West Bank.
Location
Shuqba cave is located on the northern bank of Wadi en-Natuf. This wadi is a kilo ...
in the Judaean Hills
The Judaean Mountains, or Judaean Hills ( he, הרי יהודה, translit=Harei Yehuda) or the Hebron Mountains ( ar, تلال الخليل, translit=Tilal al-Khalīl, links=, lit=Hebron Mountains), is a mountain range in Palestine and Israel wh ...
, on the West Bank of the Jordan River. Prior to the 1930s, the majority of archaeological work taking place in British Palestine was biblical archaeology
Biblical archaeology is an academic school and a subset of Biblical studies and Levantine archaeology. Biblical archaeology studies archaeological sites from the Ancient Near East and especially the Holy Land (also known as Palestine, Land o ...
focused on historic periods, and little was known about the region's prehistory. In 1928, Garrod was invited by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem
The Kenyon Institute, previously known as the British School of Archaeology at Jerusalem (BSAJ), is a British overseas research institute supporting humanities and social science studies in Israel and Palestine. It is part of the Council for Bri ...
(BSAJ) to excavate Shuqba cave, where prehistoric stone tools had been discovered by Père Mallon four years earlier. She discovered a layer sandwiched between the Upper Palaeolithic
The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...
and Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
deposits characterised by the presence of microlith
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Th ...
s. She identified this with the Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
, a transitional period between the Palaeolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος '' lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone to ...
and the Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
which was well-represented in Europe but had not yet been found in the Near East. A year later, when she discovered similar material at el-Wad Terrace, Garrod suggested the name "the Natufian culture", after Wadi an-Natuf that ran close to Shuqba. Over the next two decades Garrod found Natufian material at several of her pioneering excavations in the Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ( he, הַר הַכַּרְמֶל, Har haKarmel; ar, جبل الكرمل, Jabal al-Karmil), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias ( ar, link=no, جبل مار إلياس, Jabal Mār Ilyās, lit=Mount Saint Elias/Elijah), is a c ...
region, including el-Wad, Kebara
Kebara Cave ( he, מערת כבארה, Me'arat Kebbara, ar, مغارة الكبارة, Mugharat al-Kabara) is a limestone cave locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at above sea level on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, in the Ramat H ...
and Tabun, as did the French archaeologist René Neuville
René Neuville (30 October 1899, Gibraltar – 23 June 1952, Jerusalem) was a French prehistorian and diplomat posted to the French consulate in Jerusalem.
Diplomatic career
Neuville's father was the consul general of France in Gibraltar. He ...
, firmly establishing the Natufian culture in the regional prehistoric chronology. As early as 1931, both Garrod and Neuville drew attention to the presence of stone sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...
s in Natufian assemblages and the possibility that this represented a very early agriculture.
Dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was dev ...
places the Natufian culture at an epoch from the terminal Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
to the very beginning of the Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...
, a time period between 12,500 and 9,500 BC.[
The period is commonly split into two subperiods: Early Natufian (12,000–10,800 BC) and Late Natufian (10,800–9,500 BC). The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the ]Younger Dryas
The Younger Dryas (c. 12,900 to 11,700 years BP) was a return to glacial conditions which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, c. 27,000 to 20,000 years BP). The Younger Dryas was the last stag ...
(10,800 to 9,500 BC). The Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
hosts more than a hundred kinds of cereals, fruits, nuts, and other edible parts of plants, and the flora of the Levant during the Natufian period was not the dry, barren, and thorny landscape of today, but rather woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...
.
Precursors and associated cultures
The Natufian developed in the same region as the earlier Kebaran
The Kebaran culture, also known as the Early Near East Epipalaeolithic, was an archaeological culture in the Eastern Mediterranean area (c. 23,000 to 15,000 BP), named after its type site, Kebara Cave south of Haifa. The Kebaran were a highly ...
industry. It is generally seen as a successor, which evolved out of elements within that preceding culture. There were also other industries in the region, such as the Mushabian culture
The Mushabian culture (alternately, Mushabi or Mushabaean) is an archaeological culture suggested to have originated among the Iberomaurusians in North Africa, though once thought to have originated in the Levant.
