Epipalaeolithic

The Epipalaeolithic period in the Levant, dated to c.20/19000 through 11 500 cal year BP, is characterized by the increasing complexity of settlement systems, technology, subsistence proclivities, social organization, and artistic representations. The latter part of this period witness the emergence of settled life by sedentary foragers, known as the Natufian culture, who were the forerunners of the agricultural communities.

The palaeoclimate of this period is generally better documented due to availability of sources such as pollen cores, deep-sea cores, and speleothems. The milleniums of the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) caused the expansion of the arid belt and therefore the more limited spatial distribution of Kebaran foragers. The climatic amelioration of the Terminal Pleistocene improved the local environmental conditions, but ended with the Younger Dryas, which was a globally cold and dry period. During the time from c. 18 000 through 13 000 cal year BP, numerous lakes and ponds were established in the formerly desertic and steppic areas; woodlands and parklands expanded permitting foragers to relax their population control and to allow for the acquisition of reliable, accessible, and predictable food resources in the same zone where subsistence was earlier a matter of hazard.

The Levantine core area demonstrates both continuity and shifts in lithic industries from the previous Upper Palaeolithic entities. The European terminology placed these milleniums within the Upper Palaeolithic, but the research in the Near East since the 1960s demonstrated that the cultural trajectory was different. The European term of ‘Mesolithic’ designated the appearance of microlithic assemblages produced by hunter-gatherers who lived during the postglacial times, that is, the Early Holocene. Hence the attribution of Levantine microlithic industries to the Mesolithic, as proposed by the pioneering prehistorians, seemed inadequate. The term Epipalaeolithic was adopted from the prehistory of North Africa, where researchers faced similar terminological ambiguities (see Asia, West: Mesolithic Cultures).

The variability displayed in Epipalaeolithic lithic industries with the constantly accumulating radiocarbon dates is interpreted as reflecting the existence of various contemporaneous cultures. This situation led to the introduction of various new names with definitions based on differences among tool morphologies. Often the core reduction techniques are the same through most of the region and through milleniums, but the shaped microliths differ considerably both in form and type of retouch.

The Natufian culture, the latest in the sequence, demonstrates differences in core reduction methods from their previous cultures, and a few new ways for secondary shaping of the blanks into tool types. A good example is the process for snapping bladelets on an anvil, known as the ‘microburin technique’, practiced more often then by others before. Helwan retouch is a bifacial shaping used for forming lunates, some retouched bladelets, and sickle blades that were inserted in wooden hafts.

In the core area of the Levant, several Epipalaeolithic entities were the Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran complexes. Their geographic distribution covers most of the Levant. In the Negev, Sinai, and eastern and southern Jordan, the typological variability seems to have been larger. The names of industries such as Nebekian, Nizzanan, Qalkhan, Hamran, etc., are sometimes grouped under the general terms of ‘complexes’. The presence of numerous cultural entities may indicate population growth on a regional scale due to the expansion of foragers from the Mediterranean core area into the previously arid zone, as well as migration into the region by foragers from Northeast Africa. The enhanced occupation of the steppic zone was encouraged by the climatic improvement that ended around 13 000 years ago although it did not eliminate human presence in the deserts that lasted into the Holocene.

The early complex of the Epipalaeolithic period (from the last milleniums of the LGM) is the Kebaran which includes some local varieties (like the Nebe-kian) and is still in great need for many additional radiocarbon dates. The most typical stone tools were the backed and finely retouched bladelets. End scrapers are common and so are the burins. Bone and horn-core tools are rare. The ground stone tools include mortars, pestles, and hand-stones that were employed in food processing, and crashing ochre for making colors. The bearers of these microlithic industries inhabited the areas that continued to have sufficient winter precipitation and within the Mediterranean woodland belt, especially during the LGM. Other groups occupied several desertic oases (known from Jordan and Syria). Lake Lisan, a large salty lake, continued to cover most of the Jordan Valley from today’s Sea of Galilee to 30 km south of the Dead Sea. It began shrinking around 15 000 years ago and had its final drying stages during the Younger Dryas.

