High Resolution AMS Dates from Shubayqa 1, northeast Jordan Reveal Complex Origins of Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant.

ABSTRACT: The Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian (~14,600 - 11,500 cal BP) is a key period in the prehistory of southwest Asia. Often described as a complex hunting and gathering society with increased sedentism, intensive plant exploitation and associated with an increase in artistic and symbolic material culture, it is positioned between the earlier Upper- and Epi-Palaeolithic and the early Neolithic, when plant cultivation and subsequently animal domestication began. The Natufian has thus often been seen as a necessary pre-adaptation for the emergence of Neolithic economies in southwest Asia. Previous work has pointed to the Mediterranean woodland zone of the southern Levant as the 'core zone' of the Early Natufian. Here we present a new sequence of 27 AMS radiocarbon dates from the Natufian site Shub

SUBMITTER: Richter T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5717003 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature