Asian Archaeology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41826-018-0006-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

Settled? Recent debates in the archaeology of the Epipalaeolithic

and Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Southwest Asia
Brian Boyd 1

Received: 13 April 2017 / Accepted: 30 June 2017

# Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology (RCCFA) and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

Abstract
Visiting China for the first time in October 2016, at the kind invitation of Professor Feng Li, I was immediately struck by the scale
and complexity of the Neolithic archaeology. During interesting discussions with Chinese colleagues it became clear that many
aspects of the archaeological narratives developed for the origins of the Neolithic in China shared many of the same explanatory
models and theoretical perspectives as its prehistoric counterpart in southwest Asia (modern-day Israel/Palestine, Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria, Anatolia). I thought it therefore appropriate in my contribution to this issue of Asian Archaeology to offer a
summary of the history and development of BNeolithic transition^ archaeology in southwest Asia. I hope this contribution will
lead to further comparative discussions.

Keywords Southwest Asia . Epipalaeolithic . Natufian . Pre-Pottery Neolithic . Origins . Domestication

1 Introduction In most parts of the world where a Neolithic phase is dis-

The archaeology of the Epipalaeolithic and Pre-Pottery
Neolithic of Southwest Asia is currently undergoing funda-
mental changes. Beginning in the final decade of the twentieth
century, new fieldwork discoveries combined with develop-
ments in fieldwork methodologies and archaeobiological anal-
yses have challenged long-standing, fundamental perceptions
about social changes in the millennia preceding the establish-
ment of Neolithic Bagricultural societies.^ It is now apparent
that past models based on social/cultural evolutionary frame-
works, behavioral ecology, and environmental changes can
offer only partial explanations for the nature of the archaeolog-
ical evidence coming from the diversity of sites across the
region dated to around 24,000–11,700 cal BP. This article
traces the historical trajectories of the Epipalaeolithic and
Pre-Pottery Neolithic archaeology from 1920s Palestine to
the pan-regional research currently being undertaken by
scholars in the different areas of the BFertile Crescent^ (Fig. 1).
* Brian Boyd
brian.boyd@columbia.edu
1 temporal Btransition^ has become increasingly longer and its
Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, 1200
Amsterdam Ave., 452 Schermerhorn Ext., New York, NY 10027,
USA
cernable, archaeologists have spent considerable efforts in
identifying the socioeconomic and cultural processes that ul-
timately led to the establishment of settled farming societies
with a food resource primarily based on the domestication of
certain plant and animal species. In southwest Asia (some-
times termed the Levant or the Near East), it is nowadays
unusual to read an academic or popular science article on the
Epipalaeolithic and Early Neolithic periods that does not em-
phasize as its primary focus Bthe origins of agriculture,^ and
its consequences and implications for the human experience.
It seems that each and every element of pre-Neolithic material
culture, architectural features, human activities and practices
are harnessed into the long-adhered to Neolithic transition
narrative: the origins of agriculture, domestication, sedentism,
farming economies, and ultimately the development of com-
plex societies. Archaeological focus on this apparently funda-
mental change from one way of eating to another has tended to
overshadow other concomitant social changes that took place
within hunter-gatherer communities in the millennia prior to
those material signatures we choose to categorize as Bthe
Neolithic.^ In most archaeological narratives, those preceding
millennia are still routinely referred to as Bthe Neolithic
transition^ (or similar terminology) and, in recent years, this
origins more distant in time (e.g., Snir et al. 2015). Further, the
pre-Neolithic transition periods are invariably regarded

Fig. 1 Map of principal
Epipalaeolithic and Early
Neolithic sites mentioned in text
through the retrospective lens of the Neolithic itself rather than
in their own terms and with their own internal characteristics
and historical trajectories independent of their seemingly in-
evitable Neolithic destination. But the human communities of
the pre-Neolithic inhabited a world where there was no prior
knowledge of plant and animal domestication, sedentism, ag-
riculture, and so on—developments that took place hundreds
or thousands of years into their future. Their world was one of
being hunter-gatherer, or however that condition we in the
present call Bhunter-gatherer^ may have been apprehended
by people in their own particular social and historical contexts.
Thinking about non-retrospective, non-Neolithic ways to
view such contexts presents a primary interpretive challenge
for archaeologists in the twenty-first century. How can we
think about pre-Neolithic ontologies and alterities that differ
B. Boyd
dramatically from our contemporary sociopolitical categories
relating to sedentism, nomadism, population movement, and
the control of plant and animal species that characterizes so
much of the modern industrialized world? I return to this issue
in the concluding section.
