Early evidence (ca. 12,000 B.P.) for feasting at a burial cave in Israel
Natalie D. Munro a,1 and Leore Grosman b
-Author Affiliations
aDepartment of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269; and
bInstitute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel
Edited by Henry T. Wright, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved July 30, 2010 (received for review February 13, 2010)
This is a view of excavation area at Hilazon Tachtit Cave, Israel. (Credit: Naftali Hilger)
Via: Science Daily
Abstract
Feasting is one of humanity's most universal and unique social behaviors. Although evidence for feasting is common in the early agricultural societies of the Neolithic, evidence in pre-Neolithic contexts is more elusive. We found clear evidence for feasting on wild cattle and tortoises at Hilazon Tachtit cave, a Late Epipaleolithic (12,000 calibrated years B.P.) burial site in Israel. This includes unusually high densities of butchered tortoise and wild cattle remains in two structures, the unique location of the feasting activity in a burial cave, and the manufacture of two structures for burial and related feasting activities. The results indicate that community members coalesced at Hilazon to engage in special rituals to commemorate the burial of the dead and that feasts were central elements in these important events. Feasts likely served important roles in the negotiation and solidification of social relationships, the integration of communities, and the mitigation of scalar stress. These and other social changes in the Natufian period mark significant changes in human social complexity that continued into the Neolithic period. Together, social and economic change signal the very beginning of the agricultural transition.
Epipaleolithic Natufian culture origins of agriculture ritual social complexity
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:natalie.munro@uconn.edu.
Author contributions: N.D.M. and L.G. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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