Eur asian Pre his tory, 7 (1): 85–97.

ON THE MAR GINS: EARLY NATUFIAN IN THE WADIAL-HASA RE GION, JOR DAN

Deborah I. Olszewski

De part ment of An thro pol ogy, Penn Mu seum Uni ver sity of Penn syl va nia, 3260 South Street, Phil a del phia,PA 19104 USA, deboraho@sas.upenn.edu

Ab stractOur un der stand ing of the Early Natufian pe riod pri mar ily is based on data from the west ern Lev ant, par tic u larly from

Med i ter ra nean wood lands and coastal con texts. Sites here have pro duced a wealth of in for ma tion crit i cal to build ing anun der stand ing of Early Natufian com plex hunter-gath erer ad ap ta tions in clud ing their sub sis tence strat e gies. The ac cel er at -ing pace of ar chae o log i cal re search in the east ern Lev ant, how ever, which was mainly char ac ter ized by a steppe con text,has be gun to yield ev i dence of Early Natufian groups whose sub sis tence (and other) strat e gies likely dif fered in im por tantways from the Med i ter ra nean wood lands ad ap ta tions. These steppic Early Natufians seem to have shared more in com mon with their suc ces sors in the Late Natufian, and ar gu ably have more di rect rel e vance to the or i gins of ag ri cul ture, than dothe sed en tary “vil lag ers” of the Early Natufian in the Med i ter ra nean wood lands.

Key words: Early Natufian; or i gins of ag ri cul ture; sub sis tence sys tems; east ern Lev ant.

IN TRO DUC TION

The Early Natufian pe riod (14,500 to 13,000cal BP1 has re ceived con sid er able re search at ten -tion, largely be cause of its un usual ar chae o log i cal sig na ture com pared to the pre ced ing Early andMid dle Epipaleolithic and the pos si bil ity that de -vel op ments dur ing the Early Natufian sparked the or i gins of food pro duc tion econ o mies some 3000or so years later. His tor i cally, this ar chae o log i calre cord has been best known from Med i ter ra neanfor est and coastal con texts in the west ern Lev antwhere in ten sive re search has been un der takensince the 1920s (e.g., Bar-Yosef, 1991, 1998;Belfer-Co hen, 1991; Delage, 2001; Garrod, 1932, 1957; Garrod and Bate, 1937; Munro, 2004; Noyet al., 1973; Perrot, 1966; Valla, 1984, 1991). The in ter pre ta tions of Early Natufian lifeways that re -sulted in clude sedentism, so cial com plex ity, so -cial ter ri to ries, in ten sive ex ploi ta tion of ce realgrasses, and pop u la tion den sity (e.g., Bar-Yosef,1998; Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Co hen, 1989; Hay-den, 2004; Henry, 1989; Stiner and Munro, 2002;Wright, 1978), al though not ev ery one has agreed

with all as pects of this char ac ter iza tion (e.g.,Belfer-Co hen, 1995; Byrd and Monahan, 1995;Ed wards, 1989; Olszewski, 1991, 1993; Stutz,2004). More over, the Early Natufian is some times de scribed as found in a “core area” or a “home -land” (e.g., Bar-Yosef, 1998; Bar-Yosef andBelfer-Co hen, 1992), which im plies that all EarlyNatufian groups are sim i larly sit u ated with re -spect to set tle ment and so cial or ga ni za tion strat e -gies.

It has be come in creas ingly clear, how ever,that this de scrip tion of the Early Natufian and itssub sis tence and set tle ment strat e gies war rants re -vi sion. In klings of this can be seen in the clas sicMed i ter ra nean wood lands/coastal Early Natufiandata, where, for ex am ple, the al leged “home land”of the Early Natufian ac tu ally con tains a very lim -ited num ber of “vil lage” sites – ‘Ayn Mallaha and Hayonim Cave, al though some fea tures at el Wad, Kebara, and Hayonim Ter race also may in di catelon ger term basecamps. Thus, the de pic tion of theEarly Natufian in the Med i ter ra nean floristicprov ince as char ac ter ized by set tled com mu ni tieswould seem to be some what pre ma ture, yet this is

