There have been findings of some larger sites during this period (for example Jilat 6), which were placed right in the desert. They have some sort of stone foundation, which indicates further development in architecture and lifestyle. Seashelves have been found in Eastern Jordan, maybe used as personal decoration. The way of hunting seems still to be incompletely described, but there are some evidence of hunting after certain wild animals of the area of the site. People gathered step-plants for cultivation, either by cutting them by sickles or plucking by hand. Here the microliths are at first geometric and later in triangles and lunates (the later could be in some cultures contemporary to the Natufian). Several sites are still found to have been situated in caves.
From the Geometric Kebaran to the Natufian the size of camps grows from 20-300 m2 too approximately 500 m2 - and some were even between 800 - 2000 m2. This indicates also larger and better organized groups. Some camps might have had as many as 200 inhabitants, but that seems only to have been on the larger sites. Such large groups living together for a larger parts of the year would demand a change in the pattern of social life.
As noted under 3.d. & 3.f. it caused a change in the structures of their houses, in their expressions of life (as some sort of art seems to occur), and in the fact that they buried their dead.
While the population have increased, the people of the N. were forced to investigate and develop new foodstuffs. The increase of people has in one way or another followed side by side with the change to a sedentary and an agricultural way of living.
In the Kebaran they gathered some sorts of cereals, but in the Natufian, after a while the wild cereals with tough husks and brittle rachis are domesticated in direction of some tougher rachis (both einkorn-wheat and emmer-wheat). This may not prove that the Natufians were true agriculturalists, but they carried on experimental activities with plants and animals. They expended large effort in gathering cereal grains, such as wild emmer wheat and wild barley. Therefore it is possible to suggest that cereals were an important constituent of the diet.
In the structures of the Natufian, there is evidence of a beginning of storage. The Natufian people simply developed ways to store their cereals and to cultivate them.
They were hunting for the major animals in their domesticated area - and began to have animals in domesticated flocks. This is seen by the changing in the size of the animals. They continued hunting the specific animal most commonly in the vicinity of the sites. There seems to have been an increase in the intensity of hunting certain animals at some sites, which implies that man was in close contact with these animals and that he took care to conserve their herds, simply to secure future supply of meat. They seem also to have continued eating birds, fish, nuts, and shellfish, where they were available. The N. people also seem to have kept dogs for hunting.
The question, which rises after the state of these developments, is, whether the larger groups forced the peoples of the Natufian to new developments or it was the developments, which made space for larger groups?
Natufian tools are chipped flint tools and ground limestone and basalt tools. They become standard during the Natufian, while they were developed in the late Kebaran. The special characteristics are the lots of microliths. There seems to have been a special systematic technique for the production of lunates and triangles. It is specially seen among the larger tools, where they developed scrapers for cleaning hides, picks for pecking mortars from limestone and basalt blocks, choppers for butchering and breaking bones to extract the marrow. Of course there is a sligth variation between the sort of tools used at the different local sites.
The N. people also made small figures of animals and humans in clay, mostly females (maybe as a sign of the dependency on the female fertility), but also animals or humans in other situations.
From earlier life in caves and short-time camps, htere is now a development towards base camps on certain favourable sites and then seasonal hunting camps (not permanent occupation of sites).
The difficulties in moving the grain supplies end the need for stone mortars and stone slabs have forced the N. people to choose a base camp for at least a period of the year. So they have had some temporary camps for hunting and some permanent for the harvesting of the cereals. Ain Mallaha seems to have been occupied for at least several hundred years during the Natufian period.
There was a development in the architecture of the houses. At Ain Mallaha, houses have been found with stone-founded circular structures up to 7-9 m. in diameter - and we have to consider that more than five m. demands a complicated structure of the roof. There was also a sort of pavement and most of them had centrally located stone-lined hearths and bins. The structures are made in hollows about one m. deep with the entrances located downhill (as the site is located on a hillside). There were storage pits for the gathered cereals. They were abt. 1 metre deep and located outside the structures.
There might have been some sort of communication and a small trade, so there is rather any site, where there are not found shells, both Mediterranean and Read Sea shells. But also an increasing trade with foodstuff, skin and salt have taken place.
Burials are found to have taken place. They buried their dead outside the houses or in some caves. This is one of the significant developments - especially when it is noticed that they even gave their dead some personal ornament with them into the death. It could be goods such as head decorations, bone necklaces, bracelets, belts worn around the thighs, and dentalium shells. Earlier people were buried in massgraves, in the Natufian the majority are buried as individuals. There have been more than 200 burials on the excavated sites - and we have to consider that it might have been a relatively new custom. This can be the reason for the found of both primary and secondary burials, both individual and multiple, both with and without burial goods.
In the Natufian, humans developed a dwelling lifestyle in a sort of houses halloed into a hillside in some numerous sizes. They began the domestication of certain sorts of animals. They began a production of microlithic tools, weapons and of bone work. And at last there have been findings of the first clay figurines in history. A little trade took place by exchange of some pretty or necessary goods.
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in: The Hilly Flanks and Beyond
University of Chicago, 1983
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Byrd, Brian F. The Natufian: Settlement Variability and
Economic Adaptions in the Levant at the End
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Maisels, Charles K. The Emergence of Civilization
Routledge, London, 1990
Mellart, J. The Neolithic of the Near East
1975, p. 28 - 39
Moore, Andrew M. T. The First Farmers in the Levant
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