Natufian culture

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Natufian culture

Natufian culture (

Western Asia, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago.[3] The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world.[2] 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.[4] In addition, the oldest known evidence of possible beer-brewing, dating to approximately 13,000 BP, was found in Raqefet Cave on Mount Carmel, although the beer-related residues may simply be a result of a spontaneous fermentation.[5][6]

Generally, though, Natufians exploited wild cereals and hunted animals, including gazelles.[7] Archaeogenetic analysis has revealed derivation of later (Neolithic to Bronze Age) Levantines primarily from Natufians, besides substantial admixture from Chalcholithic Anatolians.[8]

Dorothy Garrod coined the term Natufian based on her excavations at the Shuqba cave (Wadi an-Natuf) near the town of Shuqba.

Discovery

Dorothy Garrod (centre) discovered the Natufian culture in 1928

The Natufian culture was discovered by British archaeologist

Judaean Hills, on the West Bank of the Jordan River.[9][10] Prior to the 1930s, the majority of archaeological work taking place in British Palestine was biblical archaeology
focused on historic periods, and little was known about the region's prehistory.

In 1928, Garrod was invited by the

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 region, including el-Wad, Kebara and Tabun, as did the French archaeologist René Neuville, 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 sickles in Natufian assemblages and the possibility that this represented a very early agriculture.[10]

Dating

Greenland ice cores.[11]

Radiocarbon dating places the Natufian culture at an epoch from the terminal Pleistocene to the very beginning of the Holocene, a time period between 12,500 and 9,500 BC.[12]

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 (10,800 to 9,500 BC). The Levant 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.[9]

Precursors and associated cultures

The Natufian developed in the same region as the earlier Kebaran culture. 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 of the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, which are sometimes distinguished from the Kebaran culture or believed to have been involved in the evolution of the Natufian culture.

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".[13] According to Isabelle De Groote and Louise Humphrey, Natufians practiced the Iberomaurusian and Capsian custom of sometimes extracting their maxillary central incisors (upper front teeth).[14]

Mortars from Natufian Culture, grinding stones from Neolithic pre-pottery phase (Dagon Museum)

Ofer Bar-Yosef has argued that there are signs of influences coming from North Africa to the Levant, citing the microburin technique and "microlithic forms such as arched backed bladelets and La Mouillah points."[15] 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.[16] 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 [Epipalaeolithic] and do not, in most cases, represent a radical departure in knowledge, tradition, or behavior."[17]

Authors such as

Ohalo II site.[20][21][22]

Anthropologist

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."[25]

Settlements

Şanlıurfa Museum
)

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.

Ain Mallaha is an example of round stone structures.[27] 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.[28] 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.[29]

Remains of a wall of a Natufian house

Material culture

The Ain Sakhri lovers, from Ain Sakhri, near Bethleem (British Museum: 1958,1007.1 )

Lithics

The Natufian had a

Harifian
.

mortars
as well.

Art

The

Judean desert.[30]

Burials

el-Wad Cave
, Mount Carmel, Israel (Rockefeller Museum)

Natufian grave goods are typically made of shell, teeth (of red deer), bones, and stone. There are pendants, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and belt-ornaments as well.

Eynan
, Early Natufian, 12,000 BC

In 2008, the 12,400–12,000 cal BC grave of an apparently significant Natufian female was discovered in a ceremonial pit in the

boar, a wingtip of a golden eagle, and skull of a beech marten.[33][34]

Long-distance exchange

At Ain Mallaha (in Northern Israel), Anatolian

parthenocarpic figs from Africa to the southeastern corner of the Fertile Crescent, c. 10,000 BC.[35]

Other finds

There was a rich

bone industry, including harpoons and fish hooks. Stone and bone were worked into pendants and other ornaments. There are a few human figurines made of limestone (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
.

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.[36]

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 [k cal BP]. Production of plaster of this quality was previously thought to have been achieved some 2,000 years later.[37]

Subsistence

Mortar and pestle from Nahal Oren, Natufian, 12,500–9500 BC

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

flotation have been excavated.[38] However wild cereals like legumes, almonds, acorns and pistachios have been collected throughout most of the Levant. Animal bones show that mountain and goitered
gazelles (Gazella gazella and Gazella subgutturosa) were the main prey.

