The earliest evidence of full domestication of a plant species is of rye from Abu Hureyra. Evidence of domesticated wheat and barley comes from site in the Jordan Valley and southern Syria in the early aceramic Neolithic. By the later aceramic Neolithic cultivation became more intensified, at a time when the climate was improving, implying that intensification was not caused by environmental change, but rather population pressure or other factors.
By around BC, domesticated cereals are found widely around the "hilly flanks" zone. Hunting and Herding Southwest Asia also had the most potential animal domesticates. The identification of animal domestication is complex and difficult, though animal bones survive better than plant remains, with the best evidence coming from long-lived settlement sites.
Animal domestication may have occurred later than plant domestication, but still around the transition between the earlier and later aceramic Neolithic. Bruce Smith has noted that the earliest dates for domesticated sheep and goats come from areas where they were most hunted. The earliest domesticated goats have been found at Ganj Dareh in Iran and the earliest domesticated sheep at sites in southeast Turkey and northern Syria. Evidence for the domestication of pigs and cattle also come from the same region, at a similar time.
Mixed Farming Economies There are many more settlements known from the later aceramic Neolithic than the early aceramic Neolithic. Is this evidence of expanding population? Did the production of more food encourage population expansion, or did population pressure force adoption of new subsistence strategies? This is still the topic of debate and research. The Evidence of Ali Kosh. Ali Kosh lies where wild resources and domesticates could both flourish.
Far from wild sheep's natural habitat, sheep bones indicate that animals were brought already controlled and managed. Successive strata show mud-brick buildings becoming larger, more complex and substantially built, and proportions of cultivated vs. Paleobotanists believe that the "founder" species was domesticated only once, subsequently spread by local diffusion. Only a couple of large early aceramic Neolithic settlements are known, but there are many large communities in the later aceramic Neolithic.
This had important social and ecological implications. Social Exchange and Networking Obsidian and marine shells occur hundreds of kilometers from their sources. Obsidian trade networks, as well as four key sources, were identified by Colin Renfrew: two in central and two in eastern Turkey. Artifacts can be traced to these sources.
Distance from the source caused rapidly declining usage. Renfrew proposed "down-the-line" exchange networks, where communities kept and used a proportion of obsidian acquired, and then exchanged the rest with those further away. At distant sites, only one in a thousand stone items is obsidian, where it was probably used in social exchanges, where gifts are tokens of the social relations between parties. The complex technology of blade production -- naviform or bipolar cores -- was also widespread across the region in the later aceramic Neolithic, further illustrating how communities chose to participate in a shared lithic industry, especially projectile points.
Shared cultural traits grew in number and expanded territorially during the later aceramic Neolithic. Originally termed PPNB, different archaeologists use different traits to define the culture, making it difficult to define and map.
Jacques Cauvin saw PPNB culture as dominant and expansionist, adopted by local communities over their indigenous culture, and carried farther by an expanding population. Alternatively, Colin Renfrew's model of peer polity interaction explains the PPNB phenomenon as an interaction sphere, the result of cultural exchange between previously separate groups. Probably due to factors of symbolic significance, more and more communities chose to join this attractive, dynamic sphere by adopting certain cultural practices on their own terms -- technological, architectural, ritual, or mortuary -- displaying no over-arching cultural uniformity as Cauvin suggested.
The Levant In only a few centuries after intensified farming began, a total system collapse or a major social transformation occurred in the Levant. Jericho and many late aceramic Neolithic settlements were abandoned during the later 8th millennium BC, and were replaced with only a few small, ephemeral sites, in contrast to the substantial aceramic Neolithic sites.
Explanations include the end of a climatic optimum with increased aridification, but evidence is slight. Beneath this lie two further superimposed architectural phases, the whole underlain by a layer with human burials. The site is notable for a series of exquisitely preserved artefact clusters, such as a unique bone double-sickle cached with other sets of stone tools, bone beads and colored pebbles; and several sets of carefully stacked basalts and mortars. It has yielded a rich and varied repertoire of rock-art ranging from large rock slabs incorporated into the walls of a dwelling, to small incised limestone plaques.
