ARTICLES
The Natufian Culture in the Levant,
Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture
OFER BAR-YOSEF
As with other crucial thresholds in
cultural evolution, the impact of the
‘‘Neolithic Revolution,’’ as it was la-
beled by V. G. Childe,
5
or the ‘‘incipient
cultivation and domestication’’ as it
was defined by R. Braidwood,
6
can
only be evaluated on the basis of its
outcome. I begin with a brief descrip-
tion of the cultural sequence of the
late hunter-gatherers who inhabited
the Near East until about 13,000 B.P.
7
These foragers, who had a variety of
subsistence strategies and types of an-
nual schedules, ranged from semi-
sedentary groups to small mobile
bands. The establishment of sedentary
Natufian hamlets in the Levant (Fig. 1)
marked a major organizational depar-
ture from the old ways of life. This was
followed by a second major socio-
economic threshold, characterized ar-
cheologically by Early Neolithic culti-
vators. This sequence of changes can
only be understood within the context
of the entire region and the shifting
paleobotanical conditions of the Le-
vant during this period.
I therefore begin with a brief descrip-
tion of the Levant and its natural
resources during the terminal Pleis-
tocene and early Holocene (18,000 to
9,000 B.P.: uncalibrated radio carbon
years
8
). During this period, the land-
scape of the Near East was not dry,
barren, and thorny as it appears today.
Using palynological, paleobotanical,
and geomorphological data, we are
able to propose instead a reconstruc-
tion of the spatial distribution of an
oak-dominated parkland and wood-
land that provided the highest bio-
mass of foods exploitable by humans.
This vegetational belt mostly covered
the Mediterranean coastal plains and
hilly ranges, as well as a few oases.
Recently published reports from the
excavated Late Paleolithic (or Epi-
Paleolithic), Natufian, and Neolithic
sites, together with this reconstruc-
tion of natural resources, allow us to
answer the questions of when and
where the Neolithic Revolution oc-
curred. However, we are still far from
providing a definitive answer to the
question of why it occurred.
Within the large region of the Near
East, recent archeological work has
demonstrated the importance of the
area known as the Mediterranean Le-
vant. Today it is one of the most re-
searched parts of the Near East.
1–4,9–18
It is therefore possible that the picture
I will draw is somewhat biased due to
the limited number of excavations else-
where, such as in western Iran, north-
ern Iraq, or southeast Turkey.
19–22
How-
ever, no field project outside of the
Levant has yet exposed any indication
of a prehistoric entity that resembles
the Natufian. As will become clear in
the following pages, such an entity can
be recognized through its combined
archeological attributes, including
dwellings, graves, lithic and bone in-
dustries, ground stone tools, ornamen-
tation, and art objects, as well as the
early age of its sedentary hamlets
among all foragers societies in the
Near East.
THE REGION: RESOURCES AND
POTENTIAL FORAGING PATTERNS
The Mediterranean Levant, about
1,100 km long and about 250 to 350
km wide, incorporates a variety of
landscapes, from the southern flanks
of the Taurus Mountains in Turkey to
the Sinai peninsula (Fig. 1). The vari-
able topography comprises a narrow
coastal plain, two parallel continuous
mountain ranges with a rift valley in
between, and an eastward sloping pla-
teau dissected by many eastward run-
ning wadis. The region is character-
The aim of this paper is to provide the reader with an updated description of the
archeological evidence for the origins of agriculture in the Near East. Specifically, I
will address the question of why the emergence of farming communities in the Near
East was an inevitable outcome of a series of social and economic circumstances
that caused the Natufian culture to be considered the threshold for this major
evolutionary change.
1–4
The importance of such an understanding has global
implications. Currently, updated archeological information points to two other
centers of early cultivation, central Mexico and the middle Yangtze River in China,
that led to the emergence of complex civilizations.
4
However, the best-recorded
sequence from foraging to farming is found in the Near East. Its presence warns
against the approach of viewing all three evolutionary sequences as identical in
terms of primary conditions, economic and social motivations and activities, and the
resulting cultural, social, and ideological changes.
Ofer Bar-Yosef studies Middle and Upper
Paleolithic sequences in the Near East, as
well as the origins of agriculture as ex-
pressed in the archaeology of Epi-Paleo-
lithic Neolithic sites. He has published pa-
pers and co-edited volumes on various
prehistoric sites of Pleistocene and Holocene
age in the Levant. He is the MacCurdy Profes-
sor of Prehistoric Archaeology in the De-
partment of Anthropology, Harvard Univer-
sity. E-mail: obaryos@fas.harvard.edu
Key words: origins of agriculture; Levant; Natu-
fian; Early Neolithic
Evolutionary Anthropology 159