Historical context
The culture ...
of the Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
and Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
, which are sometimes distinguished from the Kebaran or believed to have been involved in the evolution of the Natufian.
More generally there has been discussion of the similarities of these cultures with those found in coastal North Africa. Graeme Barker notes there are: "similarities in the respective archaeological records of the Natufian culture of the Levant and of contemporary foragers in coastal North Africa across the late Pleistocene and early Holocene boundary".[ According to Isabelle De Groote and Louise Humphrey Natufians practiced the ]Iberomaurusian
The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian.The " ...
and Capsian
The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic and Neolithic culture centered in the Maghreb that lasted from about 8,000 to 2,700 BC. It was named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia, which was known as Capsa in Roman times.
Capsian industry was concentr ...
custom of sometimes extracting their maxillary central incisor
The maxillary central incisor is a human tooth in the front upper jaw, or maxilla, and is usually the most visible of all teeth in the mouth. It is located mesial (closer to the midline of the face) to the maxillary lateral incisor. As with all i ...
s (upper front teeth).
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Ofer Bar-Yosef ( he, עופר בר-יוסף; 29 August 1937 – 14 March 2020) was an Israeli archaeologist and anthropologist whose main field of study was the Palaeolithic period.
From 1967 Bar-Yosef was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology a ...
has argued that there are signs of influences coming from North Africa to the Levant, citing the microburin
A microburin is a characteristic waste product from manufacture of lithic tools — sometimes confused with an authentic burin — which is characteristic of the Mesolithic, but which has been recorded from the end of the Upper Paleolithic until ...
technique and "microlithic forms such as arched backed bladelets and La Mouillah points." But recent research has shown that the presence of arched backed bladelets, La Mouillah points, and the use of the microburin technique was already apparent in the Nebekian industry of the Eastern Levant. And Maher et al. state that, "Many technological nuances that have often been always highlighted as significant during the Natufian were already present during the Early and Middle EP pipalaeolithicand do not, in most cases, represent a radical departure in knowledge, tradition, or behavior."
Authors such as Christopher Ehret
Christopher Ehret (born 27 July 1941), who currently holds the position of Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, is an American scholar of African history and African historical linguistics particularly known for his efforts to correlate li ...
have built upon the little evidence available to develop scenarios of intensive usage of plants having built up first in North Africa, as a precursor to the development of true farming in the Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
, but such suggestions are considered highly speculative until more North African archaeological evidence can be gathered.[ In fact, Weiss et al. have shown that the earliest known intensive usage of plants was in the Levant 23,000 years ago at the Ohalo II site.
Anthropologist ]C. Loring Brace
Charles Loring Brace IV (December 19, 1930 – September 7, 2019) was an American anthropologist, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan's Department of Anthropology and Curator Emeritus at the University's Museum of Anthropological Arc ...
(1993) cross-analysed the craniometric traits of Natufian specimens with those of various ancient and modern groups from the Near East, Africa and Europe. The Late Pleistocene Epipalaeolithic Natufian sample was described as problematic due to its small size (consisting of only three males and one female), as well as the lack of a comparative sample from the Natufians' putative descendants in the Neolithic Near East. Brace observed that the Natufian fossils lay between those of the Niger-Congo-speaking populations and the other samples (Near East, Europe), which he suggested may point to a Sub-Saharan influence in their constitution. Subsequent ancient DNA
Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient specimens. Due to degradation processes (including cross-linking, deamination and fragmentation) ancient DNA is more degraded in comparison with contemporary genetic material. Even under the bes ...
analysis of Natufian skeletal remains by Lazaridis et al. (2016) found that the specimens instead were a mix of 50% Basal Eurasian ancestral component (see Archaeogenetics
Archaeogenetics is the study of ancient DNA using various molecular genetic methods and DNA resources. This form of genetic analysis can be applied to human, animal, and plant specimens. Ancient DNA can be extracted from various fossilized specimen ...
) and 50% West-Eurasian Unknown Hunter Gatherer (UHG) population related to European Western Hunter-Gatherers
In archaeogenetics, the term Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG), West European Hunter-Gatherer or Western European Hunter-Gatherer names a distinct ancestral component of modern Europeans, representing descent from a population of Mesolithic hunter-gat ...