It has a varied assemblage of basalt artefacts, and over bone artefacts which include the largest known collection of bone sickles known from any Natufian site.
Other materials include red and yellow ochre, marine Dentalium shells imported for bead manufacture; and a taxonomically diverse fauna. Masks are required for all visitors. Laura Anne Tedesco Independent Scholar. After the last Ice Age, as the climate became warmer and rainfall more abundant, the nomadic population of the eastern Mediterranean began to establish the first permanent settlements.
During this period of scientific exploration, hundreds of sites were uncovered, not just Natufian but also from preceding and succeeding periods. These archaeological activities contributed enormously to our current understanding of the prehistoric record of this region.
The Natufians were the first people of the eastern Mediterranean area to establish permanent villages. Prior to the Natufians, bands of people had moved seasonally, to follow animals for hunting and to gather available plants.
The Natufians, while still hunters and foragers, settled in villages year-round, relying on the natural resources of their immediate area. These resources included gazelle, wild cereals, and marine life. Natufian grave goods are typically made of shell, teeth of red deer , bones, and stone. There are pendants, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and belt-ornaments as well.
Stone and bone were worked into pendants and other ornaments. There are a few human figurines made of limestone El-Wad, Ain Mallaha, Ain Sakhri , but the favourite subject of representative art seems to have been animals.
Ostrich-shell containers have been found in the Negev. In , the grave of a seemingly important 12,years-old Natufian woman was discovered in a ceremonial pit in Hilazon Tachtit cave in northern Israel.
Media reports referred to this person as a shaman. She was buried with remains of at least three aurochs and 86 tortoises, all of which are thought to have been brought to the site during a funeral feast. Her body was surrounded by tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard, forearm of a wild boar, wingtip of a golden eagle, and skull of a stone marten. These objects have been found in scores of Natufian sites. Their decoration of geometric motifs almost surely served as a form of visual communication, perhaps to demonstrate ownership of the objects by an individual or to indicate affiliation with a particular group or geographic area.
Natufian art, while it follows some of the same representational conventions of the European Paleolithic in its naturalistic and sensitive portrayal of animals, reflects a new awareness of individual identity and social life. Natufian burials, often placed in close proximity to the homes of the living, contain elaborate jewelry made of bone, shell, and stone.
These materials, readily available in the Mediterranean landscape, were fashioned by skilled artists and marked the social standing of the Natufians' buried ancestors.
Natufian representations of humans are both schematic and naturalistic. Traces of the artist's tool marks are still visible. The eyes, formed by three concentric curving lines, dominate the lower portion of the face, which has been bisected by a broad horizontal band across the center of the stone.
The eyes are disproportionately large and yet there was no attempt to delineate pupils. The nose and forehead are exceptionally broad. The upper portion of the head, slightly damaged, is incised with diagonal lines, which may represent hair or ornamentation. The base is flat, indicating that it was probably intended to sit upright. Natufian art, it is believed, was linked to the practice of rituals and ceremonies.
In their newly settled hamlets, the Natufians may have used their superbly carved sculptures, animal figurines, and jewelry to represent beliefs commonly held across communities, and to differentiate status among individual community members. The emergence of Natufian art in the Levant, where previously almost none had existed, appears to indicate a shared ideology and visual culture that probably derived from the Natufians' shared environment and newfound life as settled hunters and gatherers.
New York: Oxford University Press, The Natufian people lived by hunting and gathering. The preservation of plant remains at Natufian sites is poor because of the soil conditions, but wild cereals, legumes, almonds, acorns and pistachios may have been collected. Animal bones show that gazelle Gazella gazella and Gazella subgutturosa were the main prey. Deer, aurochs and wild boar were hunted in the steppe zone, as well as onagers and caprids ibex.
Water fowl and freshwater fish formed part of the diet in the Jordan River valley. Animal bones from Salibiya have been interpreted as evidence for communal hunts with nets. A pita-like bread dated to
0コメント