Natufian culture
Culture | Defunct
12500 BCE to 9500 BCE
The Natufian culture is a Mesolithic culture that exists in the Levant, a region in the Eastern Mediterranean.
It is unusual in that it is sedentary, or semi-sedentary, before the introduction of agriculture.
The Natufian communities are possibly the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world.
There is some evidence for the deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture, at the Tell Abu Hureyra site, the site for earliest evidence of agriculture in the world.
Generally, though, Natufians make use of wild cereals.
Animals hunted include gazelles.
The term "Natufian" was coined by Dorothy Garrod who studied the Shuqba cave in Wadi an-Natuf, Israel, about halfway between Tel Aviv and Ramallah.Radiocarbon dating places this culture just before the end of the Pleistocene, in the period 12,500 to 9,500 BCE.
The period is commonly split into two subperiods: Early Natufian (12,500–10,800 BCE) and Late Natufian (10,800–9500 BCE).
The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the Younger Dryas (10,800 to 9500 BCE).
In the Levant, there are more than a hundred kinds of cereals, fruits, nuts and other edible parts of plants, and the flora of the Levant during the Natufian period was not the dry, barren, and thorny landscape of today, but parkland and woodland.
Related Events
Showing 4 events out of 4 total
The Middle East (28,577 – 7,822 BCE) Upper Pleistocene II — Bølling–Allerød Abundance, Younger Dryas Stress, Early Holocene Recovery
Geographic and Environmental Context
The Middle East includes Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, eastern Jordan, most of Turkey’s central/eastern uplands (including Cilicia), eastern Saudi Arabia, northern Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, northeastern Cyprus, and all but the southernmost Lebanon.-
Anchors: the Tigris–Euphrates alluvium and marshes; the Zagros (Luristan, Fars), Alborz, Caucasus (Armenia–Georgia–Azerbaijan); northern Syrian plains and Cilicia; Khuzestan and Fars lowlands; the Arabian/Persian Gulf littoral (al-Ahsa–Qatar–Bahrain–UAE–northern Oman); northeastern Cyprus and the Lebanon coastal elbow (north).
Climate & Environment
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Bølling–Allerød (c. 14.7–12.9 ka): rainfall rose; gallery woodlands expanded along Tigris–Euphrates and Zagros springs.
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Younger Dryas (12.9–11.7 ka): cooler–drier snapback; steppe patches widened.
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Early Holocene: stabilizing warmth; perennial springs recharged; Gulf shoreline advanced landward.
Subsistence & Settlement
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Broad-spectrum foraging intensified (gazelle–onager–boar–fish–mollusks; seeds, acorns, pistachio/almond); semi-recurrent springhead hamlets in Zagros and Upper Mesopotamia (preludes to later Epipaleolithic “Natufian-like” economies outside our zone).
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Seasonal coastal foraging at northeastern Cyprus and the Gulf rim.
Technology & Material Culture
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Microlithic toolkits diversified; grinding stones and mortars for seeds/nuts; bone harpoons/fish gorges in marshy reaches.
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Hafting resins, compound points; early basketry inferred.
Corridors
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Zagros spring belts (Luristan–Kurdistan) and Upper Mesopotamian flanks; Caucasus piedmont fans; Gulf shelf retreat reshaped coastal access.
Symbolism & Ritual
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Persistent ochre burials; ritual deposits at springs; engraved motifs (caprids, equids).
Adaptation & Resilience
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Diet breadth + storage (dried meat/fish, nut pastes) buffered Younger Dryas shocks; flexible camp scheduling maintained returns.
Transition
Early Holocene stability primed semi-sedentary river–spring villages and the seed economies that will underpin later plant management.
(7,821 – 6,094 BCE) Early Holocene — Semi-Sedentary Spring Villages & Seed Processing
Climate & Environment
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Thermal optimum onset: marsh–riparian mosaics in Lower Mesopotamia; wooded Zagros; productive Caucasus belts; Gulf continued transgression.
Subsistence & Settlement
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Semi-sedentary hamlets on springheads/low terraces (Zagros–Upper Mesopotamia) combined hunting with seed–nut processing; wetland fishing/waterfowling in Tigris–Euphrates backwaters.
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Early caprine management likely began on Zagros slopes (wild → managed herds).
Technology & Material Culture
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Ground-stone mortars/querns proliferated; larger storage pits; microliths persisted; incipient pottery appears on the northern Iranian/Caspian periphery by late in the epoch.
Corridors
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Zagros passes (Kermanshah–Khuzestan) linked uplands to Khuzestan plains; Karkheh–Karun marshes tied to the Upper Gulf.
