Preagricultural Sedentism: The Natufian Example

Gazelle bone fat processing in the Levantine Epipalaeolithic

“…One of the best documented is a change at the end of the Epipalaeolithicdsmall game increase in relative abundance [1,33,34,71,90,95,96,97,99], and particularly fast-moving small animals. Remains of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) also increase in abundance in relation to other ungulate taxa [31,46,55,98,99] and there are increased proportions of juvenile [32,71,94] and male gazelles [4,28,98,99]. This may point to an intensive gazelle economy during the Late Epipalaeolithic.…”

The Garbage Crisis in prehistory: artefact discard patterns at the Early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 and the origins of household refuse disposal strategies

“…Subsequently other researchers argued the case for the Natufian open sites as settlements of sedentary peoples (Bar-Yosef and Kislev, 1989;Henry, 1985;Tchernov, 1984). Edwards (1989) questioned the straightforward attribution of perennial sedentism to the larger Natufian sites, where sedentism was interpreted as meaning only year-on-year, perennial settlement residence; that is, as if Natufian hunter-gatherers radiated from their abodes on a more-or-less permanent basis upon the food quest, in the manner of traditional agrarian villagers.…”

Pathways to Power

“…Other archaeolOgical examples that I would propose include the Natufian in the Levant with rich child burials (Henry 1985), Early and Middle Jomon communities in Japan, the Indian Knoll community with wealthy child burials (Rothschild 1979), the Late period Chumash with their abundance of regionally exchanged beads and still-elevated levels of violent death (King 1978(King , 1990Lambert 1992;Lambert and Walker 1991), the late prehistoric Iroquois, some Basketmaker and early Pueblo villages (lightfoot and Feinman 1982), some European Upper Paleolithic groups, and the European Neolithic causewayed enclosure communities where feasting, ritual, and sometimes violent conflict were prominent (Clarke et al 1985:134). Also of importance is the explicit link between these developments and an increase in resource production (Clarke et al 1985:134;King 1990:117-118).…”