Natufian culture

Natufian culture
A map of the Levant with Natufian regions across present-day Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and a long arm extending into Lebanon and Syria
Geographical rangeLevant, Western Asia
PeriodEpipaleolithic
Dates15,000–11,500 BP
Type siteShuqba cave, in Wadi Natuf
Major sitesShuqba cave, Ain Mallaha, Ein Gev, Tell Abu Hureyra
Preceded byKebaran, Mushabian
Followed byKhiamian, Shepherd Neolithic, Pre-Pottery Neolithic

Natufian culture (/nəˈtuːfiən/[1] nə-TOO-fee-ən) is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Neolithic prehistoric[2] Levant in 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 BC, 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, notably 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.

  1. ^ "Natufian". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. ^ a b Moore, Andrew M. T.; Hillman, Gordon C.; Legge, Anthony J. (2000), Village on the Euphrates: From Foraging to Farming at Abu Hureyra, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-510806-4
  3. ^ Grosman, Leore (2013). "The Natufian Chronological Scheme – New Insights and their Implications". In Bar-Yosef, Ofer; Valla, François R. (eds.). Natufian Foragers in the Levant: Terminal Pleistocene Social Changes in Western Asia (1 ed.). New York: Berghahn Books. pp. 622–627. doi:10.2307/j.ctv8bt33h. ISBN 978-1-879621-45-9. JSTOR j.ctv8bt33h – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ Arranz-Otaegui, Amaia; Gonzalez Carretero, Lara; Ramsey, Monica N.; Fuller, Dorian Q.; Richter, Tobias (31 July 2018). "Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (31): 7925–7930. Bibcode:2018PNAS..115.7925A. doi:10.1073/pnas.1801071115. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 6077754. PMID 30012614.
  5. ^ Liu, Li; Wang, Jiajing; Rosenberg, Danny; Zhao, Hao; Lengyel, György; Nadel, Dani (1 October 2018). "Fermented beverage and food storage in 13,000 y-old stone mortars at Raqefet Cave, Israel: Investigating Natufian ritual feasting". Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. 21: 783–793. Bibcode:2018JArSR..21..783L. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.08.008. ISSN 2352-409X. S2CID 165595175.
  6. ^ Eitam, David (2019). "'Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of [beer]!' (R.L. Stevenson) no beer but rather cereal-Food. Commentary: Liu et al. 2018". Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. 28: 101913. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101913. S2CID 198454176.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kottak2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Lazaridis, Iosif; Nadel, Dani; Rollefson, Gary; Merrett, Deborah C.; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan; Fernandes, Daniel; Novak, Mario; Gamarra, Beatriz; Sirak, Kendra; Connell, Sarah; Stewardson, Kristin; Harney, Eadaoin; Fu, Qiaomei; Gonzalez-Fortes, Gloria; Jones, Eppie R.; Roodenberg, Songül Alpaslan; Lengyel, György; Bocquentin, Fanny; Gasparian, Boris; Monge, Janet M.; Gregg, Michael; Eshed, Vered; Mizrahi, Ahuva-Sivan; Meiklejohn, Christopher; Gerritsen, Fokke; Bejenaru, Luminita; Blüher, Matthias; Campbell, Archie; Cavalleri, Gianpiero; Comas, David; Froguel, Philippe; Gilbert, Edmund; Kerr, Shona M.; Kovacs, Peter; Krause, Johannes; McGettigan, Darren; Merrigan, Michael; Merriwether, D. Andrew; O'Reilly, Seamus; Richards, Martin B.; Semino, Ornella; Shamoon-Pour, Michel; Stefanescu, Gheorghe; Stumvoll, Michael; Tönjes, Anke; Torroni, Antonio; Wilson, James F.; Yengo, Loic; Hovhannisyan, Nelli A.; Patterson, Nick; Pinhasi, Ron; Reich, David (2016). "Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East" (PDF). Nature. 536 (7617): 419–424. Bibcode:2016Natur.536..419L. doi:10.1038/nature19310. PMC 5003663. 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 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."