Symbolism
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House-based ritual (hearths, ancestor interments); stone slab markers; continued ochre.
Adaptation
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Storage + proximity to springs anchored overwintering; mixed wetland–upland rounds hedged variability.
Transition
These lifeways foreshadow Neolithic cultivation/herding communities across the Zagros and Upper Mesopotamia.
The Near East (28,577 – 7,822 BCE) Upper Pleistocene II — Bølling–Allerød Nile Bounty, Younger Dryas Stress, Early Holocene Recovery
Geographic and Environmental Context
The Near East includes Egypt, Sudan, Israel, most of Jordan, western Saudi Arabia, western Yemen, southwestern Cyprus, and western Turkey (Aeolis, Ionia, Doris, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Troas) plus Tyre (extreme SW Lebanon).-
Anchors: the Nile Valley and Delta; Sinai–Negev–Arabah; the southern Levant (with Tyre as the sole Levantine node in this subregion); Hejaz–Asir–Tihāma on the Red Sea; Yemen’s western uplands/coast; southwestern Cyprus; western Anatolian littoral (Smyrna–Ephesus–Miletus–Halicarnassus–Xanthos; Troad).
Climate & Environment
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Bølling–Allerød: Nile floods more generous; Levantine–Aegean woodlands expanded.
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Younger Dryas: aridity spike; Nile floods weakened; Early Holocene restored stability.
Subsistence & Settlement
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Intensified fish–fowl–reed economies in Nile; broad-spectrum foraging in Levant; shellfish and nearshore fish along Aegean Turkey; Red Sea relict mangroves used intermittently.
Technology
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Microlithic composites; grinders/mortars for seeds; fishing gear (gorges, traps); early dugout/raft precursors.
Corridors
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Nile remained the main artery; Sinai–Negev link; Ionia–Carian capes for seasonal forays.
Symbolism
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Cemeteries at levee ridges; ritual disposal in dune/shore settings; persistent ochre.
Adaptation
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Storage + wetland scheduling mitigated Younger Dryas volatility.
The earliest dated remains of domesticated dogs, dated to around 10,500 BCE, are coeval with the emergence of the Natufian culture of the Levant following the close of the Pleistocene Epoch. (First identified in 1928 in the valley of Wadi en Natuf in Israel, major sites have since been found in many parts of Israel and Jordan and in Syria.)
The Natufian culture differs markedly from Late Paleolithic cultures following the close of the Pleistocene Epoch.
The Natufians, although still concerned with hunting, exhibit evidence of a more sedentary life, including the introduction of a new economy preoccupied with intensive collecting of wild seed plants.
Natufians produce microlithic stone reaping tools, stone mortars and pestles, bone sculptures, and luxury goods, such as shell and bone jewelry.
Trade is important to the Natufians, whose economic relations apparently extend from the Mediterranean to the Zagros Mountains.
Like us, the Natufians are artistic, lavishly carving the bone-handled hafts of their flint-bladed sickles, and like us, they honor their dead, burying them with personal ornaments in cemeteries.
They live in caves, as did their Paleolithic predecessors, or occupy incipient villages.
One of these, the first known organized community in the Fertile Crescent, forms at the oasis of Jericho, on the plain on the west bank of the River Jordan.
The earliest occupation of the site consists of remains of the Natufian culture and includes what may have been a shrine.
The site is watered, as it is today, by the copious spring 'as-Sul'n.
The early Neolithic human occupation of Mesopotamia is, like the previous Epipaleolithic period, confined to the foothill zones of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains and the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period (10,000–8700 BCE) sees the introduction of agriculture.
The Natufian culture in Upper Mesopotamia, contemporaneous with the Zarzian in the Zagros, is attested over a much wider region and is characterized by open-air sites that are semi-permanently occupied.
In the Zagros, this period has been excavated at Zawi Chemi, Shanidar, and M'lefaat.
In the area of the Syrian Upper Euphrates, villages of Natufian hunter-gatherers that were occupied since the eleventh millennium BCE have been excavated at Abu Hureyra and Mureybet.
One such village, established about 9000 in southeastern Anatolia on the Turkish-Iranian border, consists of houses made from mud and reeds, with conical roofs and circular stone bases.
It is the first known example of a permanent settlement.
Copper was known to some of the oldest civilizations on record, and has a history of use that is at least 10,000 years old.
Some estimates of copper's discovery place this event around 9000 BCE in the Middle East.
A copper pendant found in what is now northern Iraq dates to 8700 BCE.