2 From Mesolithic to Epipalaeolithic:
Historical background 1928–1970
We can trace the beginnings of the Neolithic transition narrative
in southwest Asia to the European-dominated prehistory of
early twentieth century Palestine. Based on the assumptions
that the abundant presence of wild crop species acts as a prima-
ry prerequisite for points of agricultural origins, and that
Settled?
extended dry seasons are required for cereal domestication,
Peake and Fleure (1927) suggested a western Asian origin for
plant domestication. This was subsequently focused to the
BFertile Crescent^/the Levant by V. Gordon Childe (Childe
1934), but it was with the advent of primary archaeological
fieldwork in mid-late 1920s Palestine that the cultural-
chronological sequence prior to Childe’s BNeolithic
Revolution^ in southwest Asia was first tentatively put in place.
3 BAs it will be convenient to have a name
for this culture, I propose to call it Natufian,
after the Wady en-Natuf at Shukba, where we
first found it in place^ (Garrod 1929 p. 222).
The archaeological material in a cave just south of the village of
Shukba, western Palestine, was initially discovered by Father
Alexis Mallon of the University of St. Joseph in September
1924, on a journey from Jemmala to Lydda (Garrod 1942). He
published his observations, based on surface lithic finds, in the
Mélanges de l’Université de St. Joseph (Mallon 1925) and sub-
sequently, Bwaived his rights as discoverer^ (Garrod 1928 p.
182). Garrod later said that Mallon generously suggested that
the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem should excavate
the site (Garrod 1942 p. 1). In February 1928, Garrod along with
George and Edna Woodbury from the American School of
Prehistoric Research, began planning the excavation of
Shukba cave, which then took place from April to mid-June of
that year. During the course of the two-month excavation, the
cave’s main chamber (Chamber 1) was largely emptied of its
archaeological deposits. The stratification was complex and
Brather difficult to interpret^ (Garrod 1942 p. 2), but three dis-
tinct archaeological layers were nonetheless discernable.
Although Garrod found a Middle Palaeolithic/Mousterian level
(Layer D), it was the material from Layer B that proved most
significant in terms of establishing the nascent Levantine prehis-
toric sequence. This layer, 80–300 cm thick, contained a micro-
lithic flint industry in association with a number of hearths,
charred animal bones, highly polished bone objects, and the
fragmentary remains of several human skeletons. Garrod’s doc-
ument archive, now held in the library of the Musée des
Antiquités Nationales, St. Germain-en-Laye, Paris, provides an
evocative account of the early days of the excavation:
4th April…Drew plan of cave. 5th April. Trench started
against E. wall…At 70 cm depth found skeleton of a
child, 165 cm from wall. It lay on its side with legs
drawn up and hands behind head… (quoted in (Smith
et al. 1997 p. 270).
Lacking comparable data from the Levant region, Garrod
noted similarities between the Shukba Layer B material and
that of the Mesolithic Capsian Bkitchen middens^ of North
Africa (Garrod 1928 p. 183). The full significance of this
microlith-dominated flint assemblage and its associated evi-
dence did not become clear until the commencement in 1929
of Garrod’s excavations at el-Wad in the Wadi el-Mughara,
Mount Carmel, on the Mediterranean coast, and those of her
contemporaries, Frances Turville-Petre at Kebara, Mount
Carmel (Turville-Petre 1932), and René Neuville, in a number
of caves and rock shelters in Wadi Khareitoun, southeast of
Bethlehem (Neuville 1934, 1951).
In late 1928, development of the port in Haifa on the
Mediterranean coast of Palestine entailed extensive stone
quarrying from the cliffs of the Wadi el-Mughara (Valley of
the Caves). Recognizing the archaeological potential of the
caves, the Palestine Department of Antiquities negotiated with
the Department of Public Works for Charles Lambert (Deputy
Director of the PDA) to conduct small-scale test excavations
at el-Wad cave and terrace in November 1928. Dorothy
Garrod subsequently described Lambert’s investigations:
…although he never reached a completely undisturbed
layer he was able to demonstrate the great importance of
the cave as a prehistoric site. His most notable find was
the carving in bone of Natufian date, which was the first
example of Stone Age art to be discovered in the Near
East (Garrod and Bate 1937 pp. 3-4).
Equally important was Lambert’s discovery of a microlith-
ic stone tool assemblage closely resembling the material
Garrod had found at Shukba. This lithic material was found
in association with a piece of carved bone depicting a cervid
(as mentioned by Garrod, above), a pierced deer scapula, and
three human skeletons. As a result of these finds, Garrod’s
Shukba excavations were prematurely curtailed (she had
planned to return there in 1929), and she instead embarked
on seven seasons of work at the Mount Carmel Caves (Garrod
and Bate 1937).
