Natufian culture (/nəˈtuːfiən/[1]) is a Late
Epipaleolithicarchaeological culture of the
Neolithicprehistoric[2]Levant in
Western Asia, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago.[3] The culture was unusual in that it supported a
sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of
agriculture. Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of
cereals, specifically
rye, by the Natufian culture at
Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world.[2] The world's oldest known evidence of the production of bread-like foodstuff has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,400-year-old site in
Jordan's northeastern desert, 4,000 years before the
emergence of agriculture in Southwest Asia.[4] In addition, the oldest known evidence of possible
beer-brewing, dating to approximately 13,000
BP, was found in
Raqefet Cave on
Mount Carmel, although the beer-related residues may simply be a result of a spontaneous
fermentation.[5][6]
Generally, though, Natufians exploited wild cereals and hunted animals, including
gazelles.[7]Archaeogenetic analysis has revealed derivation of later (Neolithic to Bronze Age) Levantines primarily from Natufians, besides substantial admixture from Chalcholithic
Anatolians.[8]
Dorothy Garrod coined the term Natufian based on her excavations at the
Shuqba cave (Wadi an-Natuf) near the town of
Shuqba.
Discovery
The Natufian culture was discovered by British archaeologist
Dorothy Garrod during her excavations of
Shuqba cave in the
Judaean Hills, on the West Bank of the Jordan River.[9][10] Prior to the 1930s, the majority of archaeological work taking place in
British Palestine was
biblical archaeology focused on historic periods, and little was known about the region's prehistory.
In 1928, Garrod was invited by the
British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ) to excavate Shuqba cave, where prehistoric stone tools had been discovered by
Père Mallon four years earlier. She discovered a layer sandwiched between the
Upper Palaeolithic and
Bronze Age deposits characterised by the presence of
microliths. She identified this with the
Mesolithic, a transitional period between the
Palaeolithic and the
Neolithic which was well-represented in
Europe but had not yet been found in the
Near East. A year later, when she discovered similar material at
el-Wad Terrace, Garrod suggested the name "the Natufian culture", after
Wadi an-Natuf that ran close to Shuqba.
Over the next two decades Garrod found Natufian material at several of her pioneering excavations in the
Mount Carmel region, including el-Wad,
Kebara and
Tabun, as did the French archaeologist
René Neuville, firmly establishing the Natufian culture in the regional prehistoric chronology. As early as 1931, both Garrod and Neuville drew attention to the presence of stone
sickles in Natufian assemblages and the possibility that this represented a very early agriculture.[10]
Radiocarbon dating places the Natufian culture at an epoch from the terminal
Pleistocene to the very beginning of the
Holocene, a time period between 12,500 and 9,500
BC.[12]
The period is commonly split into two subperiods: Early Natufian (12,000–10,800 BC) and Late Natufian (10,800–9,500 BC). The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the
Younger Dryas (10,800 to 9,500 BC). The
Levant hosts more than a hundred kinds of cereals, fruits, nuts, and other edible parts of plants, and the flora of the Levant during the Natufian period was not the dry, barren, and thorny landscape of today, but rather
woodland.[9]
Precursors and associated cultures
The Natufian developed in the same region as the earlier
Kebaran culture. It is generally seen as a successor, which evolved out of elements within that preceding culture. There were also other industries in the region, such as the
Mushabian culture of the
Negev and the
Sinai Peninsula, which are sometimes distinguished from the Kebaran culture or believed to have been involved in the evolution of the Natufian culture.