.[ ]
Table S6.1 – Y-chromosome haplogroups
/ref>
According to Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, "It seems that certain preadaptive traits, developed already by the Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran populations within the Mediterranean park forest, played an important role in the emergence of the new socioeconomic system known as the Natufian culture."
Settlements
Settlements occur mostly in Israel and Palestine. This could be deemed the core zone of the Natufian culture, but Israel is a place that has been excavated more frequently than other places hence the greater number of sites. During the years more sites have been found outside the core zone of Israel and Palestine stretching into what now is Lebanon, Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev desert. The settlements in the Natufian culture was larger and more permanent. Some Natufian sites had stone built architecture; Ain Mallaha is an example of round stone structures. Cave sites are also seen frequently during the Natufian culture. El-wad is a Natufian cave site with occupation in the front part of the cave also called the terrace. Some Natufian sites were located in forest/steppe areas and others near inland mountains. The Natufian settlements appear to be the first to exhibit evidence of food storage; not all Natufian sites have storage facilities, but they have been identified at certain sites.
Material culture
Lithics
The Natufian had a microlith
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Th ...
ic industry centered on short blade
A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Historic ...
s and bladelets. The microburin technique
The microburin technique is a special procedure for cutting up lithic blades which yields fragments that can be used in the manufacture of utensils. The usable fragments are basically geometric microliths. This technique has been recorded through t ...
was used. Geometric microliths include lunate
Lunate is a crescent or moon-shaped microlith. In the specialized terminology of lithic reduction, a lunate flake is a small, crescent-shaped flake removed from a stone tool during the process of pressure flaking.
In the Natufian period, a lun ...
s, trapezes, and triangles. There are backed blades as well. A special type of retouch (Helwan retouch The Helwan Retouch was a bifacial microlithic flint-tool fabrication technology characteristic of the Early Natufian culture in the Levant, a region in the Eastern Mediterranean (12,500 BP – 11,000 BP) such as the Harifian culture. The decline o ...
) is characteristic for the early Natufian. In the late Natufian, the Harif-point, a typical arrowhead
An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as sign ...
made from a regular blade, became common in the Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
. Some scholars use it to define a separate culture, the Harifian
Harifian is a specialized regional cultural development of the Epipalaeolithic of the Negev Desert. It corresponds to the latest stages of the Natufian culture.
History
Like the Natufian, Harifian is characterized by semi-subterranean houses. ...
.
Sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...
blades also appear for the first time in the Natufian lithic industry. The characteristic sickle-gloss Sickle-gloss, or sickle sheen, is a silica residue found on blades such as sickles and scythes suggesting that they have been used to cut the silica-rich stems of cereals and forming an indirect proof for incipient agriculture. The gloss occurs fr ...
shows that they were used to cut the silica
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is ...
-rich stems of cereals, indirectly suggesting the existence of incipient agriculture. Shaft straighteners made of ground stone
In archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other cryptocrystalline a ...
indicate the practice of archery
Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...
. There are heavy ground-stone bowl mortars as well.
Art
The ''Ain Sakhri lovers
The Ain Sakhri figurine or Ain Sakhri Lovers is a Natufian sculpture that was found in one of the Ain Sakhri caves near Bethlehem. It is approximately 11,000 years old and thought to be the oldest known representation of two people engaged in sex ...
'', a carved stone object held at the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, is the oldest known depiction of a couple having sex. It was found in the Ain Sakhri cave in the Judean desert
The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert ( he, מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה, Midbar Yehuda}, both ''Desert of Judah'' or ''Judaean Desert''; ar, صحراء يهودا, Sahraa' Yahuda) is a desert in Palestine and Israel that lies east of Jerusa ...
.
Burials
Natufian grave goods
Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body.
They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods may be classed as a ...
are typically made of shell, teeth (of red deer
The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of wes ...
), bones, and stone. There are pendants, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and belt-ornaments as well.
In 2008, the 12,400–12,000 cal BC grave of an apparently significant Natufian female was discovered in a ceremonial pit in the Hilazon Tachtit cave in northern Israel. Media reports referred to this person as a shaman
Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritu ...