The first season at el-Wad (April 1929) saw the excavation
of a large pit in the cave’s outer chamber containing a collec-
tion of human remains—Bfour adolescents and six children^
(Garrod 1929 p. 221)—in association with an in-situ micro-
lithic stone tool industry. Garrod was now able to bring to-
gether the similar Shukba and el-Wad material, which she
named the BNatufian Culture,^ the first known Mesolithic
culture of Palestine, based on features of the lithic indus-
try—crescent-shaped lunates, backed blades, core-scrapers
—and the absence of ceramics (Garrod 1930 p. 153).
The picture of an indigenous Mesolithic Palestine was fur-
ther developed in the early 1930s:
In travelling by train from Haifa to Jerusalem, I had
often noticed a cave lying in the cliffs to the east of the
railway just south of the station of Zikhron Yakob… I

went over there with Mr. Theodore McCown and made
a sounding. We were able to identify a Natufian layer…
I thought it very important that the site should be worked
together with the Mugharet el-Wad, and the British and
American Schools therefore asked Mr. Turville-Petre
and Mrs. Baynes to undertake the excavation (Garrod
1932c p. 267).
The cave, Mugharet el-Kebara, briefly explored by Moshe
Stekelis in 1927, was excavated by Francis Turville-Petre in
1931, revealing a lithic assemblage similar to those from
Shukba and el-Wad, a remarkable worked bone industry,
and a number of human burials (Turville-Petre 1932).
Piecing together the archaeological material from the three
sites, Garrod constructed a chronology for the Mesolithic/
Natufian, subdividing Layer B at el-Wad into Upper (B1)
and Lower (B2), with Shukba Layer B corresponding with
el-Wad B1 (later Natufian), and Kebara Layer B with el-
Wad Layer B2 (earlier Natufian). This scheme was based on
techno-typological attributes of the chipped stone industry,
primarily the relative frequency of Helwan (oblique bifacial)
retouch on tools (particularly the crescent-shaped lunates)
from earlier to later Natufian. In addition, microburins were
numerous in the later phase, less so in the earlier, while
worked bone objects, and artistic representations appeared
more prolific in the earlier Natufian phase.
Of significance for the establishment of the BNeolithic
narrative,^ the large numbers of backed flint blades displaying
Ba high degree of polish along the working edge^ (Turville-
Petre 1932 p. 272), also noted by Garrod in several publica-
tions), combined with bone Bsickle hafts^ from both el-Wad
and Kebara, prompted Garrod (Garrod 1931a p. 10) to argue
that Mesolithic Palestine witnessed Ba primitive form of
agriculture.^ Turville-Petre (1932: 272) also argued,
Bprobably the most important object found (at Kebara) was a
grooved bone sickle-blade haft.^ These objects have since
become one of the defining features of the BNatufian Culture.^
As we have seen, Dorothy Garrod’s suggestion that
Bprimitive agriculture^ was practiced in Mesolithic Palestine
was made a few years prior to Gordon Childe’s hypothesis that
the Near East/Levant was the region where the origins of
agriculture may have been located (Childe 1934). At this stage
(early 1930s), Garrod provisionally dated the Natufian to the
fifth millennium BC, noting that Bin the circumstances it may
seem surprising that we get evidence of the practice of agri-
culture at such an early date among a people who possess no
pottery and do not appear to have domesticated animals^
(Garrod 1932c: 268).
Working in the region at the same time as Garrod was the
French Vice-Consul to Jerusalem, René Neuville. His excava-
tions in the caves and rockshelters of the Judean Desert—Erq
el-Ahmar, Oumm ez-Zoueitina, Tor Abu Sif, el-Khiam—led
him to construct a four-phase chronology for the Natufian
B. Boyd
(Neuville 1934) which became the generally accepted chro-
nological scheme for three decades:
Natufian I: Large numbers of lunates with oblique bifa-
cial retouch, backed bladelets, points, flat scrapers, lus-
tred sickle blades, well-developed worked bone industry,
art objects;
Natufian II: Smaller lunates, sharp decrease in frequency
of oblique bifacial retouch, appearance of microburins,
borers, discoidal scrapers, scalene triangles;
Natufian III: Even smaller lunates, less frequent and lack-
ing oblique bifacial retouch, longer bladelets, microlithic
scrapers, large number of microburins;
Natufian IV: Similar to Natufian III, with the addition of
notched arrowheads.
Following the closure of Garrod’s Mount Carmel excava-
tions in 1934, she published BThe Stone Age of Palestine,^ in
which she restated that since no pottery had been found in any
Natufian deposits, then it could be Btruly described as
Mesolithic, even though the presence of sickles points to the
existence of some form of agriculture (Garrod 1934 p. 138).
