Natufian

Abstract

The interest in the significance of the Natufian culture to the study of social evolution was ignited some 70 years ago when the contents of the first excavated sites, 5hukbah Cave and El-Wad Cave and Terrace (Garrod 1932; Garrod and Bate 1937, 1942) indicated that they may represent the socioeconomic phase that preceded the Neolithic Revolution. According to the terminology of the day, the proliferation of microliths and in particular the lunates led Garrod and others to define the Natufian assemblages as Mesolithic. This label, in Europe, meant early post-Glacial hunters. However. Garrod also uncovered numerous sickle blades (identifiable by their special sheen) and mortars and pestles. Her intuitive conclusion was that It may seem surprising that we get the evidence of agriculture at such an early date among people who possess no pottery and do not appear to have domesticated animals`` (Garrod 1932: 268). This interpretation that Natufian sites were farming communities was later challenged, but the importance of these discoveries as evidence in the search for the origins of agriculture in western Asia did not escape the eyes of most scholars