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Project: Physical and cultural landscapes: Transition from forager to farmer in the southern Levant Principal Investigator: Dr. Lisa A. Maher Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Sites in Jordan and Israel indicate that in the Late Pleistocene, hunter-gatherers shifted towards life in aggregated semi-permanent communities. This period of Levantine prehistory is known as the Epipalaeolithic and it spans from 20 000 to 10 200 years before the present(BP). It is recognised archaeologically by the sudden presence and abundance of very small stone tool elements (microliths), which were hafted into composite hunting and harvesting tools. Also appearing for the first time were new developments in technology, economy, artistic expression, semi-permanent architecture, settlement and social organisation – necessary pre-conditions for agricultural life in the Neolithic. These gradual changes did not occur all at once. Furthermore, the impetuses for these changes, and why only some groups adopted them, are poorly understood.
My research is focussed on exploring inter-group interaction throughout the southern Levant during this period in order to provide a broader perspective within which to explore the relationships between prehistoric groups in the region. Middle Epipalaeolithic groups occupying southern Jordan and Israel have shown behavioural and cultural similarities with groups from northern Africa (Bar-Yosef 1987, Goring-Morris 1987). Yet their relationship to contemporary groups in northern Jordan and Israel remain unknown. Although focussed in Jordan , this research will also attempt to place the Jordanian material within the larger context of Late Pleistocene group mobility, adaptation, and culture change.
Over 30 years of research have helped us understand the important developments of the Epipalaeolithic. Survey and excavations in the river valleys and the eastern and southern deserts of Jordan (Clark, et al. 1987, Edwards 2001, Garrard, et al. 1994, Henry 1995, Maher 2002, Muheisen 1988, Neeley 1997) have revealed numerous sites spanning the entire Late Pleistocene. As a result, we have a relatively detailed picture of some areas, while others represent a terra incognita . Furthermore, our understanding of the relationships between landscape change and culture change, as expressed through material culture, remains sparse. My research represents an opportunity to link these findings together and form a cohesive, detailed understanding of Epipalaeolithic land-use and culture change.
My research aims to expand our knowledge, both temporally and geographically, to provide a large-scale, comprehensive, regional picture of the shift from small groups of mobile hunter-gatherers to large, interconnected farming communities. I hypothesize that the advent of agriculturally-based societies represents the culmination of several important technological, social, and economic changes that manifest themselves in the archaeological record beginning in the Early Epipalaeolithic, ca. 20 000 years BP (Byrd 1998, Kaufman 1989) . The proposed research will to provide insights into how our findings from northern Jordan relate to other nearby, culturally contemporary sites.
All early models for Epipalaeolithic culture change, including those surrounding the origins of agriculture, have identified environmental fluctuations as a causal factor and relied upon changes in toolkits as indicators of this change (Bar-Yosef 1998, Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen 1989, Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen 1991, Henry 1983, Henry 1989) . However, these approaches downplay the dynamic relationships between people and their surroundings. Rather than simply assuming that climate change directly caused culture change, I argue that the process is much more complex, involving more than just economic decision-making. I will test this hypothesis by examining evidence in artefact collections, as well as incorporate palaeolandscape evidence where possible, to reconstruct the potential relationships between climate, landscapes, behaviour, and the material culture expressions of emergent social complexity.
Excavation at a Middle Epipalaeolithic encampment, called ‘Uyyun al-Hammam, involves an ongoing programme reconstructing Middle Epipalaeolithic climatic conditions and occupational areas through geoarchaeological methods. The remains of several human interments at this site are notable because Middle Epipalaeolithic human remains are extremely rare. Our research will provide critical data on regional biological and cultural affinities, as well as on prehistoric technology, adaptation, and health . With collaborative research at LCHES, we can begin to place Jordan in a larger context of human diversity and population movements to better understand how these Late Pleistocene groups were related to those in North Africa and Arabia .
References
Bar-Yosef, O. 1998 The Natufian Culture in the Levant: Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture. Evolutionary Anthropology :159-177.
Bar-Yosef, O. and A. Belfer-Cohen. 1989 The origins of sedentism and farming communities in the Levant. Journal of World Prehistory 3:447-498.
Bar-Yosef, O. and A. Belfer-Cohen. 1991 From sedentary hunter-gatherers to territorial farmers in the Levant . In Between Bands and States , edited by S. Gregg, pp. 181-202. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; Center for Archaeological Investigations, Carbondale.
Byrd, B. F. 1998 Spanning the Gap from the Upper Paleolithic to the Natufian: The Early and Middle Epipaleolithic . In The Prehistoric Archaeology of Jordan , edited by D. O. Henry, pp. 64-82. British Archaeological Reports. vol. 705. Archaeopress, Oxford.
Clark, G. A., J. Lindly, M. Donaldson, A. Garrard, N. Coinman, J. Schuldenrein, S. Fish and D. Olszewski. 1987 Palaeolithic archaeology in the Southern Levant. A Preliminary report of excavations at Middle, Upper, and Epipalaeolithic sites in Wadi el-Hasa, West-central Jordan. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 31:19-78.
Edwards, P. C. 2001 Nine Millennia by Lake Lisan: The Epipalaeolithic in the East Jordan Valley Between 20, 000 and 11, 000 Years Ago . In Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan VII , edited by G. Bisheh, pp. 85-93. Department of Antiquity of Jordan, Amman.
Garrard, A., D. Baird, S. Colledge, L. Martin and K. Wright. 1994 Prehistoric environment and settlement in the Azraq Basin: an interim report on the 1987 and 1988 excavation seasons. Levant 26:73-109.
Henry, D. O. 1983 Adaptive evolution within the Epipalaeolithic of the Near East. Advances in World Archaeology 2:99-160.
Henry, D. O. 1989 From Foraging to Agriculture: the Levant at the End of the Ice Age . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
Henry, D. O. 1995 Prehistoric Cultural Ecology and Evolution: Insights from Southern Jordan . Plenum Press, New York.
Kaufman, D. 1989 Observations on the Geometric Kebaran: a view from Neve David . In Investigations in South Levantine Prehistory. Préhitoire du Sud-Levant , edited by O. Bar-Yosef and B. Vandermeersch, pp. 275-286. BAR International Series. vol. 497. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
Maher, L., Lohr, M., M. Betts, Parslow, C., and E.B. Banning 2002 Middle Epipalaeolithic Sites in Wadi Ziqlab, Northern Jordan. Paléorient 27(1):5-19.
Muheisen, M. 1988 Le Gisement de Kharaneh IV, Note Summaire Sur la Phase D. Paléorient 14:265-269.
Neeley, M., G. A. Clark, J. Schuldenrein, and J.D. Peterson 1997 WHS1065 (Tor at-Tariq): An Epipalaeolithic Site in its Regional Context . In Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan VI , edited by G. Bisheh, pp. 219-225. Department of Antiquities of Jordan, Amman.
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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...My research is focussed on exploring inter-group interaction throughout the southern Levant during this period in order to provide a broader perspective within which to explore the relationships between prehistoric groups in the region. Middle Epipalaeolithic groups occupying southern Jordan and Israel have shown behavioural and cultural similarities with groups from northern Africa (Bar-Yosef 1987, Goring-Morris 1987). Yet their relationship to contemporary groups in northern Jordan and Israel remain unknown. Although focussed in Jordan , this research will also attempt to place the Jordanian material within the larger context of Late Pleistocene group mobility, adaptation, and culture change....
^Calls to mind the first discovery of the Natufians by scholars in 1932 when they uncovered what they first thought to be the remains of "negroid cannibals". Now only to realize that these were the founders of the Neolithic Revolution! Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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