Subsequently, she again raised the question as to the origins of
the Natufian, which she believed lay outside the Levant:
Natufian art shows no Predynastic affinities, nor, in spite
of certain superficial resemblances, can it be linked with
that of the Magdalenian, to which it is inferior. In the
matter of Natufian origins we have everything to learn,
but it is a fairly safe guess that excavation in Anatolia
would throw light on this problem^ (Garrod 1936 p.
128).
Neuville (1934: 128), on the other hand, argued that the
Natufian lithic industry showed continuity from the Levantine
Upper Palaeolithic. By the time of the final publication of the
Mount Carmel excavations (Garrod and Bate 1937),
Neuville’s Natufian chronology had been broadly accepted
by Garrod. She agreed that Neuville’s Natufian I corresponded
with Lower Natufian B2 at el-Wad but had reservations about
his placing of el-Wad B1 somewhere between Natufian II and
IV: BIn the main, Neuville’s classification appears to be valid,
but it needs to be confirmed, especially as regards the middle
stages, by further excavation^ (Garrod and Bate 1937 p. 117).
In fact, changes to Neuville’s chronology soon became
necessary as he continued excavations at el-Khiam. He noted
that Natufian IV’s characteristic notched arrowheads also ap-
peared in Natufian III, leading him to redefine Natufian IV as
characterized by denticulated sickle blades, the use of
pressure-flaking techniques, and a new type of arrowhead
(Perrot, in Neuville 1951). Further, Neuville proposed that
Natufian I (which he dated to the tenth-twelfth millennia
Settled?
BP), saw the earliest appearance of cereal cultivation, with
Natufian III and IV witnessing the domestication of cattle,
pig, and goat (Neuville 1951 p. 217). Robert Braidwood
(1956), working in other areas of the Near East and
Mesopotamia, disagreed, arguing instead that the Mesolithic
economy was based on the hunting of wild animals and the
gathering of wild cereals, although he believed that the earliest
steps towards plant and animal domestication occurred during
this period.
The question of agriculture was raised again in Dorothy
Garrod’s final words on the Natufian. Noting the high propor-
tion of sickle blades from Natufian sites, and the care spent
adorning some of the bone hafts, she agreed with Neuville Bin
thinking that the Lower Natufian people were probably the
first agriculturalists^ (Garrod 1957 p. 216). In terms of animal
domestication, however, she argued—based on her colleague
Dorothea Bate’s faunal analyses at Shukba and el-Wad—that
only the dog (Canis familiaris) was domesticated during this
period. The apparent absence of substantial architecture
seemed to indicate that cereal cultivation predated sedentism
and settled village life, a view shared by most researchers at
the time. Finally, Garrod reversed her earlier opinion on
Natufian origins. Rather than regarding Anatolia as the likely
source, the lack of any archaeological evidence to support this
claim led her to suggest that Bthe Natufian makes its first
appearance apparently full-grown with no traceable roots in
the past^ (Garrod 1957 p. 225).
The general consensus, then, in these early European inter-
pretations of the BNatufian Culture^ was that the Mesolithic
communities of southwest Asia (or the Levant region at least)
were hunter-gatherers, probably practicing some level of ce-
real cultivation and possible animal (dog) domestication.
Within a decade, however, this view of the Natufian had
changed, mainly as a result of new archaeological evidence
from excavations at Tell es-Sultan/Jericho (Kenyon 1952) in
the lower Jordan Valley, Nahal Oren—the first Israeli-directed
Natufian excavation—in the Mount Carmel area (Stekelis and
Yizraely 1963), and ‘Ain Mallaha/Eynan in the upper Jordan
Valley (Perrot 1960). The first radiocarbon dates for the
Aceramic/Pre-pottery Neolithic levels at Jericho placed the
stratigraphically earlier Natufian layer at the tell to 10,000–
8000 BP. This estimated date was subsequently confirmed by
dates from charcoal samples taken from the Natufian layer
itself (Kenyon 1959 pp. 5–9). Further, the discovery of rela-
tively substantial circular stone architecture at Nahal Oren and
‘Ain Mallaha seemed to indicate that these Mesolithic hunter-
gatherers were in fact the first settled village communities. J.
Perrot, director of the ‘Ain Mallaha excavations, produced a
new synthesis, arguing for recognition of the Natufian as Ba
cultural and ethnic whole^ as displayed in the homogeneity of
its flint, groundstone, and bone industries, art objects, and
mortuary practices (Perrot 1966). Further, based on the
bioarchaeological evidence from ‘Ain Mallaha, Perrot argued
that the Natufian economy was based on hunting and gather-
ing rather than animal domestication and the cultivation of
cereals (the apparently domesticated dogs of Shukba and el-
Wad he now referred to as wolves). All this led Perrot to
suggest that the Natufian should be labeled
BEpipalaeolithic^ rather than BMesolithic,^ in recognizing
economic and technological continuity with the preceding
Upper Palaeolithic period in the region.