. The burial contained the remains of at least three aurochs and 86 tortoises, all of which are thought to have been brought to the site during a funeral feast. The body was surrounded by tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard, forearm of a wild boar, wingtip of a golden eagle
The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird of p ...
, and skull of a stone marten
The beech marten (''Martes foina''), also known as the stone marten, house marten or white breasted marten, is a species of marten native to much of Europe and Central Asia, though it has established a feral population in North America. It is li ...
.
Long-distance exchange
At Ain Mallaha (in Northern Israel), Anatolian obsidian
Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock.
Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements s ...
and shellfish from the Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...
valley have been found. The source of malachite
Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fracture ...
beads is still unknown. Epipaleolithic
In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are someti ...
Natufians carried parthenocarpic
In botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilisation of ovules, which makes the fruit seedless. Stenospermocarpy may also produce apparently seedless fruit, but the seeds are ac ...
fig
The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...
s from Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
to the southeastern corner of the Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
, c. 10,000 BC.
Other finds
There was a rich bone industry
In archaeology, a bone tool is a tool created from bone. A bone tool can conceivably be created from almost any bone, and in a variety of methods.
Bone tools have been documented from the advent of ''Homo sapiens'' and are also known from ''Nean ...
, including harpoon
A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, seal hunting, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the t ...
s and fish hook
A fish hook or fishhook, formerly also called angle (from Old English ''angol'' and Proto-Germanic ''*angulaz''), is a hook used to catch fish either by piercing and embedding onto the inside of the fish mouth (angling) or, more rarely, by impal ...
s. Stone and bone were worked into pendants and other ornaments. There are a few human figurines made of limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
(El-Wad, Ain Mallaha, Ain Sakhri), but the favorite subject of representative art seems to have been animals. Ostrich-shell containers have been found in the Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
.
In 2018, the world's oldest brewery was found, with the residue of 13,000-year-old beer, in a prehistoric cave near Haifa in Israel when researchers were looking for clues into what plant foods the Natufian people were eating. This is 8,000 years earlier than experts previously thought beer was invented.
A study published in 2019 shows an advanced knowledge of lime plaster production at a Natufian cemetery in Nahal Ein Gev II site in the Upper Jordan Valley dated to 12 thousand (calibrated) years before present cal BP Production of plaster of this quality was previously thought to have been achieved some 2,000 years later.
Subsistence
The Natufian people lived by hunting and gathering. The preservation of plant remains is poor because of the soil conditions, but at some sites such as ''Abu Hureira'' there has been excavated substantial large amounts of plant remains discovered through flotation. However wild cereals like legume
A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock f ...
s, almonds, acorns and pistachios have been collected through out most of the Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
. Animal bones show that gazelle
A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, '' Eudorcas'' and '' Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third ...
(''Gazella gazella'' and ''Gazella subgutturosa'') were the main prey. Additionally, deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...
, aurochs and wild boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...
were hunted in the steppe
In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.
Steppe biomes may include:
* the montane grasslands and shrublands biome
* the temperate grasslands, ...
zone, as well as onager
The onager (; ''Equus hemionus'' ), A new species called the kiang (''E. kiang''), a Tibetan relative, was previously considered to be a subspecies of the onager as ''E. hemionus kiang'', but recent molecular studies indicate it to be a distinct ...
s and caprids (ibex
An ibex (plural ibex, ibexes or ibices) is any of several species of wild goat (genus ''Capra''), distinguished by the male's large recurved horns, which are transversely ridged in front. Ibex are found in Eurasia, North Africa and East Africa ...
). Waterfowl and freshwater fish formed part of the diet in the Jordan River
The Jordan River or River Jordan ( ar, نَهْر الْأُرْدُنّ, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn'', he, נְהַר הַיַּרְדֵּן, ''Nəhar hayYardēn''; syc, ܢܗܪܐ ܕܝܘܪܕܢܢ ''Nahrāʾ Yurdnan''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Shariea ...
valley. Animal bones from Salibiya I (12,300 – 10,800 cal BP) have been interpreted as evidence for communal hunts with nets, however, the radiocarbon dates are far too old compared to the cultural remains of this settlement, indicating contamination of the samples.
Development of agriculture
A pita-like bread has been found from 12,500 BC attributed to Natufians. This bread is made of wild cereal seeds and papyrus cousin tubers, ground into flour.
According to one theory,[ it was a sudden change in ]climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...
, the Younger Dryas
The Younger Dryas (c. 12,900 to 11,700 years BP) was a return to glacial conditions which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, c. 27,000 to 20,000 years BP). The Younger Dryas was the last stag ...
event (c. 10,800 to 9500 BC), which inspired the development of agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
. The Younger Dryas was a 1,000-year-long interruption in the higher temperatures prevailing since the Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent.
Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...
, 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. However, this theory of the origin of agriculture is controversial in the scientific community.
File:Israel Museum Stone Age Artifact.jpg, Grinding tool from Gilgal
Gilgal ( he, גִּלְגָּל ''Gilgāl''), also known as Galgala or Galgalatokai of the 12 Stones ( grc-gre, Γαλαγα or , ''Dōdekalithōn''), is the name of one or more places in the Hebrew Bible. Gilgal is mentioned 39 times, in particula ...
, Natufian culture, 12,500–9500 BC
File:Basalt Sharpening Stones, Natufian Culture.jpg, Basalt sharpening stones, Eynan and Nahal Oren
Nahal Oren is an archaeological site on the northern bank of the wadi of Nahal Oren (Hebrew)/Wadi Fallah (Arabic) on Mount Carmel, south of Haifa, Israel. The site comprises a cave and the small terrace in front of it, which steeply descends tow ...
, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
File:Bovine-Rib Dagger, Natufian Culture.jpg, Bovine-rib dagger, HaYonim Cave, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
File:Stone Mortars from Eynan, Natufian period.jpg, Stone mortars from Eynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
File:Eynan Epipaleolithic mortar.jpg, Stone mortar from Eynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
Domesticated dog
At the Natufian site of Ain Mallaha in Israel-Palestine, dated to 12,000 BC, the remains of an elderly human and a four-to-five-month-old puppy were found buried together.[ At another Natufian site at the cave of Hayonim, humans were found buried with two canids.][
]
Archaeogenetics
Ancient DNA analysis has confirmed the genetic relationship between Natufians and other ancient and modern Middle Easterners and the broader West-Eurasian meta-population (i.e. Europeans and South-Central Asians). The Natufian population displays also ancestral ties to Paleolithic Taforalt
Taforalt or Grotte des Pigeons is a cave in the province of Berkane, Aït Iznasen region, Morocco, possibly the oldest cemetery in North Africa (Humphrey ''et al.'' 2012). It contained at least 34 Iberomaurusian adolescent and adult human skele ...
samples, the makers of the Epipaleolithic Iberomaurusian
The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian.The " ...
culture of the Maghreb, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent, dating to years ago, (10000 – 6500 BCE).Richard, Suzanne ''Near Eastern archaeology'' Eisenbrauns; il ...
culture of the Levant, the Early Neolithic Ifri n'Amr or Moussa culture of the Maghreb, the Late Neolithic Kelif el Boroud Kehf el Baroud, sometimes mistakenly spelled Kelif el Boroud, is an archaeological site in Morocco. It is located to the south of Rabat, near Dar es Soltan.
Genetics
examined the remains of 8 individuals buried at Kelif el Boroud c. 3780-3650 BC ...
culture of the Maghreb, with samples associated with these early cultures all sharing a common genomic component dubbed the "Natufian component", which diverged from other West-Eurasian lineages ~26,000 years ago, and is most closely linked to the Arabian lineage.
Individuals associated with the Natufian culture have been found to cluster with other West-Eurasian populations, but also have substantial higher ancestry that can be traced back to the hypothetical "Basal Eurasian Basal Eurasian is a hypothetical lineage of anatomically modern humans with reduced, or zero, archaic hominin (Neanderthal) admixture compared to other ancient non-Africans. Basal Eurasians may originate from the Middle East or North Africa, and ar ...
" lineage, which contributed in varying degrees to all West-Eurasian lineages, except the Ancient North Eurasians
In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (generally abbreviated as ANE) is the name given to an ancestral component that represents a lineage ancestral to the people of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture and populations closely related to the ...
