Natufian culture
Natufian culture (
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
The Natufian culture was discovered by British archaeologist
In 1928, Garrod was invited by the
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
The Mesolithic |
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↑ Upper Paleolithic |
↓ Neolithic |
The Paleolithic |
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↑ Pliocene (before Homo) |
↓ Mesolithic |
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]
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
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
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.
Material culture
Lithics
The Natufian had a
Art
The
Burials
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.
In 2008, the 12,400–12,000 cal BC grave of an apparently significant Natufian female was discovered in a ceremonial pit in the
Long-distance exchange
At Ain Mallaha (in Northern Israel), Anatolian
Other finds
There was a rich
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
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
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]
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Grinding tool from Gilgal, Natufian culture, 12,500–9500 BC
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Basalt sharpening stones,Eynan and Nahal Oren, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
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Bovine-rib dagger, HaYonim Cave, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
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Stone mortars fromEynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
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Stone mortar fromEynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
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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
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.
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 "
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
- 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 by Martiniano et al. 2020.[58]
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
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
Language
Sites
The Natufian culture has been documented at dozens of sites. Around 90 have been excavated, including:[71]
- Aammiq 2
- Tell Abu Hureyra
- Abu Salem
- Abu Usba
- Ain Choaab
- Ain Mallaha(Eynan)
- Ain Rahub
- Ain Sakhri
- Ala Safat
- Antelias Cave
- Azraq 18 (Ain Saratan)
- Baaz
- Bawwab al Ghazal
- Beidha
- Dederiyeh
- Dibsi Faraj
- El Khiam
- El Kowm I
- El Wad
- Erq el Ahmar
- Fazael IV & VI
- Gilgal II
- Givat Hayil I
- Har Harif K7
- Hatoula
- Hayonim Cave and Hayonim Terrace
- Hilazon Tachtit
- Hof Shahaf
- Huzuq Musa
- Iraq ed Dubb
- Iraq el Barud
- Iraq ez Zigan
- J202
- J203
- J406a
- J614
- Jayroud1–3 & 9
- Jebel Saaidé II
- Jeftelik
- Jericho
- Kaus Kozah
- Kebara
- Kefar Vitkin 3
- Khallat Anaza (BDS 1407)
- Khirbat Janba
- Kosak Shamali
- Maaleh Ramon East
- Maaleh Ramon West
- Moghr el Ahwal
- Mureybet
- Mushabi IV & XIX
- Nachcharini Cave
- Nahal Ein Gev II
- Nahal Hadera I and Nahal Hadera IV (Hefsibah)
- Nahal Oren
- Nahal Sekher 23
- Nahal Sekher VI
- Nahr el Homr 2
- Qarassa 3
- Ramat Harif (G8)
- Raqefet Cave
- Rosh Horesha
- Rosh Zin
- Sabra 1
- Saflulim
- Salibiya 1
- Salibiya 9
- Sands of Beirut
- Shluhat Harif
- Shubayqa 1
- Shubayqa 6
- Shukhbah Cave
- Shunera VI
- Shunera VII
- Tabaqa (WHS 895)[72]
- Taibé
- TBAS 102
- TBAS 212
- Tor at Tariq (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
- Proto-Afroasiatic language
- Afroasiatic Urheimat
References
- ^ "Natufian". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
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- PMID 27459054. 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 theBasal Eurasianlineage. "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."
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- ^ 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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- ^ Bar-Yosef O (1987) Pleistocene connections between Africa and SouthWest Asia: an archaeological perspective. The African Archaeological Review; Chapter 5, pg 29–38
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- ^ Ehret (2002) The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia
- ^ Bellwood P (2005) Blackwell, Oxford. Page 97
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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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- ^ a b "Oldest Shaman Grave Found". National Geographic 4 November 2008
- ^ "Hebrew U. unearths 12,000-year-old skeleton of 'petite' Natufian priestess". By Bradley Burston. Haaretz, 5 November 2008
- ^ Hogenboom, Melissa (24 May 2016), Secrets of the world's oldest funeral feast, earth, BBC, retrieved 24 May 2016
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- ^ "'World's oldest brewery' found in a cave in Israel, say researchers". BBC. 15 September 2018.
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- ^ Bar-Yosef, Offer. "The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture" (PDF). Evolutionary Anthropology.
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- ^ "World's oldest bread found at prehistoric site in Jordan", The Jerusalem Post, 2018, retrieved 16 July 2018
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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).
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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.
- 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.
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(help - PMID 34480555.
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.
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- ^ 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
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- ^ 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
- Balter, Michael (2005), The Goddess and the Bull, New York: Free Press, ISBN 978-0-7432-4360-5
- Bar-Yosef, Ofer (1998), "The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture" (PDF), Evolutionary Anthropology, 6 (5): 159–177, S2CID 35814375
- Bar-Yosef, Ofer; Belfer-Cohen, Anna (1999). "Encoding information: unique Natufian objects from Hayonim Cave, Western Galilee, Israel". Antiquity. 73 (280): 402–409. S2CID 160868877.
- Bar-Yosef, Ofer (1992), Valla, Francois R. (ed.), The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory, ISBN 978-1-879621-03-9
- 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. .
- Clutton-Brock, Juliet (1999), A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-63247-8
- 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. (August–October 2004). "Zooarchaeological measures of hunting pressure and occupation intensity in the Natufian: Implications for agricultural origins" (PDF). Current Anthropology. 45: S5–S33. S2CID 42749024.
- Simmons, Alan H. (2007), The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East: Transforming the Human Landscape, University of Arizona Press, ISBN 978-0-8165-2966-7
External links
- Epi-Palaeolithic (European Mesolithic) Natufian Culture of Israel (The History of the Ancient Near East)
- Cultural Complexity (Hierarchical Societies [Socio-Economic-Political Inequalities]) in Mesopotamia: An Outline, archived from the original on 8 October 2016, retrieved 2 June 2002
- The genetic structure of the world's first farmers, Lazaridis et al, 2016