the com mon ste reo type (e.g., Bar-Yosef, 1998). It is the ac cu mu lat ing in for ma tion from the east ernLev ant since the 1980s, how ever, that mostclearly dem on strates the need to re as sess the sub -sis tence and set tle ment strat e gies of the EarlyNatufian technocomplex (e.g., Byrd, 1989a; Byrdand Colledge, 1991; Ed wards, 1991; Garrard,1991; Henry, 1995; Janetski and Chazan, 2004;Neeley and Pe ter son, 2007; Schyle and Uer-pmann, 1988; Olszewski, 1997; Olszewski et al.,1994). As a num ber of these sites are lo cated inthe Irano-Turani an grass-forb steppe (both nowand pre his tor i cally, e.g., Cordova, 2007: 70, 163), they are not part of the “home land,” and they pro -vide op por tu ni ties to ex am ine be hav ioral strat e -gies of groups liv ing in the “mar gins” out side theMed i ter ra nean wood lands (e.g., Shewan, 2004).Some of the other east ern Levantine sites were sit -u ated in Med i ter ra nean for est con texts pres ent inthe West ern High lands2 of the east ern Lev ant;they have the po ten tial to pro vide ad di tional in -sights into Early Natufian wood lands ad ap ta tions. This pa per, how ever, ex am ines Irano-Turani ansteppe Early Natufian sites from the Wadi al-Hasa re gion in the West ern High lands, us ing these dataas well as in for ma tion from other east ern Levan-tine steppic sites to com pare and con trast east ernand west ern Levantine Early Natufian ad ap ta -tions.

GE OL OGY, PALEOENVIRONMENT,AND PALEOHABITAT IN THE HASARE GION

The Wadi al-Hasa re gion is char ac ter ized bynu mer ous faults orig i nat ing from tec tonic ac tiv ity as so ci ated with the Jor dan Rift Val ley (WadiArabah/Dead Sea); the drain age it self re sultedfrom downcutting be gin ning some 50 mil lionyears ago af ter the up lift of the TransjordanianPla teau (Donahue and Beynon, 1988: 27–29). Inits east ern por tion, the Wadi al-Hasa is rel a tivelygently sloped, but as it trends west and north westit be comes quite deeply in cised, even tu ally drain -ing into the Wadi Arabah south of the pres entDead Sea. Dur ing the late Pleis to cene, a lake fedby rain fall and springs formed in the east ern por -tion of the drain age – in the area of the mod ernDesert High way and the town of Mahattatal-Hasa. Pleis to cene Lake Hasa has been descri-

bed as 1740 km2 at its max i mum ex tent; it cameinto ex is tence about 70,000 years ago (Schul-denrein and Clark, 1994), al though Ma- cum ber(2008: 29) sug gests that it is more rea son able tobe lieve that Pleis to cene Lake Hasa was pres entonly from about 29,000 to 18,000 cal BP, due tois sues of con tin ued tec tonic ac tiv ity, silt ing, andover top ping of the bar rier that con tained the lake.Both Schuldenrein and Clark (1994, 2001, 2003)and Macumber (2008), how ever, agree that theHasa re gion was char ac ter ized by marshes andponds dur ing the lat ter part of the Epipaleolithic(i.e., af ter 18,000 cal BP and prob a bly last ing un -til about 13,000 cal BP). These ob ser va tions, infact, are sup ported by the Early Natufian oc cu pa -tion at the site of Tabaqa, which is bur ied inpaludal sed i ments near the con flu ence of the Wa -dis al-Hasa and Ahmar (Olszewski et al., 1998),and which yielded reed (Phragmites) phytoliths(as also did Yutil al-Hasa Area D).

Dur ing the pe riod of the Early Natufian oc cu -pa tion in the Wadi al-Hasa, paleoenvironmentalcon di tions were those of the cli ma tic ame lio ra tion just prior to the Youn ger Dryas cold/dry ep i sode.The ame lio ra tion over all wit nessed an ex pan sionof floristic prov inces such as the Med i ter ra neanwood lands, the open park land, and the steppe,and was gen er ally warmer and wet ter than ear lierand later in the Epipaleolithic (Cordova, 2007:162–164; Moore et al., 2000: 77–79). Al thoughthe Wadi al-Hasa re gion was con sid er ably wet terdur ing the late Pleis to cene even dur ing rel a tivelycool and arid cli ma tic phases – due to its springsand lac us trine/paludal set ting – the drain age sys -tem was not typ i fied by Med i ter ra nean wood lands (ie., by a dense cover of oak such as Quercuscalliprinos). The height of the cli ma tic op ti mum,in fact, wit nessed a con tin ued Irano-Turani ansteppic con text in the Wadi al-Hasa, al though theKerak Pla teau to the north may have con tainedMed i ter ra nean wood lands (Cordova, 2007: 163).This char ac ter iza tion is sup ported by pre lim i narypol len anal y sis from the Early Natufian sites inthe Wadi al-Hasa. The Irano-Turani an grass-forbsteppe was dom i nated – prior to deg ra da tion re -sult ing from over graz ing – by var i ous wild small-and large-seed grasses (in clud ing Stipa, and ce re -als such as bar ley [Hordeum]), sages (es pe ciallyAr te mi sia herba-alba), mem bers of the goosefootfam ily (par tic u larly Haloxylon articulatum and