, and peaks among modern Gulf Arabs. The Natufians were already differentiated from other West-Eurasian lineages, such as the Anatolian farmers north of the Levant, that contributed to the peopling of Europe in significant amounts, and who had some Western Hunter Gatherer
In archaeogenetics, the term Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG), West European Hunter-Gatherer or Western European Hunter-Gatherer names a distinct ancestral component of modern Europeans, representing descent from a population of Mesolithic hunter-g ...
-like (WHG) inferred ancestry, in contrast to Natufians who lacked this component (similar to Neolithic Iranian farmers from the Zagros mountains). This might suggest that different strains of West-Eurasians contributed to Natufians and Zagros farmers, as both Natufians and Zagros farmers descended from different populations of local hunter gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle (sociology), lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants bu ...
s. Contact between Natufians, other Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
Levantines, Caucasus Hunter Gatherers (CHG), Anatolian and Iranian farmers is believed to have decreased genetic variability
Genetic variability is either the presence of, or the generation of, genetic differences.
It is defined as "the formation of individuals differing in genotype, or the presence of genotypically different individuals, in contrast to environmentally i ...
among later populations in the Middle East. Migrations from the Near-East also occurred towards Africa, and the West-Eurasian geneflow into the Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...
is best represented by the Levant Neolithic, and may be associated with the spread of Afroasiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
. The scientists suggest that the Levantine early farmers may have spread southward into East Africa, bringing along the associated ancestral components.
According to ancient DNA analyses conducted in 2016 by Iosif Lazaridis et al. and discussed in two articles "The Genetic Structure of the World's First Farmers" (June 2016) and "Genomic Insights into the Origin of Farming in the Ancient Near East (July 2016)[ ]
Table S6.1 – Y-chromosome haplogroups
/ref> on Natufian skeletal remains from present-day northern Israel, the remains of 5 Natufians carried the following paternal haplgroups:
* E1b1b1b2 (xE1b1b1b2a, E1b1b1b2b) - meaning an unspecified branch of E1b1b1b2
* E1b1 (xE1b1a1, E1b1b1b1) - i.e. a branch of E1b1 that is neither E1b1a1 nor E1b1b1b1.
* E1b1b1 - originally classified as CT but further defined as E1b1b1 by Martiniano et al. 2020.
A 2018 analysis by Daniel Shriner, using modern populations as a reference, suggested that the Natufians carried a small amount of Eastern African ancestry (~6.8%) associated with the modern Omotic-speaking groups of southern Ethiopia. The study also suggested that this component may be the source of Y-haplogroup E (particularly Y-haplogroup E-M215, also known as "E1b1b") among Natufians.
Language
Alexander Militarev
Alexander Militarev (russian: link=no, Алекса́ндр Ю́рьевич Милитарёв; born January 14, 1943) is a Russian scholar of Semitic, Berber, Canarian and Afroasiatic (Afrasian, Semito-Hamitic) languages, comparative-histori ...
, Vitaly Shevoroshkin
Vitaly Victorovich Shevoroshkin ( rus, Виталий Викторович Шеворошкин) is an American linguist of Russian origin, specializing in the study of ancient Mediterranean languages. Shevoroshkin was born in 1932 in Georgia (US ...
and others have linked the Natufian culture to the proto-Afroasiatic language
Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a si ...
, which they in turn believe has a Levantine origin. Some scholars, for example Christopher Ehret
Christopher Ehret (born 27 July 1941), who currently holds the position of Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, is an American scholar of African history and African historical linguistics particularly known for his efforts to correlate li ...
, Roger Blench
Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...
and others, contend that the Afroasiatic Urheimat
The Afroasiatic ''Urheimat'' is the hypothetical place where speakers of the proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into sep ...
is to be found in North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
or Northeast Africa
Northeast Africa, or ''Northeastern Africa'' or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, is a geographic regional term used to refer to the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North ...