More generally there has been discussion of the similarities of these cultures with those found in coastal North Africa. Graeme Barker notes there are: "similarities in the respective archaeological records of the Natufian culture of the Levant and of contemporary foragers in coastal North Africa across the
late Pleistocene and early Holocene boundary".[13] According to Isabelle De Groote and Louise Humphrey, Natufians practiced the
Iberomaurusian and
Capsian custom of sometimes extracting their
maxillary central incisors (upper front teeth).[14]
Ofer Bar-Yosef has argued that there are signs of influences coming from North Africa to the Levant, citing the
microburin technique and "microlithic forms such as arched backed bladelets and La Mouillah points."[15] But recent research has shown that the presence of arched backed bladelets, La Mouillah points, and the use of the microburin technique was already apparent in the Nebekian industry of the Eastern Levant.[16] And Maher et al. state that, "Many technological nuances that have often been always highlighted as significant during the Natufian were already present during the Early and Middle EP [Epipalaeolithic] and do not, in most cases, represent a radical departure in knowledge, tradition, or behavior."[17]
Authors such as
Christopher Ehret have built upon the little evidence available to develop scenarios of intensive usage of plants having built up first in North Africa, as a precursor to the development of true farming in the
Fertile Crescent, but such suggestions are considered highly speculative until more North African archaeological evidence can be gathered.[18][19] In fact, Weiss et al. have shown that the earliest known intensive usage of plants was in the Levant 23,000 years ago at the
Ohalo II site.[20][21][22]
Anthropologist
C. Loring Brace (1993) cross-analysed the craniometric traits of Natufian specimens with those of various ancient and modern groups from the Near East, Africa and Europe. The Late Pleistocene Epipalaeolithic Natufian sample was described as problematic due to its small size (consisting of only three males and one female), as well as the lack of a comparative sample from the Natufians' putative descendants in the Neolithic Near East. Brace observed that the Natufian fossils lay between those of the
Niger–Congo-speaking series included and the other samples (Near East, Europe), which he suggested may point to a Sub-Saharan influence in their constitution.[23] Subsequent
ancient DNA analysis of Natufian skeletal remains by Lazaridis et al. (2016) found that the specimens instead were a mix of 50% Basal Eurasian ancestral component (see
Archaeogenetics) and 50% West-Eurasian Unknown Hunter Gatherer (UHG) population related to European
Western Hunter-Gatherers.[24]
According to Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, "It seems that certain preadaptive traits, developed already by the Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran populations within the Mediterranean park forest, played an important role in the emergence of the new socioeconomic system known as the Natufian culture."[25]
Settlements
Settlements occur mostly in Israel and Palestine. This could be deemed the core zone of the Natufian culture, but Israel is a place that has been excavated more frequently than other places hence the greater number of sites.[26] During the years more sites have been found outside the core zone of Israel and Palestine stretching into what now is
Syria,
Lebanon,
Jordan, the
Sinai Peninsula and the
Negev desert.[26] The settlements in the Natufian culture were larger and more permanent than in preceding ones. Some Natufian sites had stone built architecture;
Ain Mallaha is an example of round stone structures.[27] Cave sites are also seen frequently during the Natufian culture.
El Wad is a Natufian cave site with occupation in the front part of the cave also called the terrace.[28] Some Natufian sites were located in forest/steppe areas and others near inland mountains. The Natufian settlements appear to be the first to exhibit evidence of food storage; not all Natufian sites have storage facilities, but they have been identified at certain sites.[29] Natufians are also suggested to have visted
Cyprus, requiring travel over significant distances of water.[30]
Material culture
Lithics
The Natufian had a
microlithic industry centered on short
blades and bladelets. The
microburin technique was used. Geometric microliths include
lunates, trapezes, and triangles. There are backed blades as well. A special type of
retouch (
Helwan retouch) is characteristic for the early Natufian. In the late Natufian, the Harif-point, a typical
arrowhead made from a regular blade, became common in the
Negev. Some scholars[who?] use it to define a separate culture, the
Harifian.
Sickle blades also appear for the first time in the Natufian lithic industry. The characteristic
sickle-gloss shows that they were used to cut the
silica-rich stems of cereals, indirectly suggesting the existence of incipient agriculture. Shaft straighteners made of
ground stone indicate the practice of
archery. There are heavy ground-stone bowl
mortars as well.
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.
In 2008, the 12,400–12,000 cal BC grave of an apparently significant Natufian female was discovered in a ceremonial pit in the
Hilazon Tachtit cave in northern Israel.[32] Media reports referred to this person as a "shaman".[33] The burial contained the 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. The body was surrounded by tortoise shells, the pelvis of a
leopard, forearm of a
boar, a wingtip of a
golden eagle, and skull of a
beech marten.[34][35]
There was a rich
bone industry, including
harpoons and
fish hooks. 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 favorite subject of representative art seems to have been animals. Ostrich-shell containers have been found in the
Negev.
In 2018, the world's oldest brewery was found, with the residue of 13,000-year-old beer, in a prehistoric cave near Haifa in Israel when researchers were looking for clues into what plant foods the Natufian people were eating. This is 8,000 years earlier than experts previously thought beer was invented.[37]
A study published in 2019 shows an advanced knowledge of lime plaster production at a Natufian cemetery in Nahal Ein Gev II site in the Upper Jordan Valley dated to 12 thousand (calibrated) years before present [k cal BP]. Production of plaster of this quality was previously thought to have been achieved some 2,000 years later.[38]
Subsistence
The Natufian people lived by hunting and gathering. The preservation of plant remains is poor because of the soil conditions, but at some sites such as
Tell Abu Hureyra substantial amounts of plant remains discovered through
flotation have been excavated.[39] However wild cereals like
legumes,
almonds,
acorns and
pistachios have been collected throughout most of the
Levant. Animal bones show that
mountain and
goitered gazelles (Gazella gazella and Gazella subgutturosa) were the main prey.