86 D. I. Olszewski

Salsola villosa) and other grasses, scrub, herbs,and shrubs (such as Anabasis haussknechtii, Poasinaica, Noaea mucronata, Astragalus spinosus,Urginea mar i time, and Asphodelus aestivus);taller shrubs and trees in cluded tama risk (Tamarixspp.), al mond (Amydalus communis), and tere-binth (Pistacia atlantica) (Cordova, 2007: 98–104). The ar ray of po ten tial plant foods avail ablesug gests that Early Natufian groups in the Wadial-Hasa had plant food sub sis tence strat e gies thatdif fered from con tem po rary groups in the Med i -ter ra nean wood lands in the west ern Lev ant.

The springs, marshes, and ponds pres ent inthe Wadi al-Hasa sys tem also would have been an at trac tive source of wa ter and veg e ta tion for anum ber of an i mals (Coinman and Olszewski,2007; Olszewski and Coinman, 2002). Faunafrom Early Natufian sites here in cludes ga zelle(Gazella spp.) and aurochs (Bos primigenius),spe cies rep re sent ing open ter rains and wet ter con -di tions.

EARLY NATUFIAN SITES IN THEWADI AL-HASA

Sur veys in the Hasa drain age sys tem re -corded more than 1600 sites, of which 78 are Up -per Paleolithic or Epipaleolithic (Mac Don ald,1988; Clark et al., 1992, 1994). Within these,there are 19 Up per/Epipaleolithic and 11 Epi-paleolithic sites (Olszewski and Coinman, 1998).Only three sites, how ever, per tain to the EarlyNatufian pe riod. These are WHS 1021 (Mac Don -ald et al., 1983), Tabaqa (Byrd and Rollefson,1984; Byrd and Colledge, 1991; Mac Don ald etal., 1983; Olszewski et al., 1998), and Yutilal-Hasa Area D (Coinman et al., 1999; Olszewski, 1997; Olszewski et al., 1994) (Fig. 1).

WHS 1021 is a small chip ping sta tion sev eralhun dred me ters away from Tabaqa (Mac Don aldet al., 19833. It is sit u ated on al lu vium in the Wadi al-Hasa and is sep a rated from Tabaqa by a smallhill. Al though di ag nos tic Natufian lithics werenot re cov ered from WHS 1021 (ob ser va tion ofthe sur vey col lec tion by the au thor), the lithics are an un usu ally patinated grey chert iden ti cal to theraw ma te rial of the ar ti facts found at Tabaqa. It isnot un rea son able, then, that WHS 1021 is de -scribed as linked to the Early Natufian oc cu pa tion at Tabaqa (Mac Don ald et al., 1983). Ef forts by

the au thor in 1997 to re lo cate WHS 1021 wereun suc cess ful; given its prox im ity to the Wadial-Hasa (about 60 m dis tant), the site may havedis ap peared in the late 1980s/early 1990s ei ther as the re sult of a se vere flood that swept through thewadi then or be cause of en croach ing ag ri cul turalac tiv i ties.

Tabaqa (WHS 895) is an open-air site sit u -ated im me di ately ad ja cent to a ma jor trib u tary –the Wadi Ahmar – near its con flu ence with theWadi al-Hasa (Fig. 2). The site is bur ied in flu vialand marsh sed i ments rep re sent ing the basal por -tion of the up per marl de posit in the 30–35 m ter -race (Olszewski et al., 1998: 68–69). The ter raceis heavily dis sected and ar ti facts from the EarlyNatufian oc cu pa tion can be found erod ing fromthese sed i ments over a large area (orig i nally es ti -mated in Bryd and Colledge (1991: 266) as10,000 m2). Re cent work at the site in di cates thatthe ar eal ex tent is 1200 m2 (Olszewski et al.,1998: 62; Olszewski and Hill, 1997); while it isnot clear if the in situ site is this large, bur ied de -pos its were found 40 m apart along the N–S axis.The Early Natufian ho ri zon is some 30–40 cmthick (Byrd and Colledge, 1991; Olszewski et al.,1998: 62–64); be cause of the dis sected na ture ofthe ter race, this ho ri zon can be found at mod ernground sur face in some ar eas or as much as 2 mbe low mod ern ground sur face in other ar eas. Asnoted above, phytolith anal y sis re cov ered ev i -dence for reeds, sug gest ing a lo cally marshy con -text for the site.