The makers of the Geometric Kebaran complex expanded their territories into the desertic areas at the time of the climatic amelioration. Hence we find the sites located in southern Sinai and the el-Kowm basin in the north. In Sinai and the Negev, the Early Mushabian and later the Late Mushabian (also known as Ramonian) possibly reflect expansion of Northeast African forages into the Levant. In southern Jordan, the Qalkhan and the Hamran are of the same time. Remains of several entities were recognized in the oasis of the Azraq Basin and its surroundings, and the radiocarbon dates indicate that this increase in human presence and lithic variability occurred from 15 500 through 13 500 cal year BP.

The Natufian culture emerged around 14 500 cal BP following a short cold and dry spell. The conditions of the Bcilling-Allerpd in this region, with increased amounts of rain, facilitated this semisedentary hunter-gatherers culture to establish itself. Several clustered pit houses formed hamlets, where the Natufians also buried their dead, thus symbolically stating their ownership of the land. The Natufian lithic industry contained not only a specific secondary shaping technique, known as the Helwan retouch, but had hafted blades that bear the luster caused by harvesting cereals or cereals’ straw. Numerous mortars and pestles, some brought from distances of up to 100 km, were found in the base camps along with large quantities of marine shells often retrieved along the Mediterranean shores. A smaller amount of shells were obtained through exchange from the Red Sea and the Nile Valley, and a few obsidian pieces from Anatolia were found in a Late Natufian occupation at Eynan (Mallaha). Natufian art objects are of different types, many represent incised decorations of bone tools, and others are small figurines, mostly of animals and rarely of humans. Incised slabs are known from most sites. In the Negev, ostrich eggshells were employed for such decorative expressions.

The meaty diet of the Natufian groups is reflected in the bone assemblages including many gazelles. Deer is more prevalent in the forested or parkland areas, where hunting and gathering hare, tortoise, and birds reflect the depletion of the local environments.

During the Younger Dryas, Late Natufian groups adapted to the new conditions. Some became mobile, others more sedentary within the parkland areas. Annual partial mobility continued to be the rule. In the Negev and northern Sinai, the Harifian culture represent an adaptation to worsening conditions through seasonal movements across the land. Winters were spent in the lowlands of the coastal plain including northern Sinai, and summers in the highlands of the Negev. However, at the onset of the Holocene climatic conditions, the Harifian groups disappeared, possibly by joining the newly established cultivating communities known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A.

The Epipalaeolithic sequence in other parts of Western Asia is much less known than in the Levant. In the Taurus-Zagros area, a few sites were excavated. This paucity is partly due to widely scattered field research, high rate of alluviation in the valleys, which caused the burial of many pre-Neolithic sites, and geopolitical restrictions. The excavated caves such as Oktizini (Turkey), Palegawra, Shanidar, Zarzi (Iraq), and Gar-i-Khar (Iran) caves, as well as open-air sites such as Hallan (]emi (Turkey), Zawi Chemi Shanidar (Iraq), and Asiab (Iran) indicate that between 13 000 and 11 500 cal year BP a shift from mobile hunting and gathering to sedentary or semi-sedentary communities took place in the eastern Taurus and the northern Zagros foothills. In village sites such as Hallan (]emi, rounded dwellings resemble those of the Natufian, although mud was employed more extensively as a building material. The lithic assemblages are dominated by the production of mi-croliths. High frequencies of triangles in Hallan (]emi seem to indicate connections with the southern Caucasus region. The archaeological records of foragers’ occupations in Okuzini Cave are demonstrated an overall similarity with other backed bladelet industries both in the Levant and in the Balkans. Lithic production reflects continuity from the Upper Palaeolithic traditions. For example, in the case of the Zarzian, it is the high frequency of microliths and the important geometric component that connects it to other caves in the Zagros. In addition, there is a definite increase in the use of pounding stone tools such as mortars, bowls, and cup-holes, and pestles, common food-processing objects that employed by hunter-gatherers in this region. The shift in settlement pattern seems to have happened slightly later in the southern Zagros, Khuzi-stan, and the western Taurus than it did in neighboring areas. The faunal remains indicate the hunting of goat, sheep, gazelle, red deer, cattle, boar, and a wide range of other forms with the emphasis being different depending upon site location.

See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Mesolithic Cultures; Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization; Southern Levant, Chal-colithic Cultures; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient; Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; Modern Humans, Emergence of.