Additionally, deer, aurochs and wild boar were hunted in the steppe, as well as onagers and caprids (ibex). Waterfowl and freshwater fish formed part of the diet in the Jordan river 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.[39]

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.[40]

According to one theory,[32] it was a sudden change in climate, the Younger Dryas event (c. 10,800 to 9500 BC), which inspired the development of agriculture. The Younger Dryas was a 1,000-year-long interruption in the higher temperatures prevailing since the Last Glacial Maximum, 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.[41]

  • Grinding tool from Gilgal, Natufian culture, 12,500–9500 BC
    Grinding tool from Gilgal, Natufian culture, 12,500–9500 BC
  • Basalt sharpening stones, Eynan and Nahal Oren, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
    Basalt sharpening stones,
    Eynan and Nahal Oren
    , Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
  • Bovine-rib dagger, HaYonim Cave, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
    Bovine-rib dagger, HaYonim Cave, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
  • Stone mortars from Eynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
    Stone mortars from
    Eynan
    , Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
  • Stone mortar from Eynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
    Stone mortar from
    Eynan
    , Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
  • Limestone and basalt mortars, Eynan, Early Natufian, c. 12,000 BC
    Limestone and basalt mortars,
    Eynan
    , Early Natufian, c. 12,000 BC

Domesticated dog

At the Natufian site of Ain Mallaha in Israel, dated to 12,000 BC, the remains of an elderly human and a four-to-five-month-old puppy were found buried together.[42] At another Natufian site at the cave of Hayonim, humans were found buried with two canids.[42]

Archaeogenetics

Principal component analysis of ancient West-Eurasian populations, including the Natufians. Natufians cluster together with modern Middle Eastern populations.[43]

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.

Kelif el Boroud culture of the Maghreb,[45][46] 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.[45][47][48]

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 "

hunter gatherers. Contact between Natufians, other Neolithic Levantines, Caucasus Hunter Gatherers (CHG), Anatolian and Iranian farmers is believed to have decreased genetic variability 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 is best represented by the Levant Neolithic, and may be associated with the spread of Afroasiatic languages. The scientists suggest that the Levantine early farmers may have spread southward into East Africa, bringing along the associated ancestral components.[24][54][55]

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)[56][57] on Natufian skeletal remains in the Raqefet Cave from present-day northern Israel, the remains of 5 Natufians carried the following paternal haplgroups:

Y-DNA

Daniel Shriner (2018) reported the following maternal haplogroups recovered from three of the same six males at the Raqefet Cave:

Mitochondrial DNA

  • J2a2
  • J2a2
  • N1b

using modern populations as a reference, Shriner et al. also showed indicated Natufians carried 61.2% Arabian, 21.2% Northern African, 10.9% Western Asian, and a small amount of Eastern African ancestry at 6.8% which is 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-M215, also known as "E1b1b") among Natufians.[46]

Loosedrecht et al. (2018) argues that the Natufians had contributed genetically to the Iberomaurusian peoples of Paleolithic and Mesolithic northwest Africa, with the Iberomaurusians' other ancestral component being a unique one of sub-Saharan Africa origin (having both West African-like and Hadza-like affinities).[47] The Sub-Saharan African DNA in Taforalt individuals has the closest affinity, most of all, to that of modern West Africans (e.g., Yoruba, or Mende).[47] In addition to having similarity with the remnant of a more basal Sub-Saharan African lineage (e.g., a basal West African lineage shared between Yoruba and Mende peoples), the Sub-Saharan African DNA in the Taforalt individuals of the Iberomaurusian culture may be best represented by modern West Africans.[59]

Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2018), as summarized by Rosa Fregel (2021), contested the conclusion of Loosdrecht (2018) and argued instead that the Iberomaurusian population of Upper Paleolithic North Africa, represented by the Taforalt sample, can be better modeled as an admixture between a Dzudzuana-like [West-Eurasian] component and an "Ancient North African" component, "that may represent an even earlier split than the Basal Eurasians." Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2018) also argued that an Iberomaurusian/Taforalt-like population contributed to the genetic composition of Natufians "and not the other way around", and that this Iberomaurusian/Taforalt lineage also contributed around 13% ancestry to modern West Africans "rather than Taforalt having ancestry from an unknown Sub-Saharan African source". Fregel (2021) summarized: "More evidence will be needed to determine the specific origin of the North African Upper Paleolithic populations."[60][61]

Ferreira et al. in 2021 found that ancient Natufians cluster with modern

Saudi Arabians and Yemenis.[62] Sirak et al. 2024 found that the population of Socotra (the Soqotri people) descended primarily from a Natufian-like population and had less ancestry from Levantine or Iranian farmers when compared with other populations from the Arab peninsula. They display high genetic affinities to the population of Hadhramaut in southern Arabia. Medieval Soqotri remains displayed no recent African-associated geneflow since the Holocene period.[63]

Language

Afroasiatic Urheimat is to be found in North Africa or Northeast Africa, probably in the area of Egypt, the Sahara, Horn of Africa or Sudan.[66][67][68][69][70] 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 Eastern Proto-Semitic
branch of Afroasiatic.