In ad di tion to the sur face col lec tion made in1982 (Mac Don ald et al., 1983), Byrd and Colle-dge (1991: 266) sys tem at i cally sur face col lectedfour ar eas (1.5 m ra dius each) and cut a smallsound ing into the side of one of the ero sional gul -lies. In 1997, the au thor ex ca vated four 1×1 munits (two at the sec tion cut ini ti ated by Byrd andCol lege) and two units 40 m to the south of thesec tion cut (Olszewski et al., 1998). Com bin ingall field sea sons, the cul tural ma te ri als re cov eredfrom Tabaqa in clude a va ri ety of ar ti facts –chipped stone, ground stone, stone beads, fauna,ma rine shell, and plant re mains. No ra dio car bondates are avail able, thus Tabaqa is placed withinthe Early Natufian on the ba sis of its chippedstone as sem blage. Al though the Byrd and Colle-dge (1991: 271) chipped stone sam ple is dom i -nated by geo met ric micro liths, the sam ple from

Early Natufian in the Wadi Al-Hasa Re gion, Jor dan 87

the four 1997 test units has a nearly even dis tri bu -tion of geo met ric (30%) and nongeomet ric micro -liths (28.5%). Re gard less of which col lec tion isex am ined, Helwan lunates con sti tute nearly allthe geometrics, thus of fer ing sup port for an EarlyNatufian age (e.g., Bar-Yosef and Valla, 1979;Garrod, 1957). The nongeometrics in the 1997 ex -ca va tion as sem blage are mainly in versely re -touched bladelets with a flat re touch rem i nis cent

of that used bifacially to pro duce Helwan re touchon bladelets and lunates. Ad di tion ally, there aremod est num bers of endscrapers, and a good rep -re sen ta tion of ubiq ui tous types such as re touchedpieces and notch/denticulates. Mi cro- burin tech -nique is pres ent, and rem nant mi cro- burin scarsare fre quently vis i ble on the Helwan lunates.

The ground stone as sem blage is re ported tobe abun dant (Byrd and Colledge, 1991: 273), al -

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Fig. 1. Lo ca tion of Early Natufian sites men tioned (as well as Early Epipaleolithic Ohalo II)

though the com bined 1980s sur face col lected andsound ing ground stone ar ti facts ap pear to to talonly six pieces (Byrd, 1987: 285; per sonal ob ser -va tion of the col lec tion by the au thor). Ad di tion -ally, three ground stone frag ments were re cov ered from the 1997 test units. Ground stone tools weremade from quartz ite, ba salt, and sand stone. Theyin clude handstones, a pes tle, a mor tar, a quern,and a stone bowl (Byrd and Colledge, 1991: 272)(Fig. 3). Given the steppe con text of the site,grind ing im ple ments at Tabaqa likely in di cate asub sis tence fo cus on wild grasses, a view sup -ported by charred grass grain frag ments. Byrd and Colledge (1991: 271–273) have sug gested thatoc cu pa tion at Tabaqa was sea sonal. With re spectto hunt ing, few data are avail able be cause fau nalpres er va tion was poor, yield ing only a hand ful ofpieces which were iden ti fied as ga zelle and a car -ni vore (Byrd and Colledge, 1991: 272).

At Yutil al-Hasa (WHS 784), which is sit u -ated in the main Wadi al-Hasa drain age about 6km up stream from Tabaqa, the Area D oc cu pa tion is upslope from a rockshelter con tain ing Late Up -

per Paleolithic and Early Epipaleolithic oc cu pa -tions (Fig. 4; Olszewski et al., 1994). Area D alsomay rep re sent de pos its in a rockshelter con text; itis largely over lain by enor mous boul ders whichcould rep re sent shel ter col lapse. Ex ca va tion wascon fined to two 1x1 m units be cause of space lim -i ta tions in this boul der con cen tra tion and es ti ma -tions of site size there fore are dif fi cult, al thoughthe Natufian oc cu pa tion is likely to be areallysmall. Bed rock was reached in both units with thede pos its, which fol low the bed rock slope, rang ing in depth from 50 to 115 cm. Cul tural ma te ri als re -cov ered in clude chipped stone, fauna, and ma rineshell. Ad di tion ally, per ma nent fix tures in theform of bed rock mortars are present in thebedrock ledge above the site (Fig. 5).

