A revised chronology for the adoption of agriculture in the Southern Levant and the role of Lateglacial climatic change |
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| Authors: | SPE Blockley R Pinhasi |
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| Institution: | 1. Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0SE, UK;2. Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland;1. Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Albion College, 611 E. Porter St., Albion, MI 49224, USA;2. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Rochester Institute of Technology, 18 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA;3. Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat 390002, India;4. Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 209 Nuclear Physics Lab, 23 East Stadium Drive, Champaign, IL 61820, USA;1. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, 61 Rt. 9W, Palisades, NY 10964, USA;2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, 61 Rt. 9W, Palisades, NY 10964, USA;3. Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel Street, Jerusalem 95501, Israel;4. The Fredy & Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel;1. Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica (ICAC), Pl. Francesc Rovellat, 43003, Tarragona, Spain;2. Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science (IPAS), Spalenring 145, CH-4055, Basel, Switzerland;3. Laboratori d''Arqueobotànica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Facultat de Lletres, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain;4. Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya-Empúries (MAC-Empúries), C/ Puig i Cadafalch s./n. 17130, L''Escala, Spain;1. Dpt of Historical Sciences, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Pérez del Toro s/n St. 35003, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain;2. Institute of Science and Technology, State University of Santa Elena, Av. La Libertad-Santa Elena, La Libertad, Ecuador;3. Dpt of Archaeology and Anthropology, Milá y Fontanals Institution, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Egipciacas 15, 08001 Barcelona, Spain;4. Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Departamento Ciencias Históricas y Geografía, Universidad de Burgos, Plaza de Misael Bañuelos s/n, Edificio I+D+i, 09001 Burgos, Spain;5. University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Tomás y Valiente 1, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain;6. Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria, Edificio Interfacultativo, Avda. de los Castros, s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain;7. UMR 7192 PROCLAC: IPOA-Collège de France, CNRS, 52, rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 75005 Paris, France;8. Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, Pôle Universitaire, Saint Jean d’Angély, SJA 3 – CEPAM, CNRS UMR 7264, 24 Avenue des Diables Bleus, F-06357 Nice Cedex 4, France;1. Centre for the Study of Early Agricultural Societies, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark;2. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, United Kingdom;1. The Levi Eshkol School of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot 7610001, Israel;2. The Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 6997801, Israel |
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| Abstract: | This paper re-examines the chronology and environmental context for the transition to agriculture in the Southern Levant, seen as the likely starting point for the adoption of agriculture in Europe and the Near East. The role in this process of abrupt late Quaternary climate change has been discussed widely, but limitations on the archaeological and palaeoenvironmental chronologies have led to varying interpretations. Here we attempt to clarify the situation by first testing the available radiocarbon database for the archaeological transitions from the Natufian through to the PPNA. We apply internationally accepted radiocarbon quality assurance procedures and find that a significant number of the published dates fall bellow acceptable standards. The cleaning process significantly clarifies and constrains the reported time ranges for the Natufian, Late Natufian and PPNA. We then apply the new IntCal09 calibration curve and Bayesian calibration methods, using the archaeological phasing to constrain the data and calculate the most likely timing of the transitions between each phase. We then compare the onset and duration of archaeological phases to data representing the key Northern Hemisphere climatic transitions, using the new GICC05 Greenland Ice core timescale and the timing of transitions between wet and dry phases in the southern Levant from published high precision isotopic analyses of Speleothem data. The results of this exercise present the currently best available chronology for these events and suggest that during the second part of the Lateglacial interstadial, drying of the southern Levant may have triggered the transition to the Late Natufian, when hunter-gatherer communities resorted to a more mobile lifestyle. The Late Natufian culture appears to have disappeared from the southern Levant during the Younger Dryas, as drying intensified. There is then a gap in well dated evidence for human occupation until a reappearance of humans at the onset of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period at the beginning of the Holocene. Thus the onset of the Holocene can be hypothesised to be the driver behind the onset of the Neolithic in this region. |
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