Reassessing the Emergence of Village Life in the Near East

Byrd, Brian F.

doi:10.1007/s10814-005-3107-2

Cited by 145 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 113 publications

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“…Although archaeological evidence indicates significant abandonment of settlement towards the desert edge at this time (Hillman et al, 2001), there was clear cultural continuity in better-watered regions nearer to the coast through the late Natufian period (ca. 13-11.7 ka;Byrd, 2005). Pollen records show that vegetation in the Levant retained a significant cover of oaks and other trees during the Lateglacial Stadial and that wild cereal stands continued to be present (Rosen, 2007a).…”

Section: Regional Synthesis Of Eastern Mediterranean Fire Activity Dumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is archaeological evidence for substantial village communities throughout the Levant during the early Holocene; for example, in the Jordan Valley, the Damascus Basin and along the middle Euphrates River (Bar-Yosef, 1998;Byrd, 2005). It has been hypothesised that the proto-agricultural practices developed during the Lateglacial Stadial continued for at least a thousand years alongside communities based on advanced hunting-foraging, before being widely adopted as fully fledged farming during the PPNB and spreading out into Anatolia and beyond (Bar-Yosef, 1998;Colledge et al, 2004).…”

Section: Regional Synthesis Of Eastern Mediterranean Fire Activity Dumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire, climate and the origins of agriculture: micro‐charcoal records of biomass burning during the last glacial–interglacial transition in Southwest Asia

Turner

Roberts

Eastwood

et al. 2009

J Quaternary Science

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This study investigates changes in climate, vegetation, wildfire and human activity in Southwest Asia during the transition to Neolithic agriculture between ca. 16 and ca. 9 ka. In order to trace the fire history of this region, we use microscopic charcoal from lake sediment sequences, and present two new records: one from south central Turkey (Akgöl) and the other from the southern Levant (Hula). These are interpreted primarily as the result of regional‐scale fire events, with the exception of a single large event ca. 13 ka at Akgöl, which phytolith analysis shows was the result of burning of the local marsh vegetation. Comparison between these and other regional micro‐charcoal, stable isotope and pollen records shows that wildfires were least frequent when the climate was cold and dry (glacial, Lateglacial Stadial) and the vegetation dominated by chenopod–Artemisia steppe, and that they became more frequent and/or bigger at times of warmer, wetter but seasonally dry climate (Lateglacial Interstadial, early Holocene). Warmer and wetter climates caused an increase in biomass availability, with woody matter appearing to provide the main fuel source in sites from the Levant, while grass fires predominated in the interior uplands of Anatolia. Southwest Asia's grasslands reached their greatest extent during the early Holocene, and they were maintained by dry‐season burning that helped to delay the spread of woodland by up to 3 ka, at the same time as Neolithic settlement became established across this grass parkland landscape. Although climatic changes appear to have acted as the principal ‘pacemaker’ for fire activity through the last glacial–interglacial climatic transition (LGIT), human actions may have amplified shifts in biomass burning. Fire regimes therefore changed markedly during this time period, and both influenced, and were influenced by, the cultural‐economic transition from hunter‐foraging to agriculture and village life. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Regional Synthesis Of Eastern Mediterranean Fire Activity Dumentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Regional Synthesis Of Eastern Mediterranean Fire Activity Dumentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire, climate and the origins of agriculture: micro‐charcoal records of biomass burning during the last glacial–interglacial transition in Southwest Asia

Turner

Roberts

Eastwood

et al. 2009

J Quaternary Science

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“…The leading argument for the abandonment of a more or less sedentary lifestyle is an imbalance between human populations and their food resources related to a reduction in biomass production brought on by cool and dry conditions attributed to the YD (16,17). Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen (13) argue that experimentation with plant cultivation, triggered by the need to increase food production in response to declining resource abundance, ultimately lead to the beginning of agriculture at the onset of the Holocene.…”

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confidence: 99%

Hunted gazelles evidence cooling, but not drying, during the Younger Dryas in the southern Levant

Hartman

Bar‐Yosef

Brittingham

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The climatic downturn known globally as the Younger Dryas (YD; ∼12,900-11,500 BP) has frequently been cited as a prime mover of agricultural origins and has thus inspired enthusiastic debate over its local impact. This study presents seasonal climatic data from the southern Levant obtained from the sequential sampling of gazelle tooth carbonates from the Early and Late Natufian archaeological sites of Hayonim and Hilazon Tachtit Caves (western Galilee, Israel). Our results challenge the entrenched model that assumes that warm temperatures and high precipitation are synonymous with climatic amelioration and cold and wet conditions are combined in climatic downturns. Enamel carbon isotope values from teeth of human-hunted gazelle dating before and during the YD provide a proxy measure for water availability during plant growth. They reveal that although the YD was cooler, it was not drier than the preceding Bølling-Allerød. In addition, the magnitude of the seasonal curve constructed from oxygen isotopes is significantly dampened during the YD, indicating that cooling was most pronounced in the growing season. Cool temperatures likely affected the productivity of staple wild cereal resources. We hypothesize that human groups responded by shifting settlement strategies-increasing population mobility and perhaps moving to the warmer Jordan Valley where wild cereals were more productive and stable.paleoclimate | stable isotopes | δ 13 C | δ 18 O | Natufian

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“…Where there is a concentration of rich natural resources this sometimes happens but around this time the Near East was probably the place in the world where sedentary hunter-gatherers were most common by far. Some even think sedentism more important than agriculture or discuss such hunter-gatherers as 'complex' or 'domesticated' (see Byrd 2005;Hayden 1995: 277-8;Watkins 2006Watkins , 2010. Permanent settlements over a large area, restricting traditional hunter-gatherer nomadic movements, would seem to indicate an unusually dense population.…”

Section: Göbekli Tepe and The Beginning Of Farmingmentioning

confidence: 99%