, probably in the area of Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, the Sahara, Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...
or Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
.[Blench R (2006) Archaeology, Language, and the African Past, Rowman Altamira, , , https://books.google.com/books?doi=esFy3Po57A8C][Bernal M (1987) Black Athena: the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, Rutgers University Press, , . https://books.google.com/books?id=yFLm_M_OdK4C][Bender ML (1997), Upside Down Afrasian, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 50, pp. 19–34][Militarev A (2005) Once more about glottochronology and comparative method: the Omotic-Afrasian case, Аспекты компаративистики – 1 (Aspects of comparative linguistics – 1). FS S. Starostin. Orientalia et Classica II (Moscow), p. 339-408. http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/fleming.pdf] Within this group, Ehret, who like Militarev believes Afroasiatic may already have been in existence in the Natufian period, would associate Natufians only with the Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
ern Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic '' Urheimat''; scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant ( ...
branch of Afroasiatic.
Sites
The Natufian culture has been documented at dozens of sites. Around 90 have been excavated, including:
* Aammiq 2
* Tell Abu Hureyra
Tell Abu Hureyra ( ar, تل أبو هريرة) is a prehistoric archaeological site in the Upper Euphrates valley in Syria. The tell was inhabited between 13,000 and 9,000 years ago in two main phases: Abu Hureyra 1, dated to the Epipalaeolithi ...
* Abu Salem
* Abu Usba
* Ain Choaab
* Ain Mallaha
Ain (, ; frp, En) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. Named after the Ain river, it is bordered by the Saône and Rhône rivers. Ain is located on the country's eastern edge, on the Swiss border, where i ...
(Eynan)
* Ain Rahub
* Ain Sakhri
The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction ...
* Ala Safat
* Antelias Cave
Antelias Cave was a large cave located east of Antelias, northeast of Beirut close to the wadi of Ksar Akil.
It was discovered by Heidenborg in 1833. Godefroy Zumoffen made an excavation in 1893, finding an Aurignacian industry amongst large qua ...
* Azraq 18 (Ain Saratan)
* Baaz
* Bawwab al Ghazal
* Beidha
* Dederiyeh
* Dibsi Faraj
Dibsi Faraj is an archaeological site on the right bank of the Euphrates in Aleppo Governorate ( Syria). The site was excavated as part of a larger international effort coordinated by UNESCO to excavate as many archaeological sites as possible in ...
* El Khiam
El Khiam (الخیام) is an archaeological site near Wadi Khureitun in the Judaean Desert in the West Bank, on the shores of the Dead Sea.
Archaeological finds at El Khiam show nearly continuous habitation by groups of hunters since the Mesol ...
* El Kowm I
* El Wad
El Wad is an Epipalaeolithic archaeological site in Mount Carmel, Israel. The site has two components: El Wad Cave, also known as Mugharat el-Wad or HaNahal Cave ( he, מערת הנחל); and El Wad Terrace, located immediately outside the cave. ...
* Erq el Ahmar
* Fazael IV & VI
* Gilgal II
* Givat Hayil I
* Har Harif K7
Har or HAR may refer to:
People
* Har Bilas Sarda (1867-1955), Indian academic, judge and politician
* Har Sharma (1922–1992), Indian cricket umpire
Mythology
* Hár and Hárr, among the many names of Odin in Norse mythology
* Horus, an Eg ...
* Hatoula
* Hayonim Cave and Hayonim Terrace
* Hilazon Tachtit
* Hof Shahaf
Hof is a Germanic word found in German, Dutch, Old Norse, and Old English among others, designating a "courtyard, farmyard, royal court, hall, yard or garden". Technical meanings include:
*Heathen hof, a type of Old Norse temple
*''Bauernhof, Mai ...
* Huzuq Musa
* Iraq ed Dubb
* Iraq el Barud
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
* Iraq ez Zigan
* J202
J, or j, is the tenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual name in English is ''jay'' (pronounced ), with a now-uncommon varia ...
* J203
J, or j, is the tenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual name in English is ''jay'' (pronounced ), with a now-uncommon varia ...
* J406a
J4/J04, J-4/J-04 or J.4/J.04 may refer to:
; In science and academia :
* ATC code J04 ''Antimycobacterials'', a subgroup of the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System
* Janko group J4, in mathematics
* S/2003 J 4, a natural satelli ...