So, by the late 1960s a rather different interpretation of the
Natufian had emerged: sedentary hunter-gatherers with indig-
enous origins.
4 Chronological and cultural refinements
1970–1990
The first benchmark chrono-cultural sequence for the known
Levantine Epipalaeolithic was put forward in O. Bar-Yosef’s
doctoral thesis (Bar-Yosef 1970). Alluding to the concept of a
geographical Bcentre/core and periphery,^ Bar-Yosef put for-
ward a hierarchy of Natufian sites according to relative size
and associated features:
Base camps: large sites in the terra rossa Mediterranean
zone, with a flint tool industry characterized by crescent-
shaped lunates, sickle blades, groundstone artifacts,
stone-built architecture and other structures, human
burials, and art objects;
Seasonal camps: smaller sites within a 50 km radius of
base camps. They generally had only a lithic industry,
with no, or few, other artifact technologies, little in the
way of architecture, and no mortuary evidence;
Seasonal camps in the arid and semi-arid zones of the
southern Negev, Jordan and Syria, and in the Lebanese moun-
tain area. It was suggested that these had only tenuous links
with the core Natufian Mediterranean area.
This scheme was further refined in D.O. Henry’s chronol-
ogy for the Natufian, based on techno-typological attributes of
the lithic assemblages (Henry 1973, 1974), and the research of
F.R. Valla (1975) who presented the most complete synthesis
to date. Valla proposed a more geographically extensive and
culturally diverse definition for the Natufian than that of Bar-
Yosef. Moving away from equating the Natufian with
Mediterranean zone base camps (the Natufian Bcore^), Valla
advocated a regional approach, stressing the need for more
fieldwork in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt in order to
build a more detailed internal chronology. He developed this
approach (Valla 1981, 1984, 1987), constructing a tripartite
chronology (Early, Late and Final Natufian) based not only
on lunate attributes, but also on quantitative and qualitative
analysis of other flint artifact types and radiocarbon dates.

The importance of a pan-regional perspective was further
emphasized throughout the 1970s and 1980s by fieldwork in
Lebanon (e.g. Copeland 1991; Schroeder 1991), Syria
(Cauvin 1977; Moore et al. 1975; 2000) and Jordan (Betts
1983; Betts 1984; Edwards 1991). There were also new pro-
jects at previously excavated sites in the so-called Natufian
Bcore area^ of central and northern Israel (e.g., Hayonim
Cave 1970–79 (Bar-Yosef 1991); Hayonim Terrace 1980–
81, 1985–1989 (Valla 2012); ‘Ain Mallaha 1971–76
(Lechevallier and Valla 1974; Perrot 1974; Perrot and
Ladiray 1988); el-Wad Cave and Terrace 1980–81, 1988–89
(Valla et al. 1986; Weinstein-Evron 1991). New fieldwork in
the southern Israel desert region, the Negev, was carried out by
N. Goring-Morris, resulting in the discovery of not only
Natufian sites, but also those of the Bdesertic adaptation,^
the Harifian (Goring-Morris 1987, 1991).
A major conference held in the south of France in 1989,
BThe Natufian Culture in the Levant,^ subsequently published
(Bar-Yosef and Valla 1991), in many ways signaled the begin-
ning of divergent ways of thinking about the Natufian, as
established and new generations of scholars began to engage
with the regional diversity of the archaeological material re-
covered since the 1920s. In their introduction to the confer-
ence volume, the editors commented that, BUndoubtedly,
much of the renewed research will arise from theoretical ap-
proaches that cannot be tested on the basis of the available
data^ (Bar-Yosef and Valla 1991 p. 7). A subsequent confer-
ence, BThe Natufian Culture in the Levant II^ took place
twenty years later in Paris in September 2009 (Bar-Yosef
and Valla 2013). Importantly, the two decades between these
conferences witnessed a significant increase in fieldwork (sur-
vey and excavations) in the areas previously referred to as the
Bperiphery^ of the Natufian—Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and,
further afield, in Anatolia. These projects have substantially
altered our view of the Epipalaeolithic and the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic in southwest Asia. We are now faced with a dramat-
ically different picture for the 10,000 years preceding the es-
tablishment of settled communities with domesticated plants
and animals. Many established models and theoretical as-
sumptions have been challenged and, in some cases, have
required fundamentally revision.