There ap pear to be two phases of EarlyNatufian oc cu pa tion in Area D. The ear li est is as -so ci ated with a geo met ric microlith com po nentdom i nated by Helwan lunates, al though there aresome ex am ples of di rectly backed lunates. Thisphase yielded one ra dio car bon date (12,270 ± 60BP: Beta-129815) which cal i brates to 14,369 ±

Early Natufian in the Wadi Al-Hasa Re gion, Jor dan 89

Fig. 2. Tabaqa (the site is within the cir cled area) in the Wadi al-Hasa re gion

290 BP. Both the chipped stone as sem blage andthe ra dio car bon date ac cord well with place mentof this oc cu pa tion in the Early Natufian. The up -per phase is likely to be late in the Early Natufian,as it con tains fewer Helwan and more di rectlybacked lunates. No ra dio car bon dates are avail -able for this phase of oc cu pa tion. In ter est ingly,both Early Natufian phases have higher fre quen -cies of nongeometric (36.3% in the lower and30.7% in the up per strata) com pared to geo met ricmicro liths (20% in the lower and 18.9% in the up -per strata). Un like Tabaqa, endscrapers at Yutilal-Hasa Area D are few, while burins are morefre quent; com mon re touched pieces and notch/denticulates also are present.

Al though they can not be dated, there are ap -prox i mately 44 bed rock mor tars, as well as var i -ous cupmarks, above the site. Some of these are

90 D. I. Olszewski

Fig. 3. Stone bowl frag ment from Tabaqa

Fig. 4. Yutil al-Hasa in the Wadi al-Hasa re gion

clearly re cent, but oth ers are desert var nished andcould have great an tiq uity. It is tempt ing to con -sider these fea tures as dat ing to the Early Natufian oc cu pa tion at Yutil al-Hasa, how ever, the site also con tains a Nebekian (Early Epipaleolithic) oc cu -pa tion to which some of these fea tures may date.Phytolith anal y ses from Area D in di cate the pres -ence of grasses, sedges, and reeds, as well asleaves from woody plants. Fau nal pres er va tionwas ex ceed ingly poor, but yielded gazelle andaurochs.

CON TRAST ING AD AP TA TIONS

The tra di tional model of Early Natufian sub -sis tence strat e gies is based on the wealth of datapro vided by ex ca va tions of sites in the Med i ter ra -nean wood lands in the west ern Lev ant. The small“vil lage” sites in this con text, as well as otherlarge, prob a bly long-term basecamps, are said torep re sent ex am ples of sed en tary com mu ni ties ofhunter-gath er ers (Bar-Yosef, 1998; Bar-Yosefand Belfer-Co hen, 1989). The edge of the West -

ern High lands in the east ern Lev ant also has theseMed i ter ra nean wood lands “vil lages” (e.g., WadiHammeh 27: Ed wards, 1991). Early Natufians inthe Med i ter ra nean wood lands cre ated an ar chae o -log i cal sig na ture that in cluded art, per sonal or na -men ta tion, in vest ment in buri als, heavy equip -ment such as ground stone tools left in place atsites, struc tures and as so ci ated fea tures, and thick, artifactually dense ar chae o log i cal de pos its. Ga -zelle were the most com mon hunted mam mal andren der ing of ga zelle car casses for grease and fatwas typ i cal (Munro and Bar-Oz, 2005); other lessfre quently hunted spe cies in clude fal low deer,equids, sheep/goat, aurochs, and wild boar(Bar-Yosef, 1998: 168). In ten sive ex ploi ta tion ofsmall, fast-mov ing game, such as hares and birds,also is char ac ter is tic of the Early Natufian in thewest ern Lev ant, and is interpreted as additionalevidence for sedentism and higher populationdensity (Munro, 2004).

Plant food ex ploi ta tion strat e gies by thesegroups have long been seen as fo cused on ce realgrasses, with a nod to other re sources such as le -

Early Natufian in the Wadi Al-Hasa Re gion, Jor dan 91

Fig. 5. Bed rock mor tars above Yutil al-Hasa

gumes and nuts (e.g., Bar-Yosef, 1998: 167; Gar-rod, 1957: 216; Unger-Ham il ton, 1989) – a biasun doubt edly re sult ing from the im por tance of ce -re als as do mes ti cates (Byrd, 1989b: 172; Olszew-ski, 2004: 189). More re cently, how ever, oth ershave sug gested that the un usual char ac ter is tics ofthe Early Natufian in the Med i ter ra nean wood -lands are due not to food re source abun dance re -sult ing from in ten sive ce real ex ploi ta tion, butrather to the use of acorns in com bi na tion with ce -re als, other grasses, and le gumes (Barlow andHeck, 2002; Olszewski, 1993, 2004; Savard et al., 2006). In other words, de spite claims to the con -trary (e.g, Liebermann and Bar-Yosef, 1994;McCorriston, 1994), it is the re li abil ity and abun -dance of an ex panded acorn re source dur ing thecli ma tic op ti mum that likely tipped the bal anceto ward higher population density and sedentismin the Mediterranean woodlands.

