Natalie D. Munro

The Tortoise and the Hare. Small-Game Use, the Broad-Spectrum Revolution, and Paleolithic Demography.

This study illustrates the potential of small-game data for identifying and dating Paleolithic demographic pulses such as those associated with modern human origins and the later evolution of food-producing economies. Archaeofaunal series from Israel and Italy serve as our examples. Three important implications of this study are that (1) early Middle Paleolithic populations were exceptionally small and highly dispersed, (2) the first major population growth pulse in the eastern Mediterranean probably occurred before the end of the Middle Paleolithic, and (3) subsequent demographic pulses in the Upper and Epi-Paleolithic greatly reshaped the conditions of selection that operated on human subsistence ecology, technology, and society. The findings of this study are consistent with the main premise of Flannerys broad-spectrum-revolution hypothesis. However, ranking small prey in terms of work of capture (in the absence of special harvesting tools) proved far more effective in this investigation of human diet breadth than have the taxonomic-diversity analyses published previously.

The Tortoise and the Hare

This study illustrates the potential of small‐game data for identifying and dating Paleolithic demographic pulses such as those associated with modern human origins and the later evolution of food‐producing economies. Archaeofaunal series from Israel and Italy serve as our examples. Three important implications of this study are that (1) early Middle Paleolithic populations were exceptionally small and highly dispersed, (2) the first major population growth pulse in the eastern Mediterranean probably occurred before the end of the Middle Paleolithic, and (3) subsequent demographic pulses in the Upper and Epi‐Paleolithic greatly reshaped the conditions of selection that operated on human subsistence ecology, technology, and society. The findings of this study are consistent with the main premise of Flannerys broad‐spectrum‐revolution hypothesis. However, ranking small prey in terms of work of capture (in the absence of special harvesting tools) proved far more effective in this investigation of human diet breadth than have the taxonomic‐diversity analyses published previously.

Zooarchaeological Measures of Hunting Pressure and Occupation Intensity in the Natufian

Climatic change, population pressure, and environmental stress are frequently cited as major catalysts for the adoption of agriculture. The role of these factors immediately prior to the agricultural transition in the southern Levant is here explored by reconstructing human economic and demographic conditions in the Natufian period. Thorough processing of gazelle carcasses for edible products including meat, marrow, and bone grease and the capture of abundant juvenile animals reflect intensive yet stable ungulateprocurement strategies across the Natufian. Despite this stability, a dramatic shift in the ratio of high to lowranked game at the Early/Late Natufian boundary signals a reduction in siteoccupation intensity and increased population mobility immediately prior to the agricultural transition. Contrary to current models, the faunal evidence suggests not that agriculture was adopted in immediate response to the cooling and drying of the Younger Dryas but that the Late Natufians embraced more costeffective demographic solutions for coping with environmental stress.

Approaches to Prehistoric Diet Breadth, Demography, and Prey Ranking Systems in Time and Space

Zooarchaeological data on small game use hold much potential for identifying and dating Paleolithic demographic pulses in time and space, such as those associated with modern human origins and the evolution of food-producing economies. Although small animals were important to human diets throughout the Middle, Upper, and Epi-Paleolithic periods in the Mediterranean Basin, the types of small prey emphasized by foragers shifted dramatically over the last 200,000 years. Slow-growing, slow-moving tortoises, and marine mollusks dominate the Middle Paleolithic record of small game exploitation. Later, agile, fast-maturing animals became increasingly important in human diets, first birds in the early Upper Paleolithic, and soon thereafter hares and rabbits. While the findings of this study are consistent with the main premise of Flannerys Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR) hypothesis (Flannery, K. V. (1969). In Ucko, P. J., and Dimbleby, G. W. (eds.), The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago, pp. 73–100), it is now clear that human diet breadth began to expand much earlier than the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. Ranking small prey in terms of work of capture (in the absence of special harvesting tools) proves far more effective in this investigation of human diet breadth than taxonomy-based diversity analyses published previously. Our analyses expose a major shift in human predator–prey dynamics involving small game animals by 50–40 KYA in the Mediterranean Basin, with earliest population growth pulses occurring in the Levant. In a separate application to the Natufian period (13–10 KYA), just prior to the rise of Neolithic societies in the Levant, great intensification is apparent from small game use. This effect is most pronounced at the onset of this short culture period, and is followed by an episode of local depopulation during the Younger Dryas, without further changes in the nature of Natufian hunting adaptations. An essential feature of the diachronic and synchronic approaches outlined here is controlling the potentially conflating effects of spatial (biogeographic) and temporal variation in the faunal data sets.

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

The Natufians of the southern Levant (15,000–11,500 cal BP) underwent pronounced socioeconomic changes associated with the onset of sedentism and the shift from a foraging to farming lifestyle. Excavations at the 12,000-year-old Natufian cave site, Hilazon Tachtit (Israel), have revealed a grave that provides a rare opportunity to investigate the ideological shifts that must have accompanied these socioeconomic changes. The grave was constructed and specifically arranged for a petite, elderly, and disabled woman, who was accompanied by exceptional grave offerings. The grave goods comprised 50 complete tortoise shells and select body-parts of a wild boar, an eagle, a cow, a leopard, and two martens, as well as a complete human foot. The interment rituals and the method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this is the burial of a shaman, one of the earliest known from the archaeological record. Several attributes of this burial later become central in the spiritual arena of human cultures worldwide.

