Two Foundational Early Human Communities of the Middle East: Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

The transition from foraging to farming in the Middle East (the "Neolithic Revolution") is illuminated by two pivotal archaeological cultures:

1. Natufian Culture (c. 12,500–9,500 BCE) – The Threshold of Agriculture

• Region: Levant (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) – Mediterranean woodland/parkland.
• Lifestyle: Sedentary or semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers – first year-round villages (up to 150 people) before full agriculture.
• Key Sites: El-Wad, Hayonim, Ain Mallaha (Eynan), Jericho (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A layer).
• Innovations:
  • Sickle blades (gloss from harvesting wild cereals).
  • Ground stone tools (mortars, pestles, bowls) – intensive plant processing.
  • Early cultivation of wild rye, barley, einkorn (experimental).
  • Burials with grave goods (shell beads, red ochre) – symbolic behavior.
  • Art: figurines, engraved bone, stone slabs.
• Significance: Demonstrated that sedentism preceded agriculture – resource-rich environments allowed settling down, which then selected for cultivation.

2. Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (c. 10,200–7,500 BCE) – The First Farming Villages

• Region: Expanded across Levant, Upper Mesopotamia (SE Turkey, N Iraq/Syria), Central Anatolia.
• Lifestyle: Fully sedentary agriculturalists. Villages of 500–3,000+ people (e.g., Çatalhöyük, Ain Ghazal, Basta, Abu Hureyra, Jericho).
• Economy:
  • Domesticated crops: emmer wheat, einkorn, barley, lentils, peas, chickpeas, flax.
  • Domesticated animals: sheep, goats (early), later cattle, pigs.
• Technology:
  • Rectilinear mudbrick/stone houses (plastered floors, wall paintings).
  • Advanced lithics: pressure-flaked blades, naviform cores, obsidian trade networks (hundreds of km).
  • Plastered skulls (ancestor veneration), clay figurines.
  • Early pyrotechnology: lime plaster, early pottery (White Ware) – but still pre-fired-pottery.
• Significance: First true farming societies – demographic explosion, social complexity, ritual architecture, long-distance exchange. Foundation for all subsequent Near Eastern civilizations.

Continuity

Natufian → PPNA (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, Jericho tower) → PPNB shows a gradual, indigenous trajectory from intensive foraging to village farming, driven by climate change (Younger Dryas), population pressure, and cultural innovation—not diffusion from a single point.

These two cultures wrote the first chapters of the Neolithic in the Fertile Crescent.