Out side the Med i ter ra nean wood lands, how -ever, in the Irano-Turani an steppe and in the openpark land, it is not likely that the ste reo typ ic de pic -tion of Early Natufian sub sis tence and other strat -e gies would con tinue to hold true. This is be causethe avail abil ity and abun dance of spe cific plantfood re sources in these floristic prov inces wouldnot mir ror those of the Med i ter ra nean wood lands, even dur ing the cli ma tic op ti mum. Nat u rally,there was over lap in types of plant food re sources, for ex am ple, ce re als and other grasses, as well asoc ca sional oak, al mond, and pis ta chio trees/shrubs. Un like the Med i ter ra nean wood lands,how ever, it is quite prob a ble that ce re als and other grasses were the most abun dant plant food in theopen park land and steppe (Moore et al., 2000:77–79; Savard et al., 2006). If Early Natufiangroups were in vested in grass seed ex ploi ta tion,as is com monly as sumed, it is these open con texts(park land and steppe), rather than the Med i ter ra -nean wood lands, that provide the most logicalsetting for intensive use of this resource.

Avail able ar chae o log i cal data from the Irano- Turani an steppe in the east ern Lev ant sug gest that Early Natufian groups here were much more mo -bile than their coun ter parts in the Med i ter ra neanwood lands. Al though there are areally large sites,such as Tabaqa in the Wadi al-Hasa and Ayn al-Saratan in the Azraq re gion (Garrard, 1991;Olszewski et al., 1998), most sites are muchsmaller. The larger sites may have been some what

lon ger term basecamps sit u ated to take ad van tageof sea sonal food re sources, such as grass seeds(Byrd and Colledge, 1991: 273), while the smaller sites (e.g., WHS 1021 and Yutil al-Hasa Area Din the Wadi al-Hasa, Wadi Judayid J2 in south ernJor dan, and Bawwab al-Ghazal in the Azraq Ba -sin: Henry 1995: 320–321; Mac Don ald et al.1983; Olszewski 1997; Rollefson et al. 1999) areun doubt edly shorter term or pos si bly task camps.For ex am ple, lithic as sem blages from the smallersites, such as Yutil al-Hasa Area D, are slightlyless var ied than those of the larger sites, such asTabaqa, which might in di cate a less broad ar rayof tasks at shorter term camps. Struc tural re mainsfrom Early Natufian steppic sites are non-ex is -tent4, al though Ayn al-Saratan yielded buri als and art, and all of the steppic sites con tain ma rineshells and some ex am ples of ground stone toolssuch as handstones and mor tars. The depth of cul -tural de pos its at these steppic sites also tends to be less thick than at coun ter parts in the Med i ter ra -nean wood lands, fur ther sug gest ing less in ten siveor less lengthy oc cu pa tions.

As in the Med i ter ra nean wood lands, thesteppic re gion of the east ern Lev ant has pro ducedlit tle di rect ev i dence for plant food ex ploi ta tion.Charred grass grain frag ments were re cov eredfrom Tabaqa (Byrd and Colledge, 1991: 272) andphytoliths from Yutil al-Hasa Area D in cludegrass seed husks. Whether these rep re sent ce re alsor other ed ible grasses is not known. In di rect ev i -dence is avail able in the form of ground stonetools from Tabaqa and bed rock mor tars andcupholes at Yutil al-Hasa. Ad di tion ally, hand-stones were re cov ered from Ayn al-Saratan (Gar-rard, 1991: 238) and handstones and mor tars were found at Wadi Judayid J2 (Henry, 1995: 327).Taken to gether, the ground stone tools and per -ma nent fix tures are sug ges tive of plant food pro -cess ing, most likely grass seeds given the steppicset ting. In con trast to the Med i ter ra nean wood -lands sites, none of these east ern Levantine step-pic sites yielded sickle blades, which of ten areused as in di ca tors for ce real pro cess ing (as well as for cut ting of reeds/rushes) (e.g., Unger-Ham il -ton, 1989). The lack of this tool type may in di catethat steppic grasses were har vested us ing othermeans, just as they must have been at earlierEpipaleolithic sites such as Ohalo II (Nadel, 2003, 2004).