5 Recent and contemporary perspectives
5.1 Methods and techniques
First, it should be emphasized that the development of field
techniques at a number of major Natufian sites has contributed
immensely to our understanding of the material evidence. At
‘Ain Mallaha/Eynan, the use of open area excavation
(décapage horizontal) since the early 1970s, but particularly
in the renewed excavations from 1996 to 2005, has yielded
B. Boyd
immensely detailed spatial and architectural information relat-
ing to the poorly understood final phase of the Natufian (Valla
1988, 1991, 2012; Valla et al. 2001, 2004; Samuelian 2006).
Similarly, the adoption of Bl’anthropologie de terrain^ - ini-
tially pioneered by Henri Duday and colleagues (Duday and
Masset 1987; Duday et al. 1990) - has led to sophisticated
taphonomic analyses of human skeletal material and its asso-
ciated deposits at ‘Ain Mallaha (Bocquentin 2003; Valla et al.
2004), and in the new excavations of the Late Natufian levels
at Rakefet Cave, Mount Carmel (Nadel et al. 2009, 2013).
Added to this, a detailed reevaluation and recalibration study
has extended the time depth of the Natufian chronological
scheme as far back as beginning around 15,000 cal. Years
BP (Grosman 2013).
5.2 Collapse of the Bcore-periphery^ model
Beyond methodological concerns, however, a number of ma-
jor theoretical assumptions can now be called into question
due to results from extensive fieldwork in the hitherto-termed
Natufian Bperipheries^ of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. As
outlined above, the consensus until the mid-1990s was that
there existed a material demarcation between an early
Natufian Bcore area^ (the Natufian origin), with sites
displaying various modes or degrees of sedentism, co-
existing in a number of possible configurations with the occu-
pation of sites in Bmarginal zones,^ the upland and desert
zones of modern-day Israel/Palestine, Jordan, and further
afield (Perles and Phillips 1991). In the light of fieldwork
since the 1990s, however, this picture cannot be sustained.
In particular, the proliferation of pre-Natufian Epipalaeolithic
and early Natufian sites excavated in Jordan and Syria during
the first two decades of the twenty-first century clearly dem-
onstrates that the core-periphery model has effectively col-
lapsed. The increase in archaeological research east and north
of the Bcore area^ has revealed the density and complexity of
pre- and early Natufian inhabitation of a variety of ecological
zones from southern Jordan to Lebanon and northern Syria
(Garrard and Yazbeck 2003; 2013; Maher et al. 2011, 2012;
Richter et al. 2010, 2014). Looking further afield in the region,
recent research at the site of Jeftelik in the Homs Gap, Syria,
demonstrates early Natufian occupation far north of the Bcore
area^ (Rodriguez et al. 2013), and Pinarbaşi, the earliest
known prehistoric settlement sequence in central Anatolia, is
broadly contemporary with the Levantine Early Natufian (and
later PPNA and early PPNB, (Baird et al. 2013).
Together, these early sites, some with substantial stone ar-
chitecture (e.g., Shubayqa 1), human burials (e.g., ‘Uyun al-
Hammam), heavy-duty ground stone artifact industries (almost
all sites), and occasional decorated objects (e.g., Jeftelik), make
it quite clear that the notion of a delineated early Natufian Bcore
area^ or Bhomeland^ represented by sedentary Bbase camps^
in the Mount Carmel-Galilee-central and upper Jordan Valley
Settled?
areas was largely the result of twentieth century geographic
fieldwork bias, and so can now be confidently abandoned
(Boyd 2016; Olszewski 2010). It should be further noted
that so-called Bbase camps^ were/are designated as such
largely due to the presence of stone architecture (amongst
other things), a material signature that gives the impression
of permanence of occupation (Boyd 2006). However, re-
cent re-evaluations of Bephemeral^ locales or places in
pre-Natufian contexts in Jordan, such as Wadi al-Hasa,
(Olszewski and al-Nahar 2016), and Ohalo II on the
south-west shore of the Sea of Galilee (Weiss et al. 2008)
have emphasized that seemingly Btemporary^ sites can
have long, persistent and repeated occupation without nec-
essarily becoming embellished by the repeated building of
stone architecture. As I have argued elsewhere, Natufian
sites with stone architecture also tend to contain numerous
human burials (e.g., el-Wad, Nahal Oren, Mallaha,
Hayonim, Raqefet), and those without stone architecture
rarely, if ever, were used as burial places (Boyd 2006).