Sites

The Natufian culture has been documented at dozens of sites. Around 90 have been excavated, including:[71]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Natufian". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. ^
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  7. . Fig. 4. "Our data document continuity across the transition between hunter– gatherers and farmers, separately in the southern Levant and in the southern Caucasus–Iran highlands. The qualitative evidence for this is that PCA, ADMIXTURE, and outgroup f3 analysis cluster Levantine hunter–gatherers (Natufians) with Levantine farmers, and Iranian and CHG with Iranian farmers (Fig. 1b and Extended Data Figs 1, 3). We confirm this in the Levant by showing that its early farmers share significantly more alleles with Natufians than with the early farmers of Iran" Epipaleolithic Natufians were substantially derived from the
    Basal Eurasian
    lineage. "We used qpAdm (ref. 7) to estimate Basal Eurasian ancestry in each Test population. We obtained the highest estimates in the earliest populations from both Iran (66±13% in the likely Mesolithic sample, 48±6% in Neolithic samples), and the Levant (44±8% in Epipalaeolithic Natufians) (Fig. 2), showing that Basal Eurasian ancestry was widespread across the ancient Near East. [...] The idea of Natufians as a vector for the movement of Basal Eurasian ancestry into the Near East is also not supported by our data, as the Basal Eurasian ancestry in the Natufians (44±8%) is consistent with stemming from the same population as that in the Neolithic and Mesolithic populations of Iran, and is not greater than in those populations (Supplementary Information, section 4). Further insight into the origins and legacy of the Natufians could come from comparison to Natufians from additional sites, and to ancient DNA from North Africa."
  8. ^
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  12. ^ Barker G (2002) Transitions to farming and pastoralism in North Africa, in Bellwood P, Renfrew C (2002), Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis, pp 151–161.
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  18. ^ Bellwood P (2005) Blackwell, Oxford. Page 97
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  22. . The Natufian sample from Israel is also problematic because it is so small, being constituted of three males and one female from the Late Pleistocene Epipalaeolithic (34) of Israel, and there was no usable Neolithic sample for the Near East... the small Natufian sample falls between the Niger-Congo group and the other samples used. Fig. 2 shows the plot produced by the first two canonical variates, but the same thing happens when canonical variates 1 and 3 (not shown here) are used. This placement suggests that there may have been a Sub-Saharan African element in the make-up of the Natufians (the putative ancestors of the subsequent Neolithic)
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  29. ^ "BBC - A History of the World - Object: Ain Sakhri lovers figurine". www.bbc.co.uk.
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  31. ^ a b "Oldest Shaman Grave Found". National Geographic 4 November 2008
  32. ^ "Hebrew U. unearths 12,000-year-old skeleton of 'petite' Natufian priestess". By Bradley Burston. Haaretz, 5 November 2008
  33. ^ Hogenboom, Melissa (24 May 2016), Secrets of the world's oldest funeral feast, earth, BBC, retrieved 24 May 2016
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  35. ^ "'World's oldest brewery' found in a cave in Israel, say researchers". BBC. 15 September 2018.
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  37. ^ Bar-Yosef, Offer. "The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture" (PDF). Evolutionary Anthropology.
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  39. ^ "World's oldest bread found at prehistoric site in Jordan", The Jerusalem Post, 2018, retrieved 16 July 2018
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  51. .
  52. .
  53. . However, no affinity of Natufians to sub-Saharan Africans is evident in our genome-wide analysis, as present-day sub-Saharan Africans do not share more alleles with Natufians than with other ancient Eurasians (Extended Data Table 1).
  54. .
  55. ^ Lazaridis, Iosif et al. Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East, Nature 536, 419–424, 2016. Supplementary Table 1.
  56. S2CID 229549849
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  57. S2CID 226555687. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help
    )
  58. . However, a preprint from Lazaridis et al. (2018) has contested this conclusion based on new evidence from Paleolithic samples from the Dzudzuana site in Georgia (25,000 years BCE). When these samples are considered in the analysis, Taforalt can be better modeled as a mixture of a Dzudzuana component and a sub-Saharan African component. They also argue that it is the Taforalt people who contributed to the genetic composition of Natufians and not the other way around. More evidence will be needed to determine the specific origin of the North African Upper Paleolithic populations, but the presence of an ancestral U6 lineage in the Dzudzuana people is consistent with this population being related to the back migration to Africa.
  59. S2CID 91380277. Moreover, our model predicts that West Africans (represented by Yoruba) had 12.5±1.1% ancestry from a Taforalt related group rather than Taforalt having ancestry from an unknown Sub-Saharan African source; this may have mediated the limited Neanderthal admixture present in West Africans. An advantage of our model is that it allows for a local North African component in the ancestry of Taforalt, rather than deriving them exclusively from Levantine and Sub-Saharan sources. ... and Taforalt, can all be modeled as a mixture of Dzudzuana and additional 'Deep' ancestry that may represent an even earlier split than the Basal Eurasians. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help
    )
  60. . Modern Saudi Arabian and Yemeni samples clustered tightly, overlapping with the three Natufian samples, and were close to the Levant Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and C (PPNB and PPNC) and Levant Bronze Age samples.
  61. .
  62. .
  63. .
  64. .
  65. .
  66. ^ Bender ML (1997), Upside Down Afrasian, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 50, pp. 19–34
  67. ^ 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
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  69. ^ Neeley, Michael P.; Hill, J. Brett (2017). "Archaeological and Geomorphological Investigations of the Late Epipaleolithic in West-Central Jordan: TBAS 212 in a Regional Context". ResearchGate.

Further reading

External links