92 D. I. Olszewski

The var ied top o graphic set tings of the steppic Early Natufian sites are re flected in part by whichmam ma lian fauna con sti tute the pri mary fo cus ata site. Al though fau nal pres er va tion was poor atTabaqa and Yutil al-Hasa Area D, the mainhunted mam mal ap pears to have been ga zelle,with ev i dence also for aurochs (Byrd andColledge, 1991: 272; Olszewski et al., 1994:135). At Ayn al-Saratan, sit u ated near the springsand playa of the Azraq Ba sin, aurochs and equidsare equally com mon, fol lowed by ga zelle; hareand birds are a very small com po nent (Garrard etal., 1988: 46). Wadi Judayid J2, near the Ras en-Naqb es carp ment, is char ac ter ized pri mar ily bywild goat/sheep, fol lowed by ga zelle, equids, andaurochs; one hare man di ble also was re cov ered(Henry et al., 1985: 53). It is strik ing that thesmall mam mal/bird com po nent, de spite ex cel lentre cov ery tech niques in most cases, is ex tremelylim ited in rep re sen ta tion, es pe cially com pared tothe Med i ter ra nean wood lands Early Natufian(Munro, 2004: S11). The ab sence of spur-thighedtor toise car a paces (or frag ments thereof) is par tic -u larly no ta ble, as these el e ments tend to pre serveif pres ent. If the near ab sence of a small mam -mal/bird com po nent con tin ues to char ac ter ize fu -ture steppic Early Natufian ex ca vated sites, it sug -gests that smaller mam mals (both slow- and fast-mov ing) are not a sig nif i cant re source in thesteppe, and thus that hunter-gath er ers here werenot par tic u larly dense or sed en tary. Al thoughspec u la tive, one might hy poth e size that the openter rain set tings of the steppe and park lands sup -ported a greater large mam mal bio mass (par tic u -larly gazelle and equids) than in the Mediterra-nean woodlands; such a situation might favor lessintensive use of small game.

CON CLUD ING RE MARKS

The Early Natufian is an in trigu ing time pe -riod, one that has yielded ev i dence of hunter-gath erer ad ap ta tions that ap pear to have taken ad -van tage of plant food re source abun dance andcon di tions prompted in part by the cli ma tic op ti -mum near the end of the Pleis to cene. Pre vi ous in -ter pre ta tions of the Early Natufian were based pri -mar ily on data from the west ern Lev ant, but thein creas ing pace of ar chae o log i cal re search in theeast ern Lev ant since the 1970s has greatly ex -

panded the known di ver sity and vari a tion in set -tle ment and sub sis tence op tions em ployed bythese hunter-gath erer groups. Not the least ofthese is the rec og ni tion that the Early Natufian inthe steppe is at least as old as in the Med i ter ra nean wood lands (Henry, 1995: 331). This has im pli ca -tions for the ac cu racy of the use of the term “core” or “home land” to de scribe the Early Natufian asemerg ing in this re gion (e.g., Bar-Yosef, 1998;Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Co hen, 1992), par tic u larlybe cause these terms are based on the prem ise ofsites as so ci ated with a Med i ter ra nean wood landscon text. But, in fact, many of the eastern Levan-tine sites theoretically in the “homeland” are situ-ated in the steppe.

While there are a num ber of shared el e mentsbe tween the Med i ter ra nean wood lands and steppe Early Natufian, such as Helwan lunates, use ofma rine shell for per sonal or na men ta tion, other art, and mod est num bers of ground stone tools, thetwo floristic prov inces con tained sig nif i cantlydif fer ent plant food re sources. The wide spreadabun dance and avail able of acorns in the wood -lands was not rep li cated in the steppe. On theother hand, while ce re als and other ed ible grassseeds would have been ob tain able in the wood -lands, their abun dance was likely to have beengreater in the open con texts of the steppe andpark land. There thus were two pri mary, sea son -ally dif fer en ti ated plant foods (acorns and ce re -als/other grasses) avail able to Early Natufians inthe wood lands and this com bi na tion may help ex -plain why sed en tary, small “vil lage” sites arefound here but not in the steppe. On the otherhand, while it is highly likely that Early Natufiansin the steppe made con sid er able use of ce re als and other grasses as part of an op por tu nis tic strat egysuch as that en vi sioned by Savard et al. (2006),this fo cused ex ploi ta tion would have re sulted atmost in sea sonal basecamps – these do notreplicate the material correlates of the woodlands“villages.”