5.3 Ritual and symbolism
Alongside these fundamental changes in Epipalaeolithic
settlement/landscape research, a number of different interpre-
tive approaches have emerged in recent years which attempt to
make a break with the social evolutionary and environmentally/
ecologically driven explanations that still characterize much of
the archaeological literature on the relationship between the
Epipalaeolithic, the Natufian in particular, and the subsequent
Neolithic, with its Bpackage^ of domesticated plants and ani-
mals, settled village life, and so on. A number of these
theoretically-oriented studies are primarily of Euro-American
origin, are often influenced by late twentieth century
postprocessual or interpretive archaeologies (e.g. Boyd 2002;
Boyd 2006; Boyd 2017; Delage 2004; Peterson 2002) (see also
special issue of Neo-Lithics 2005), and focus on issues such as
social landscapes, ritual and symbolism, agency and material-
ity, the social aspects of food consumption, gender, human-
animal-plant relations, and Bnon-Cartesian^ perspectives on
the perceived transition to the Neolithic. More emphasis is
now being placed on social and symbolic factors in interpreta-
tions of why sedentism, agriculture and domestication should
have come about, and within such thinking it is generally ac-
knowledged that environmental, ecological, and social evolu-
tionary explanations can only partially account for the nature of
the archaeological evidence recovered from the Epipalaeolithic
and Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites located throughout southwest
Asia.
Of course, so-called symbolic interpretations of Natufian
and Pre-Pottery Neolithic archaeological sites and materials
are not new. Structuralist-influenced perspectives on the
Neolithic transition were first outlined in the early 1970s,
and later elaborated in the 1990s, by the French archaeologist
Jacques Cauvin to address the apparent symbolic elements
represented at Epipalaeolithic, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and
Neolithic sites across the Fertile Crescent—carved stone hu-
man and animal figurines, removal and treatment of the hu-
man skull, elaboration of architectural forms, and so on (Cauvin
1972; Cauvin 1994). Cauvin saw a cognitive Brevolution of
symbols^ preceding the BNeolithic Revolution^ in his explana-
tion of the origins of sedentism, domestication, and agriculture.
This perspective has been highly influential (although not
without its critics) in BNeolithic transition^ archaeology in
both southwest Asia and Europe. Its most developed formu-
lation can be found in Ian Hodder’s writings on Neolithic
Catalhoyuk, central Anatolia (Hodder 1990; Hodder 2010),
but the structuralism influence has long been evident in sev-
eral studies of the pre-Neolithic periods. For example, Valla
(1995 p. 187) has argued that Bthe Natufian saw domestica-
tion as an appealing way in which to introduce the animal
into society. They thereby opened the way to the unlimited
expansion of the ‘humanized’ world at the expense of
nature.^ Similarly, Belfer-Cohen and Goring-Morris (2002)
observe, BThis was the time when humans took upon them-
selves not only the domestication of plants and animals, but
also the domestication of the landscape - nothing remained
‘natural’ or immutable anymore. While places within the
landscape were most probably also previously imbued with
symbolic significance, there were now conscious efforts to
tame and/or influence localities within the landscape that were
not necessarily beneficial in terms of the purely functional
mechanisms of optimal foraging,^ and, B…the mechanisms
that helped to resolve the resulting tensions imposed by
sedentism. There is a wide-ranging consensus that the search
for these mechanisms should be focused in particular on the
ritual and symbolic aspects of the archaeological record^
(Belfer-Cohen and Goring-Morris 2002: 144).
When one considers the nature of much of the archaeolog-
ical evidence from PPNA and PPNB sites in southwest Asia,
this approach seems alluring. How else could we approach an
understanding of PPNB Kfar HaHoresh in Lower Galilee,
Israel (Goring-Morris 2005; Simmons et al. 2007), with its
extraordinary range of human and animal mortuary deposits,
or PPNA Jerf el Ahmar’s (Syria) remarkable large-scale Bkiva-
like^ stone architecture (Stordeur et al. 2000)? Similarly, the
unique anthropomorphic lime plaster statues from PPNB ‘Ain
Ghazal, Jordan (Grissom 2000), and, dramatically, the monu-
mental stone circles of PPNA Gobekli Tepe (southeast
Anatolia/Turkey) with carved pillars depicting (for the most
part) a diversity of wild creatures (Peters and Schmidt 2004;
Schmidt and Wittwar 2012)— all defy the traditional
environment/economy-driven BNeolithic narrative.^ There
are also hundreds of recently discovered human burials from
the sites of Körtik Tepe (PPNA) in southeastern Anatolia
(Erdal 2015) and Tell Halula (PPNB) in the Euphrates
Valley, Syria (Molist et al. 2009), testifying to the scale and

diversity of mortuary practices in the centuries before the
Bfully settled^ Neolithic.
