Neolithization Processes in the Levant

The Near East is one of those unique places where the transition(s) from hunter-gatherers to farmers occurred locally, so it is possible to observe the whole sequence of these processes within the region as a whole. We discuss the archaeological evidence pertaining to those transformations within the Levant, presenting the particularistic local changes in settlement patterns and the character of the different communities juxtaposed with the landscapes and environmental background. The asynchronous developments clearly reflect the mosaic nature of the Levant in terms of specific local environmental conditions that influenced the scope and pace of Neolithization processes.

[1]  P. Valdes,et al.  A review of palaeoclimates and palaeoenvironments in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean from 25,000 to 5000 years BP: setting the environmental background for the evolution of human civilisation , 2006 .

[2]  Daniel Helmer,et al.  Was milk a « secondary product » in the Old World Neolithisation process? Its role in the domestication of cattle, sheep and goats , 2007 .

[3]  M. Brenet,et al.  Les bâtiments communautaires de Jerf el Ahmar et Mureybet horizon PPNA (Syrie) , 2000 .

[4]  T. Dayan,et al.  Gazelle exploitation in the early Neolithic site of Motza, Israel: the last of the gazelle hunters in the southern Levant , 2009 .

[5]  Ehud Weiss,et al.  Autonomous Cultivation Before Domestication , 2006, Science.

[6]  Ofer Bar-Yosef,et al.  The origins of sedentism and farming communities in the Levant , 1989 .

[7]  T. Schick.  A 10,000 year old comb from Wadi Murabba'at in the Judean Desert , 1995 .

[8]  Danny Naveh.  PPNA Jericho: a Socio-political Perspective , 2003, Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

[9]  A. N. Goring-Morris.  From foraging to herding in the Negev and Sinai : the Early to Late Neolithic transition. , 1993 .

[10]  Simcha Lev-Yadun,et al.  The Cradle of Agriculture , 2000, Science.

[11]  E. Tchernov,et al.  Animal domestication in the southern Levant. , 1999 .

[12]  H. Wobst,et al.  Locational relationships in Paleolithic society , 1976 .

[13]  Gregory A. Johnson.  Organizational Structure and Scalar Stress , 2003 .

[14]  John L. Myres,et al.  British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem , 1929 .

[15]  Ian Kuijt,et al.  People and Space in Early Agricultural Villages: Exploring Daily Lives, Community Size, and Architecture in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic , 2000 .

[16]  J. Hawkes.  The origins of agriculture , 1970, Economic Botany.

[17]  F. Salamini,et al.  SITE OF EINKORN WHEAT DOMESTICATION IDENTIFIED BY DNA FINGERPRINTING , 1997 .

[18]  D. Olszewski,et al.  The Harra and the Hamad: Excavations and Surveys in Eastern Jordan, Volume 1 , 2001 .

[19]  B. Kilian,et al.  Molecular diversity at 18 loci in 321 wild and 92 domesticate lines reveal no reduction of nucleotide diversity during Triticum monococcum (Einkorn) domestication: implications for the origin of agriculture. , 2007, Molecular biology and evolution.

[20]  Stephen Shennan,et al.  Constructing frames of reference: An analytical method for archaeological theory building using ethnographic and environmental data sets , 2004 .

[21]  A. Nigel Goring-Morris,et al.  Becoming Farmers: , 2011, Current Anthropology.

[22]  G. Willcox.  The distribution, natural habitats and availability of wild cereals in relation to their domestication in the Near East: multiple events, multiple centres , 2005 .

[23]  S. Bottema,et al.  The Dawn of Farming in the Near East , 2002 .

[24]  Vernon W. Ruttan,et al.  Population and Technological Change: A Study of Long-Term Trends by Ester Boserup (review) , 1982 .

[25]  M. Muheisen,et al.  An Analysis of the microliths at Kharaneh IV, phase D, Square A20/37 , 1995 .

[26]  K. Kosse.  The Evolution of Large, Complex Groups: A Hypothesis , 1994 .

[27]  Douglas V. Campana,et al.  Bone Implements From Hayonim Cave: Some Relevant Issues , 1991 .

[28]  A. Bogaard.  ‘Garden agriculture’ and the nature of early farming in Europe and the Near East , 2005 .

[29]  Alexander Wasse,et al.  Neolithic Revolution: New Perspectives on Southwest Asia in Light of Recent Discoveries on Cyprus , 2004 .

[30]  B. Byrd.  LATE PLEISTOCENE SETTLEMENT DIVERSITY IN THE AZRAQ BASIN , 1988 .

[31]  M. Zeder.  The Origins of Agriculture in the Near East , 2011, Current Anthropology.

[32]  O. Barzilai.  Social Complexity in the Southern Levantine Ppnb as Reflected Through Lithic Studies: The Bidirectional Blade Industries , 2011 .

[33]  J. Cdxylq,et al.  The Birth of Gods and the Origins of Agriculture , 2000 .

[34]  M. Özdoǧan.  Archaeological Evidence on the Westward Expansion of Farming Communities from Eastern Anatolia to the Aegean and the Balkans , 2011, Current Anthropology.

[35]  I. Hodder.  Çatalhöyük in the Context of the Middle Eastern Neolithic , 2007 .

[36]  R. Mazurowski,et al.  Tell Qaramel: Excavations, 2001 , 2000 .

[37]  A. N. Goring-Morris,et al.  The articulation of cultural processes and Late Quaternary environmental changes in Cisjordan. , 1997 .