Steppic Early Natufians there fore were moremo bile in their set tle ment and sub sis tence ad ap ta -tions. In di ca tions of this pat tern can be seen notonly in the phys i cal at trib utes of their sites—gen -er ally smaller in size, less dense oc cu pa tional de -bris, no struc tures, etc. – but also in other ma te rialcor re lates. For ex am ple, where stone raw ma te rial stud ies have been un der taken, the type of flint

Early Natufian in the Wadi Al-Hasa Re gion, Jor dan 93

mainly cho sen by Early Natufians in the steppe isa trans lu cent, chalcedonous ma te rial (de spite thelo cal abun dance of other high qual ity flint, as atTabaqa and at Yutil al-Hasa D: Olszewski andal-Nahar, 2006; Olszewski and Schurmans,2007). Even with ex ten sive sur veys by the au thorin the Wadi al-Hasa to lo cate sources of this trans -lu cent ma te rial, none were found; the clos estsource ap pears to be in the Wadi Bayir some 80km to the south east of the Hasa re gion (Rolstonand Rollefson, 1982), sug gest ing rel a tively longdis tance move ment to ac quire this re source. More mo bil ity also is in di cated by the seem ingly in fre -quent use of small game (hares, birds, tor toise), apat tern that departs radically from that of thewoodlands (Munro, 2004).

In many re spects, the ad ap ta tions of the EarlyNatufian in the steppe are not fun da men tally dif -fer ent from those of the Late Natufian in the samere gion (even with the cool/arid con di tions of theYoun ger Dryas that char ac ter ize much of the Late Natufian). This raises two in ter est ing points.First, the com bi na tion of un usual fea tures used soof ten as the de scrip tion of the Early Natufianwould ap pear to be mainly char ac ter is tic of thewood lands ad ap ta tions and of the early part of theNatufian; this means that the wood lands EarlyNatufian is more of an ex cep tion than the rule forNatufian hunter-gath erer ad ap ta tions. And, sec -ond, in at tempt ing to ex pli cate fac tors in the or i -gins of ag ri cul ture, it is the con text of the highlymo bile Late Natufian that im me di ately pre cedesthis crit i cal eco nomic tran si tion. In fact, it may bethat steppe adapted, mo bile Natufian ad ap ta tionswill pro vide greater in sights into the eco nomictran si tion than adaptations geared toward theresources of the Mediterranean woodlands.

Ac knowl edg ments

Re search in the Wadi al-Hasa was made pos si blethrough grants from the Na tional Sci ence Foun da tion(SBR-9618766), the Wenner-Gren Foun da tion (#6278),the Na tional Geo graphic So ci ety (#6695-00), the Jou-kowsky Fam ily Foun da tion, and the United States In -for ma tion Agency/Amer i can Cen ters for Ori en tal Re -search. The East ern Hasa Late Pleis to cene Pro ject(EHLPP) was co-di rected by the au thor and Nancy R.Coinman (Iowa State Uni ver sity). I thank Dr. Fawwazal-Khraysah, Di rec tor-Gen eral, and his staff at the De -part ment of An tiq ui ties of Jor dan, as well as Pi erre andPa tri cia Bikai, for mer di rec tors, and their staff at the

Amer i can Cen ter for Ori en tal Re search in Amman.This is EHLPP Con tri bu tion No. 34.

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Notes

1. Gen eral tem po ral range for the Early Natufian isfrom Rosen (2007), while in di vid ual dates fromsites in the Wadi al-Hasa are cal i brated us ingCalPal_2007_HULU: www.calpal.de.

2. This phys io graphic des ig na tion is from Macumber(2008), who builds upon the work of Bender (1974).

3. This ref er ence er ro ne ously la bels this site as WHS1020 and er ro ne ously po si tions it south of Tabaqa;its po si tion is north of Tabaqa (field notes in pos ses -sion of the au thor).

4. Some what par a dox i cally, it is the tran si tionalEarly/Late and Late Natufian (as so ci ated with thecolder/arid Youn ger Dyras) in the steppic ar eas thathave ev i dence for struc tures, e.g., Khallat ‘Anaza inthe Black Desert (Betts 1998, 11–25) andTBAS-102 in the Jurf ad-Darawish re gion south ofthe Wadi al-Hasa (Neeley in press), al though theseare not “vil lages”.

Early Natufian in the Wadi Al-Hasa Re gion, Jor dan 97