Additionally,
deer,
aurochs and
wild boar were hunted in the
steppe, as well as
onagers and caprids (
ibex). Waterfowl and freshwater fish formed part of the diet in the Jordan river valley. Animal bones from Salibiya I (12,300 – 10,800 cal BP) have been interpreted as evidence for communal hunts with nets, however, the radiocarbon dates are far too old compared to the cultural remains of this settlement, indicating contamination of the samples.[40]
Development of agriculture
A pita-like bread has been found from 12,500 BC attributed to Natufians. This bread is made of wild cereal seeds and papyrus cousin tubers, ground into flour.[41]
According to one theory,[33] it was a sudden change in
climate, the
Younger Dryas event (
c. 10,800 to 9500 BC), which inspired the development of
agriculture. The Younger Dryas was a 1,000-year-long interruption in the higher temperatures prevailing since the
Last Glacial Maximum, which produced a sudden drought in the Levant. This would have endangered the wild cereals, which could no longer compete with dryland scrub, but upon which the population had become dependent to sustain a relatively large sedentary population. By artificially clearing scrub and planting seeds obtained from elsewhere, they began to practice agriculture. However, this theory of the origin of agriculture is controversial in the scientific community.[42]
Grinding tool from
Gilgal, Natufian culture, 12,500–9500 BC
Basalt sharpening stones,
Eynan and
Nahal Oren, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
Bovine-rib dagger,
HaYonim Cave, Natufian Culture, 12,500–9500 BC
Stone mortars from
Eynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
Stone mortar from
Eynan, Natufian period, 12,500–9500 BC
Limestone and basalt mortars,
Eynan, Early Natufian,
c. 12,000 BC
At the Natufian site of Ain Mallaha in Israel, dated to 12,000 BC, the remains of an elderly human and a four-to-five-month-old puppy were found buried together.[43] At another Natufian site at the cave of Hayonim, humans were found buried with two canids.[43]
The population associated with the Natufian culture formed genetically by the merger of a West Eurasian-like population, sharing deep ancestry with
Western Hunter-Gatherers of
Europe, and
Basal Eurasians of local
Arabian origin. The Natufian population also displays ancestral ties to Paleolithic
Taforalt samples, the makers of the Epipaleolithic
Iberomaurusian culture of the
Maghreb, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture of the Levant, the Early Neolithic
Ifri N'Amr Ou Moussa culture of the Maghreb, the Late Neolithic Kelif el Boroud culture of the Maghreb, with samples associated with these early cultures all sharing a common genomic component dubbed the "Natufian component", which diverged from other West Eurasian lineages ~26,000 years ago, and is most closely linked to the Arabian lineage. Possible bidirectional geneflow events between these groups has also been suggested, with particular evidence for affinity between the Natufians and Iberomaurusians. Contact between Natufians, other Neolithic Levantines,
Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG),
Anatolian and
Iranian farmers is believed to have decreased genetic variability among later populations in the Middle East. Migrations from the Near-East also occurred towards Africa, and the West Eurasian-like ancestry among populations in the
Horn of Africa is best represented by the Levant Neolithic, and may be associated with the spread of Afroasiatic languages.[45][46][47][48]
Ferreira et al. in 2021 found that ancient Natufians cluster with modern
Saudi Arabians and
Yemenis.[49] Sirak et al. 2024 found that medieval
Socotra (the
Soqotri people), like modern Saudis, Yemenis and Bedouin, have a majority component that is "maximized in Late Pleistocene (Epipaleolithic) Natufian hunter–gatherers from the Levant".[50]
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"We used qpAdm (ref. 7) to estimate Basal Eurasian ancestry in each Test population. We obtained the highest estimates in the earliest populations from both Iran (66±13% in the likely Mesolithic sample, 48±6% in Neolithic samples), and the
Levant (44±8% in Epipalaeolithic Natufians) (Fig. 2), showing that Basal Eurasian ancestry was widespread across the ancient Near East. [...] The idea of Natufians as a vector for the movement of Basal Eurasian ancestry into the Near East is also not supported by our data, as the Basal Eurasian ancestry in the Natufians (44±8%) is consistent with stemming from the same population as that in the Neolithic and Mesolithic populations of Iran, and is not greater than in those populations
(Supplementary Information, section 4). Further insight into the origins and legacy of the Natufians could come from comparison to Natufians from additional sites, and to ancient DNA from North Africa."
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