Climate and Post-Glacial expansion in the Near East

The Kebaran culture, also known as the 'Early Near East Epipalaeolithic', is an

archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...

of the

Eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is a loosely delimited region comprising the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea, and well as the adjoining land—often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It includes the southern half of Turkey ...

dating to c. 23,000 to 15,000

Before Present Before Present (BP) or "years before present (YBP)" is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Because ...

(BP). Its

type site In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and H ...

is Kebara Cave, south of

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

. The Kebaran was produced by a highly mobile nomadic population, composed of hunters and gatherers in the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

and Sinai areas who used microlithic tools.

Overview

The Kebaran is the first phase of the

Epipalaeolithic In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are someti ...

in the

. Kebaran

stone tool Stone tools have been used throughout human history but are most closely associated with prehistoric cultures and in particular those of the Stone Age. Stone tools may be made of either ground stone or knapped stone, the latter fashioned by a ...

assemblages are characterized by small, geometric microliths, and are thought to have lacked the specialized grinders and pounders found in later

Near Eastern The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

cultures. Small stone tools called

microlith A microlith is a small Rock (geology), stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 60,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Austral ...

s and retouched bladelets can be found for the first time. The microliths of this culture period differ greatly from the

Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Cro-Magnon, Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the L ...

artifacts. The Kebaran is preceded by the final phase of the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...

Levantine Aurignacian (also known as the Athlitian or Antelian) and followed by the proto-agrarian

Natufian culture The Natufian culture ( ) is an archaeological culture of the late Epipalaeolithic Near East in West Asia from 15–11,500 Before Present. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentism, sedentary or semi-sedentary population even befor ...

of the

. The appearance of the Kebaran culture, of microlithic type implies a significant rupture in the cultural continuity of Levantine Upper Paleolithic. The Kebaran culture, with its use of microliths, is associated with the use of the bow and arrow and the domestication of the dog. The Kebaran is also characterised by the earliest collecting of wild cereals, known due to the uncovering of grain grinding tools. It was the first step towards the

Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer, hunting and gathering to one of a ...

. The Kebaran people are believed to have practiced dispersal to upland environments in the summer, and aggregation in caves and rock shelters near lowland lakes in the winter. This diversity of environments may be the reason for the variety of tools found in their kits. Situated in the Terminal

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

, the Kebaran is classified as an Epipalaeolithic society. They are generally thought to have been ancestral to the later Natufian culture that occupied much of the same range, who advanced the use of wild grains, building on the Kebaran traits to acquire some symptoms of permanent settlements, agriculture, and hints of civilization. In the prehistoric site of Ein Gev, the skeleton of a 30-40 year old woman associated with the Kebaran was discovered. The morphological characteristics assigned the individual to a Proto-Mediterranean population, being very similar to the Natufians.

Artistic expression

Evidence for symbolic behavior of Late Pleistocene foragers in the Levant has been found in engraved limestone plaquettes from the Epipaleolithic open-air site Ein Qashish South in the

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the ), or Marj Ibn Amir (), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands o ...

, Israel. The engravings were uncovered in Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23,000 and ca. 16,500 BP), and include the image of a bird, the first figurative representation known so far from a pre-Natufian Epipaleolithic site in the region, together with geometric motifs such as chevrons, cross-hatchings and ladders. Some of the engravings closely resemble roughly contemporary European finds, and may be interpreted as "systems of notations" or "artificial memory systems" related to the timing of seasonal resources and related important events for nomadic groups. Similar looking signs and patterns are well known from the context of the local Natufia, a final Epipaleolithic period when sedentary or semi-sedentary foragers started practicing agriculture. Material was adapted from this source, which is available under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
The engravings found in Ein Qashish South involve symbolic conceptualization. They suggest that the figurative and non-figurative images comprise a coherent assemblage of symbols that might have been applied in order to store, share and transmit information related to the social activities and the subsistence of mobile bands. They also suggest a level of social complexity in pre-Natufian foragers in the Levant. The apparent similarity in graphics throughout the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

world and the mode of their application support the possibility that symbolic behavior has a common and much earlier origin. Material was adapted from this source, which is available under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Artifacts

File:Kebaran Culture Flint Knife.jpg, Flint knife, Kebaran culture, 22,000-18,000 BP File:Kebaran culture microliths 22000-18000 BP.jpg, Kebaran culture microliths, 22,000-18,000 BP File:Microlith productions, Kebaran culture, 22,000-18,000 BP, Israel (detail).jpg, Microlith productions, Kebaran culture, 22,000-18,000 BP File:Microlith tools from Ein Qashish South, Jezreel Valley, Israel, Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23ka and ca. 16.5ka BP).jpg, Microlith tools from Ein Qashish South, Jezreel Valley, Israel, Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23ka and ca. 16.5ka BP) File:Associations of wild cereals and other wild grasses in northern Israel.jpg, Associations of wild cereals and other wild grasses in northern Israel

Overview

Artistic expression

Artifacts

References

Further reading