Natufians part 1

[maroco]

Today I would like to discuss the Natufians with you. Hopefully by the end of this post you will have a better understanding of the Natufians. Part 1 will pertain to the discovery of the Natufians

NATUFIANS PART 1:
Let's start of by discussing the discovery of the Natufians, the Natufians were discovered by British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod during her visit to Shuqba cave in the Judaean Hills in the west bank of the Jordan River. During the 1930s in British Palestine most of the archaeological work was focused on the historic periods, not much was known about the region's prehistory. Just to give you a background on how Garrod came to excavate Shuqba cave, she was invited by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.

Previously a French priest who was named Alexis Mallon four years earlier discovered pre historic stone tools. She discovered a sandwiched layer between upper Palaeolithic and bronze age deposits characterised by the presence of microliths. The way she identified this was with the Mesolithic, a period that transitions between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic which was well represented in Europe, but was not found in the near east. A year had passed and at el-Wad Terrace she had discovered a similar material, the name that was suggested by Garrod was "the Natufian Culture" after Wadi an-Natuf that ran close to Shuqba.

Garrod found material at several of her pioneering excavations in the Mount Carmel region over the next two decades. This included el-Wad, Kebara and Tabun, as did Rene Neuville who was a french archaeologist, this firmly established the Natufian culture in the regional prehistoric chronology. In 1931 Garrod and Neuville brought to the attention the presence of stone sickles in Natufian assemblages and there was the possibility this could have represented a very early agriculture.

B4826638-ED8C-458B-A2C9-0E0120B38C48.jpeg

[maroco]

Part 2
Natufian Time Periods
There is two sub periods for Natufian, you have the early Natufian (12,000-10,800BC) and Late Natufian (10,800-9,500BC). The Natufian culture was determined by Radiocarbon Dating in a time period between 12,500BC and 9,500BC. For those of you who don't know what Radiocarbon Dating is, it uses the properties of radiocarbon to determine the age of an object containing organic material. There is a hundred types of cereals, fruits, nuts, and other edible parts of plants. the plants of the levant were not dry, barren and thorny during the Natufian period that is of today, but rather woodland.

Bølling-Allerød warming is the time of when the Natufians appeared, this was before temperatures dropped drastically again during the younger Dryas. Of course temperatures would once again rise at the end of Younger Dryas, and with the beginning of the Holocene and the Neolithic revolution. Based on the analysis of the green land ice cores you can see the climate and post-glacial expansion into the near east.

Climate_and_Post-Glacial_expansion_in_the_Near_East (2).jpg

[maroco]

Part 3

Settlements

The main settlements of the Natufians would occur in the woodland belt where the oak and Pistacia species dominated, for those of you who don't know what Pistacia is, it's a genus of flowering plants in the cashew family. It contains up to 10 to 20 species which are native to Africa, and Eurasia from the canary islands, all of Africa , and southern Europe. The environments that less favoured Natufian settlements was the high mountains of Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon , the steppe areas of the Negev Desert in the east. This was presumed to be because of their lower carrying capacity and the company of other groups of foragers who exploited this region.

The places of the Natufians were semi-subterranean, which was often with a dry-stone foundation. Traces of mudbrick which was common in the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), had no traces with the Natufians. To describe the houses they were round and they had a diameter between three and six meters, and they contain a central round or subrectangular fireplace.

Traces of postholes have been identified in Ain Mallaha. Villages can over 1,000 square meters, however some researchers came to the conclusion that smaller settlements were camps. traces of rebuilding has been found in almost every excavated settlement which suggested a frequent relocation, which pointed to a temporary abandonment of the settlement. 100-150 people were estimated to be housed within the settlements, but bare in mind that there were three categories: small, medium, and large, which ranged from 15 sq. m to 1,000 sq. m. Nothing pointed to there being storage facilities.

C169E92F-BB8E-4F5C-850D-4D53D3F41360.jpegD8E2F9E3-45CD-4F14-9CE2-E56244FAD5FD.jpeg

[capsian]

Natufians E-Z830*(CTS10880+PF1962) and one was PreE-M78*

[davit]

Did they really have no pottery? And how did pottery get to the Levant? From the east?

[capsian]

Did they really have no pottery? And how did pottery get to the Levant? From the east?

pottery find in culture Levant-PPNB

[theplayer]

Here are a few interesting images regarding pottery in Afro-Eurasia:
potteryspread.jpgpotteryspread3.jpgpotteryspread4.jpgpotteryspread2.jpg

So it looks like you have at least two(in the old world; in the americas another two; Eastern USA and in the Amazon) independent inventions of pottery: one in East Asia and one somewhere in the Sahara(this was during the African humid period).

So it could either be an independent invention or diffusion from one of these two.

[davit]

Here are a few interesting images regarding pottery in Afro-Eurasia:
potteryspread.jpgpotteryspread3.jpgpotteryspread4.jpgpotteryspread2.jpg

So it looks like you have at least two(in the old world; in the americas another two; Eastern USA and in the Amazon) independent inventions of pottery: one in East Asia and one somewhere in the Sahara(this was during the African humid period).

So it could either be an independent invention or diffusion from one of these two.

Thanks. What do archaeologists think ? Independent or diffusion from east/west?

[theplayer]

Thanks. What do archaeologists think ? Independent or diffusion from east/west?

I have no idea, wondering that as well.

[Hawk]

I think what constituted the Natufians was a mix between E-Z830 Ramonians and E-M78 incoming Mushabians from Nile Valley who were residing more in South (Jordan) with the exception of E-L618 who went further North in the border with Turkey and eventually through the maritime route migrating into Europe.