[38]  M. Verhoeven.  Beyond Boundaries: Nature, Culture and a Holistic Approach to Domestication in the Levant , 2004 .

[39]  R. Barkai,et al.  Midsummer Sunset at Neolithic Jericho , 2008 .

[40]  D. Bar-Yosef.  The Exploitation of Shells as Beads in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic of the Levant , 2005 .

[41]  Natalie D. Munro,et al.  Zooarchaeological Measures of Hunting Pressure and Occupation Intensity in the Natufian , 2004, Current Anthropology.

[42]  A. N. Goring-Morris.  The Harifian Of The Southern Levant , 1991 .

[43]  D. Rosenberg.  SERVING MEALS MAKING A HOME The PPNA Limestone Vessel Industry of the Southern Levant and its Importance to the Neolithic Revolution , 2008 .

[44]  Maison de l'Orient méditerranéen-Jean Pouilloux,et al.  Le site néolithique de Tell Mureybet (Syrie du Nord) : en hommage à Jacques Cauvin , 2008 .

[45]  S. Davis.  The Age profiles of Gazelles predated by ancient man in Israel : Possible evidence for a shift from seasonality to sedentism in the Natufian , 1983 .

[46]  M. Davies,et al.  6. Domestication rates in wild‐type wheats and barley under primitive cultivation , 1990 .

[47]  Louise Martin.  Gazelle (Gazella spp.) behavioural ecology: predicting animal behaviour for prehistoric environments in south‐west Asia , 2000 .

[48]  M. Rosenberg,et al.  Ancestral pigs : A New (Guinea) model for pig domestication in the Middle East , 1998 .

[49]  R. Kahana,et al.  The climatic and physiographic controls of the eastern Mediterranean over the late Pleistocene climates in the southern Levant and its neighboring deserts , 2008 .

[50]  Helena Fracchia.  The Neolithic Demographic Transition and its Consequences , 2008 .

[51]  P. Taberlet,et al.  Large-Scale Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of the Domestic Goat Reveals Six Haplogroups with High Diversity , 2007, PloS one.

[52]  A. Belfer‐Cohen,et al.  The Ground Stone Assemblages of the Natufian and Neolithic Societies in the Levant - A Brief Review , 2005 .

[53]  J. Vigne.  Zooarchaeological Aspects of the Neolithic Diet Transition in the Near East and Europe, and Their Putative Relationships with the Neolithic Demographic Transition , 2008 .

[54]  D. Zohary,et al.  The Neolithic Southwest Asian Founder Crops , 2011, Current Anthropology.

[55]  J. Mellaart.  The Neolithic of the Near East , 1976 .

[56]  M. Sturm,et al.  Evidence of Lateglacial and Holocene climatic change and human impact in eastern Anatolia: high-resolution pollen, charcoal, isotopic and geochemical records from the laminated sediments of Lake Van, Turkey , 2003 .

[57]  H. Breuil,et al.  The Stone Age of Mount Carmel: , 1938, Nature.

[58]  Charles R. Clement,et al.  First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies , 2006 .

[59]  J. Oates,et al.  The Rise of Civilization , 1977 .

[60]  I. Kuijt,et al.  Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[61]  K. V. Flannery,et al.  Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East. , 1969 .

[62]  D. Henry.  From foraging to agriculture , 1989 .

[63]  Arndt von Haeseler,et al.  Haplotype structure at seven barley genes: relevance to gene pool bottlenecks, phylogeny of ear type and site of barley domestication , 2006, Molecular Genetics and Genomics.

[64]  M. Özdoǧan.  Anatolia from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene Climatic Optimum : cultural formations and the impact of the environmental setting. , 1997 .

[65]  J. Vigne,et al.  The Early Process of Mammal Domestication in the Near East , 2011, Current Anthropology.

[66]  Phillip C. Edwards.  Wadi Hammeh 27: an early Natufian site at Pella, Jordan , 1991 .

[67]  Alan H. Simmons,et al.  The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East: Transforming the Human Landscape , 2007 .

[68]  S. Beyriès.  Modélisation du travail du cuir en ethnologie : proposition d'un système ouvert à l'archéologie. in : Techniques et comportements :approches ethnoarchéologiques et éthologiques , 2007 .

[69]  G. Bar-Oz.  Epipaleolithic Subsistence Strategies In The Levant: A Zooarchaeological Perspective , 2004 .

[70]  B. Byrd.  Reassessing the Emergence of Village Life in the Near East , 2005 .

[71]  Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel,et al.  The Agricultural Demographic Transition During and After the Agriculture Inventions , 2011, Current Anthropology.

[72]  Ki Wright.  The Social Origins of Cooking and Dining in Early Villages of Western Asia , 2000, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society.

[73]  F. Valla.  L’homme et l’habitat : L’invention de la maison durant la Préhistoire , 2008 .

[74]  M. Zeder.  The Neolithic Macro-(R)evolution: Macroevolutionary Theory and the Study of Culture Change , 2009 .

[75]  F.L.R. Abbes,et al.  Wadi Tumbaq 1 : A Khiamian Occupation in the Bal ’ as Mountains , 2008 .

[76]  A. N. Goring-Morris,et al.  More than Meets the Eye: Studies on Upper Palaeolithic Diversity in the Near East , 2003 .

[77]  Brian Hayden.  Nimrods, Piscators, Pluckers, and Planters: The Emergence of Food Production , 1990 .