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The collapse and resilience of political systems in the ancient Near East and their relationship with agricultural development have been of wide interest in archaeology and anthropology. Despite attempts to link the archaeological evidence to local paleoclimate data, the precise role of environmental conditions in ancient agricultural production remains poorly understood. Recently, stable isotope analysis has been used for reconstructing site-specific ancient growing conditions for crop species in semiarid and arid landscapes. To open the discussion of the role of regional diversity in past agricultural production as a factor in societal development, we present 1.037 new stable carbon isotope measurements from 33 archaeological sites and modern fields in the geographic area of the Fertile Crescent, spanning the Aceramic Neolithic [10,000 calibrated years (cal) B.C.] to the later Iron Age (500 cal B.C.), alongside modern data from 13 locations. Our data show that drought stress was an issue in many agricultural settlements in the ancient Near East, particularly in correlation with the major Holocene climatic fluctuations, but its regional impact was diverse and influenced by geographic factors. Although cereals growing in the coastal areas of the northern Levant were relatively unaffected by Holocene climatic fluctuations, farmers of regions further inland had to apply irrigation to cope with increased water stress. However, inland agricultural strategies showed a high degree of variability. Our findings suggest that regional differences in climatic effects led to diversified strategies in ancient subsistence and economy even within spatially limited cultural units.Holocene climate change | agricultural societies | aridity stress | Middle East | archaeobotanical crop species

Current research on the prehistory of the Near East is proceeding at a pace unmatched since the ‘golden era of archaeology’ immediately preceding World War II. Iran, because of its great archeological potential and its stable political situation, has become a prime target for new investigations. Expeditions from the United States, Great Britain, Denmark, France, and Japan have all made substantial contributions to knowledge of Iranian prehistory in the last five years.One recurrent problem in the new research, however, is a lack of coordination and communication between expeditions, which means that many opportunities for useful cooperation are lost. For example, in 1961 we surveyed in some 15 valleys in western Iran, plotting the distribution of pre-Uruk settlements. Unbeknown to us, at least one American and one Danish survey team crossed our path, duplicated many of our survey runs, and excavated one of the sites found on our project. We later learned that we, in turn, had duplicated several survey runs made previously by a British team, who were interested mainly in later sites but would have been happy to share their data on sites in our range of interest. Had all of us known what our colleagues were doing, we could have saved ourselves many hours of duplication.This situation is worsened by the fact that many surveys and test-excavations remain unpublished, and diagnostic artifacts remain undescribed. With regard to pottery sequences, the urgency of the problem has recently been stressed by one of our colleagues (Young 1966: footnote 28).

The time, place, and reasons for thejrst domestication of cereals and legumes in the Near East can now be securely identzjed using combined evidence from paleoenvironmental studies, models of ecosystem dynamics, and regional archeology. The heartland of domestication was the Jordan Val19 and surrounding region in the Southern Levant. Approximately 10,000 years ago, people began planting crops where the wild ancestral species had proliferated over two millenia. Impetus for domestication camejom the synergistic effects of climatic change, anthropogenic environmental change, technological change, and social innovation. A t the end of the Pleistocene, after a long period of climatic instabilio, a mediterranean climate more strongly seasonal than any today emerged with hyper-arid summers that selected f o r annual species of cereals and legumes. This occurred long after people had invented tools suitable for grinding hard seeds, but the new, lengthy dry season and consequent need to use storedfoods encouraged sedentism among human groups who subsequently depleted their immediate environments of wild resources. These preconditions facilitated the development of agriculture. The scenario developed here is speczjic to the Near East, for such case studies of spec@ factors in independent regions of domestication are essential before we attempt to explain cases all over the world with reference to global causes. ESPITE 50 YEARS OF ARCHEOLOGICAL ATTENTION to the earliest village sites and D traces of domesticated plants and animals in the Near East, doubts remain about whether the origins of agriculture (a) constituted a rapid shift or slow change (Bar-Yosef and Kislev 1989; Moore 1982; Perrot 1968), (b) lie earlier in time than heretofore documented (Braidwood and Braidwood 1986; Garrod 1957;Moore 1982Moore , 1985 Moore , 1989, (c) occurred across the broad arc of the Fertile Crescent (Braidwood and Howe 1960; Flannery 1969; Maisels 1987;Moore 1982 Moore , 1989, or (d) occurred in regions as yet little explored (Hole 1984). Now for the first time, patterns of data in the context of ecological models allow us to place the origins of domestication in a specific geographic region and in a time frame of no more than a few hundred radiocarbon years. The location of plant domestication was the Southern Levant, specifically around the margins of evaporating lakes in the Jordan Valley.' The time of this event was the end of the Natufian cultural period, around 10,000 years ago.Several lines of evidence support these assertions. Most prehistorians agree that there had to be opportunity (that is, sufficient populations of the prerequisite plants), technology to use the plants effectively, a social organization that could cope with "delayed return" economies (Hole 1984), and need before people would alter their habits of acquiring food. Available evidence and theories indicate that these conditions were simultaneously present in the Jordan River basin earlier during the early Holocene, while the absence of any one of these critical ...