All this Bsymbolic^ evidence raises important questions that
complicate traditional social/cultural evolutionary perspectives
on the nature of pre-Neolithic human communities and their
relationships with landscapes, places and the nonhuman spe-
cies—particularly certain plants and animals—within those
landscapes and places. But perhaps we should be cautious
about creating a Neolithic that is a product of an archaeology
of only ritual and symbolic association. Perhaps this is just as
biased as an archaeology based on environmental and
economy-driven scenarios. But with hindsight, of course, we
know that some human communities in southwest Asia did
indeed become sedentary, domesticate certain plants and ani-
mals, and Bbecome farmers.^ But even these quotidian prac-
tices—and their associated material objects and architec-
tures—were sometimes drawn into ritual practices and net-
works of symbolic associations and meanings. This much is
clear from the wider pre-Neolithic and early Neolithic pic-
ture(s) we now see before us. What are the implications of such
questions for traditional definitions of Bdomestication^ and the
BNeolithic transition^? For example, in discussing PPNA
Gobekli Tepe, Verhoeven (2002) and Hodder and Meskell
(2011) have argued, in slightly different ways, that the animal
imagery depicted on the monumental carved stone pillars at the
site were an expression of a desired domination by male
humans over dangerous male wild animals. Hodder and
Meskell suggest that BThe ability to kill a dangerous wild an-
imal or a large wild bull, to use and overcome its masculinity,
and to control the distribution of its meat and mementoes was
as important to creating the agricultural revolution as domesti-
cating plants and animals^ (Hodder and Meskell 2011: 251).
This is but one possible interpretive scenario facilitated by
stepping outside the traditional BNeolithic narrative,^ and there
are of course many other possibilities. But the monumental
Gobekli Tepe in southeast Anatolia is the exemplar here. The
site dates to the PPNA (ca. 12,000–11,000 cal. BP), many
centuries before plant and animal domestication, ceramics,
and settled village life. This hilltop complex of stone circles,
consisting of numerous massive T-shaped pillars, most of
which display intricate carvings of wild animals on their sur-
faces, was constructed by hunter-gatherers. This scale and
complexity of pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer built monumental-
ity has no parallels elsewhere as yet, and further emphasizes
the relatively recent shift in research focus away from the old
Levant-based scenarios of the transition to Bcomplexity^ to-
wards different social developments and diverse trajectories in
other areas of southwest Asia.
5.4 Initial domestication of plants and animals
Finally, it should be noted that this shift in regional focus is
also reflected in recent accounts of the initial appearance of
B. Boyd
domesticated plant and animal species. The traditional sce-
nario (until the turn of the twenty-first century) placed the
origins of crop domestication in the southern Levant around
11,400 cal BP, during the PPNA, with the domestication of
goat and sheep around 10,000 cal BP (middle PPNB), with
cattle and pig following slightly later. It has now become
clear, in the light of recent archaeobiological and genetic
analyses, that the earliest domestication of the Bfounder
crops^ of einkorn and emmer, and pulses, along with the
initial domestication of sheep, pigs, and cattle (and possibly
goats), took place much further north—in the Upper Tigris
and Euphrates valleys of modern-day Syria and Turkey—
around 11,500 cal BP or perhaps slightly earlier (Zeder
2011).
5.5 Endwords
Many of the fundamental tenets of the Epipalaeolithic and
Pre-Pottery Neolithic periods of southwest Asia are cur-
rently undergoing a fundamental rethinking due to the
combination of widespread fieldwork across the region,
the application of powerful new archaeobiological
methods, and theoretically sophisticated interpretive per-
spectives on prehistoric social life. This re-evaluation of
traditional perspectives is largely due to the nature of the
evidence from pre-Neolithic archaeological sites in areas
previously referred to as the Bperipheries.^ Features tradi-
tionally associated with the appearance of complex agri-
cultural societies—monumentality, ceremonial centers,
long-term investment in particular places in the landscape,
the initial domestication of certain plants and animals, and
so on—have now been shown to occur in many pre-
Neolithic contexts throughout the Fertile Crescent. The
implications for BNeolithic transition^ research are pro-
found. Inquiry is beginning to focus on the BNeolithic
transition^ as changes in the ways in which the world
was inhabited and comprehended (Bways of being^), rath-
er than as a shift from one archaeologically constructed
social totality or entity to another. The interpretive chal-
lenge now becomes how to view the social strategies of
sedentism, and of plant and animal domestication, as
resulting from existing Epipalaeolithic historical and ma-
terial conditions which people understood, lived in and
through, and reworked as they went about their daily lives
within these landscapes over long periods of time, rather
than seeing new forms of architecture, buildings, transfor-
mations of plants and animals, as some kind of cultural or
symbolic insertion into nature.
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Feng Li and his
colleagues and students at Jilin University for generously and graciously
hosting the Columbia Archaeology Week in October 2016, where a ver-
sion of this paper was presented and discussed.
Settled?
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