Early evidence (ca. 12,000 B.P.) for feasting at a burial cave in Israel

Feasting is one of humanitys most universal and unique social behaviors. Although evidence for feasting is common in the early agricultural societies of the Neolithic, evidence in pre-Neolithic contexts is more elusive. We found clear evidence for feasting on wild cattle and tortoises at Hilazon Tachtit cave, a Late Epipaleolithic (12,000 calibrated years B.P.) burial site in Israel. This includes unusually high densities of butchered tortoise and wild cattle remains in two structures, the unique location of the feasting activity in a burial cave, and the manufacture of two structures for burial and related feasting activities. The results indicate that community members coalesced at Hilazon to engage in special rituals to commemorate the burial of the dead and that feasts were central elements in these important events. Feasts likely served important roles in the negotiation and solidification of social relationships, the integration of communities, and the mitigation of scalar stress. These and other social changes in the Natufian period mark significant changes in human social complexity that continued into the Neolithic period. Together, social and economic change signal the very beginning of the agricultural transition.

A forager–herder trade-off, from broad-spectrum hunting to sheep management at Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey

Significance This article provides original results on the formative conditions of sheep domestication in the Near East. To our knowledge, none of the results has been published before, and the results are expected to be of wide interest to archaeologists, biologists, and other professionals interested in evolutionary and cultural processes of animal domestication. Aşıklı Höyük is the earliest known preceramic Neolithic mound site in Central Anatolia. The oldest Levels, 4 and 5, spanning 8,200 to approximately 9,000 cal B.C., associate with round-house architecture and arguably represent the birth of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in the region. Results from upper Level 4, reported here, indicate a broad meat diet that consisted of diverse wild ungulate and small animal species. The meat diet shifted gradually over just a few centuries to an exceptional emphasis on caprines (mainly sheep). Age-sex distributions of the caprines in upper Level 4 indicate selective manipulation by humans by or before 8,200 cal B.C. Primary dung accumulations between the structures demonstrate that ruminants were held captive inside the settlement at this time. Taken together, the zooarchaeological and geoarchaeological evidence demonstrate an emergent process of caprine management that was highly experimental in nature and oriented to quick returns. Stabling was one of the early mechanisms of caprine population isolation, a precondition to domestication.

A Holistic Approach to Examining Ancient Agriculture

Agriculture provided the foundation for the development and sustenance of Bronze and Iron Age civilizations in the Near East, yet remarkably little is known about how its practice varied across the region at this time. Archaeobotany and zooarchaeology have been used independently to study ancient agriculture, but there is a dire need for a more comprehensive and holistic approach, one that integrates the two data sets and better represents the reality of food production. Correspondence analysis can be an effective tool for quantitatively integrating regional Bronze and Iron Age plant and animal data spanning Syria and Jordan. Distinct regional patterns of food production and wild resource use are evident. The main variable driving this trend is available moisture. Theoretically, the method outlined here can be applied to any region and time period.

Nahal Ein Gev II, a Late Natufian Community at the Sea of Galilee

The Natufian culture is of great importance as a starting point to investigate the dynamics of the transition to agriculture. Given its chronological position at the threshold of the Neolithic (ca. 12,000 years ago) and its geographic setting in the productive Jordan Valley, the site of Nahal Ein Gev II (NEG II) reveals aspects of the Late Natufian adaptations and its implications for the transition to agriculture. The size of the site, the thick archaeological deposits, invested architecture and multiple occupation sub-phases reveal a large, sedentary community at least on par with Early Natufian camps in the Mediterranean zone. Although the NEG II lithic tool kit completely lacks attributes typical of succeeding Pre Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) assemblages, the artistic style is more closely related to the early PPNA world, despite clear roots in Early Natufian tradition. The site does not conform to current perceptions of the Late Natufians as a largely mobile population coping with reduced resource productivity caused by the Younger Dryas. Instead, the faunal and architectural data suggest that the sedentary populations of the Early Natufian did not revert back to a nomadic way of life in the Late Natufian in the Jordan Valley. NEG II encapsulates cultural characteristics typical of both Natufian and PPNA traditions and thus bridges the crossroads between Late Paleolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers.

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

Significance The Terminal Pleistocene Younger Dryas (YD) event is frequently described as a return to glacial conditions. In the southern Levant it has featured prominently in explanations for the transition to agriculture—one of the most significant transformations in human history. This study provides rare local measures of the YD by deriving gazelle isotopic values from archaeological deposits formed by Natufian hunters just prior to and during the YD. The results provide evidence for cooling, but not drying during the YD and help reconcile contradicting climatic reconstructions in the southern Levant. We suggest that cooler conditions likely instigated the establishment of settlements in the Jordan Valley where warmer, more stable conditions enabled higher cereal biomass productivity and ultimately, the transition to agriculture. 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.