Preserving Cultural Traditions in a Period of Instability: The Late Natufian of the Hilly Mediterranean Zone

Abstract

The Near East and in particular the Levantine Corridor (fig. 1) have been a focus of research into the origins of food production since the 19th century. Indeed, in recent decades this region has provided archaeological evidence for the transition from hunting and gathering to village farming. Research on the origins of agriculture is concerned with the description and interpretation of the data and with issues related to the evolution of the human social structures that led to the flourishing of Neolithic society. About 2,500 years before the establishment of Neolithic villages, changes were observed in the nomadic human societies of the Levantine Mediterranean zone. The archaeological entity associated with these changes is the Natufian culture, which has been recognized as the harbinger of the food-producing cultures of the Levant (Garrod 1932). Since the 1930s many Natufian sites have been excavated in the Mediterranean region, the Jordan Valley, the Negev, and the Transjordanian Plateau (Bar-Yosef 1991, Edwards 1991, Byrd 1989, Goring-Morris 1987, 1997, Henry 1976, Olszewski and Hill 1997, Valla et al. 1999). Apart from the lithic component, which was the main criterion for its definition, other material remains unique to the Natufian have been recovered,