Place, Death, and the Transmission of Social Memory in Early Agricultural Communities of the Near Eastern Pre‐Pottery Neolithic

Seated Memory: New Insights into Near Eastern Neolithic Mortuary Variability from Tell Halula, Syria

“…While we agree with some of their arguments, other research (Asouti 2006;Kuijt 2004;Watkins 2008) has drawn attention to overlooked variability in cultural practices between members of different Neolithic communities and has called for increased debate as to the sources of variation at different scales. One, but by no means the only, example is the range of variation in burial practices in roughly contemporary settlements.…”

“…Comparison of Tell Halula with regional sites-such as Abu Hureyra, Mureybet, and Tell Ain el-Kerkh in Syria, Aşıklı, Ç ayönü, and Ç atal Höyük in Turkey (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003;Andrews, Molleson, and Boz 2005;Cauvin 1997;Esin and Harmankaya 1999;Moore and Molleson 2000;Ö zdogan 1999;Verhoeven 2002), and many other sites in the southern Levant, including Jericho, 'Ain Ghazal, Yiftahel, Kfar HaHoresh, Ghwair I, Nahal Hemar, Munhata, Tell Aswad, Wadi Shu'eib, and Beidha-allow us to understand that between 10,500 and 9500 BP people buried the dead in three areas of their settlements: in some form of shared repository, in a range of locations outside buildings, and inside residential buildings (Cornwall 1981;Goring-Morris 2000;Hershkovitz and Gopher 1990;Kirkbride 1968;Kuijt 2001Kuijt , 2008Kuijt and Goring-Morris 2002;Kurth and Röhrer-Ertl 1981;Rollefson 1998;Rollefson, Schmandt-Besserat, and Rose 1999; Rollefson, Simmons, and Kafafi 1992;Stordeur 2003).…”

The changing Neolithic household: Household autonomy and social segmentation, Tell Halula, Syria

“…Studies by a number researchers (e.g., Banning, 2003Banning, , 2011BarYosef, 2001;Byrd, 1994;Flannery, 1972Flannery, , 2002Kuijt, 2001Kuijt, , 2008Peterson, 2010) allows us to build a more nuanced understanding of the changing Neolithic household. The emergence of Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages between 10,500 and 9500 BP embodies profound changes in social organization, ritual, and economic systems.…”

A 12,000-year-old Shaman burial from the southern Levant (Israel)

“…Intensified social activity may, in part, explain the unprecedented fluorescence of symbolic activity observed in the Natufian (7). Nevertheless, to date there are nearly no indications of institutionalized social stratification (5,8) and most researchers have assumed that the Natufians maintained an egalitarian social system, typical of most past and present hunting-gathering societies [but see (9) and discussion in (10)]. Still, to enable people to share their living space and daily life with nonkin group members for prolonged periods, there was a need to incorporate new social regulatory mechanisms into the belief system (11).…”