* J614
* Jayroud 1–3 & 9
* Jebel Saaidé II
* Jeftelik
* Jericho
Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Gove ...
* Kaus Kozah
* Kebara
Kebara Cave ( he, מערת כבארה, Me'arat Kebbara, ar, مغارة الكبارة, Mugharat al-Kabara) is a limestone cave locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at above sea level on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, in the Ramat H ...
* Kefar Vitkin 3
* Khallat Anaza (BDS 1407)
* Khirbat Janba
* Kosak Shamali
* Maaleh Ramon East
* Maaleh Ramon West
* Moghr el Ahwal
* Mureybet
Mureybet ( ar, مريبط, muribit, lit=covered) is a tell, or ancient settlement mound, located on the west bank of the Euphrates in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria. The site was excavated between 1964 and 1974 and has since disappeared under ...
* Mushabi IV & XIX
* Nachcharini Cave
* Nahal Ein Gev II
* Nahal Hadera I and Nahal Hadera IV (Hefsibah)
* Nahal Oren
Nahal Oren is an archaeological site on the northern bank of the wadi of Nahal Oren (Hebrew)/Wadi Fallah (Arabic) on Mount Carmel, south of Haifa, Israel. The site comprises a cave and the small terrace in front of it, which steeply descends tow ...
* Nahal Sekher 23
* Nahal Sekher VI
* Nahr el Homr 2
* Qarassa 3
* Ramat Harif (G8)
* Raqefet Cave
Raqefet Cave (''Cyclamen Cave'') is a Late Natufian archaeological site located in Mount Carmel in the north of Israel. It was discovered in 1956. The site indicates plants were already used as food at Raqefet, before the advent of agriculture.
...
* Rosh Horesha
* Rosh Zin
* Sabra 1
Sabra may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Sabra (comics), a fictional Israeli female superhero in the Marvel Comics universe
* Sabra (magazine), a Japanese magazine for men
* '' Sabra Command'' the original title of the film ''Warhead''
* "Sab ...
* Saflulim
* Salibiya 1
* Salibiya 9
* Sands of Beirut
* Shluhat Harif
* Shubayqa 1
* Shubayqa 6
* Shukhbah Cave
* Shunera VI
* Shunera VII
* Tabaqa (WHS 895)
* Taibé
* TBAS 102 The Test of Basic Aviation Skills (TBAS) is a computerized psychomotor test battery used as a tool for the selection of United States Air Force pilot candidates. It was created as a replacement for the Basic Attributes Test (BAT) which was in use fr ...
* TBAS 212 The Test of Basic Aviation Skills (TBAS) is a computerized psychomotor test battery used as a tool for the selection of United States Air Force pilot candidates. It was created as a replacement for the Basic Attributes Test (BAT) which was in use fr ...
* Tor at Tariq
Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to:
Places
* Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain
* Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city
* Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano
* Tor Bay, Devon, England
* Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia
S ...
(WHS 1065)
* Tugra I
* Upper Besor 6
* Wadi Hammeh 27
* Wadi Jilat 22
* Wadi Judayid (J2)
* Wadi Mataha
* Yabrud 3
* Yutil al Hasa (WHS 784)
See also
* Prehistory of the Levant
The prehistory of the Levant includes the various cultural changes that occurred, as revealed by archaeological evidence, prior to recorded traditions in the area of the Levant. Archaeological evidence suggests that ''Homo sapiens'' and other ho ...
* Proto-Afroasiatic language
Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a si ...
* Afroasiatic Urheimat
The Afroasiatic ''Urheimat'' is the hypothetical place where speakers of the proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into sep ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Epi-Palaeolithic (European Mesolithic) Natufian Culture of Israel (The History of the Ancient Near East)
*
The genetic structure of the world’s first farmers, Lazaridis et al, 2016
{{DEFAULTSORT:Natufian Culture
Industries (archaeology)
Archaeological cultures of West Asia
Archaeological cultures of the Near East
Hunter-gatherers of Asia
Epipalaeolithic cultures
Archaeological cultures in Israel
Archaeological cultures in Jordan
Archaeological cultures in Lebanon
Archaeological cultures in Palestine
Archaeological cultures in Syria
Epipalaeolithic