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Early Neolithic Agriculture in Southwest Asia Pea, Chickpea and Bitter Vetch), and One Was a Fibre Plant (Flax)

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Early Neolithic Agriculture in Southwest Asia Pea, Chickpea and Bitter Vetch), and One Was a Fibre Plant (Flax) ARCHAEOLOGY INTERNATIONAL emmer wheat), four were pulses (lentil, Early Neolithic agriculture in Southwest Asia pea, chickpea and bitter vetch), and one was a fibre plant (flax). It is thought that and Europe: re-examining the the cereals were domesticated first and archaeobotanical evidence that the other species evolved at about the same time or possibly somewhat later.8 Sue Colledge & J ames Conolly Our knowledge of the evolution and Agriculture is widely recognized as a defining characteristic of spread of the founder crops depends on the examination and accurate identifica­ th e Ne olithic period in Southwest Asia and Europe, but, despite tion of charred grains found in samples many years of research, and th e discoveryof much new arch a eo­ recovered fromsecurely dated occupation botanical evidence, there have been fe w attempts to investigate levels at early Neolithic sites. The reported its origins and spread in th e region as a wh ole. No w, in a new presence, or absence, at different localities project at th e In stitute of Archaeology, th e scattered evidence for and times of domestic species (when cor­ rectly identified as such) has provided the th e emergence and dispersal of crops is being systematically evidence for our understanding of the dis­ assessed and documented both sp atially and chronologically. tribution of the earliest crops and of their subsequent dispersal throughout South­ west Asia. But this procedure is not with­ ome 40 years ago the pioneer and humidity. Although the effects on the out its pitfalls, as the example of Jericho archaeobotanist Hans Helbaek landscape of these changes were most shows. emphasized the importance of noticeable in northern latitudes, they were S correctly dated plant remains as a also apparent to a lesser degree world­ Jericho revisited means of investigating the rela­ wide. The impact of the cold spells, in Very few PPNA sites in Southwest Asia tionship between "man and nature",1 and particular, had profound consequences have yielded evidence of domestic cereals; he later developed a technique for separat­ for how people adapted to, and interacted to varying degrees, the finds fromthem are ing charred plant materials from the sedi­ with, their environments. controversial. The domestic wheat and ments in which they had been preserved.2 Semi-sedentary Natufian groups of barley found in the PPNA levels at Jericho Although many archaeobotanical investi­ hunter-gatherers inhabited much of the are no exception to this. gations have been carried out since then at Levant6 when the climate was at its warm­ The large mound at Jericho - a tell about Neolithic sites in Southwest Asia and est and wettest during the so-called cli­ 20m high, 320m long and 140m wide ­ Europe, we still lack a database that is matic optimum some 12,500 years before represents several thousand years of occu­ sufficiently large, systematic and well present (c. 12,500 bp). They benefited pation. Kathleen Kenyan excavated at Jeri­ founded to enable us to gain a better from increased local availability of the cho in the early 1950s when she was a understanding of the emergence and plant foods they had come to rely on, such member of staff of the Institute, and in the spread of agriculture in the region. as the grains of wild cereal grasses, as is largest of her trenches she dug down to the In July 2001 a new three-year project3 indicated by mortars and pestles for grind­ earliest occupation layers of the settle­ was started at the Institute with the aims of ing them and other possible processing ment and exposed the full extent of a mas­ collecting, assessing and systematically tools found at Natufian sites. About 1500 sive stone-built tower and walls that were recording in a chronological framework all years later, the Natufians experienced a firstconstructed during the PPNA (Fig. 1).9 the available data on the plant remains sudden change of climate to much colder Together with fragments of burnt plaster (mainly charred seeds) that have been and drier conditions (a period referred to recovered from early Neolithic and Epi­ as the YoungerDryas, c. 11,000 to c. 10,000 palaeolithic or Mesolithic sites in the bp), which caused their supplies of wild region.4 In this article, we describe the plant fo ods to diminish. It is probable that, background to the project and outline as a direct result of this change, they some of our preliminary findings. After attempted some form of management of only a few months work, and having not the wild plants that had become staples in yet begun to consider any early Neolithic their diet. Thus, it is thought, the first sites in Europe, we have surprising new attempts to cultivate wild cereals took evidence indicating that at least one site place. By sowing the wild grains in tilled (Jericho), hitherto accepted as providing fields, the Natufians ensured that they had evidence of some the earliest domesti­ annual harvests sufficient for their needs cated crops, has been inaccurately inter­ and they gained some control over the sup­ preted. We have therefore to reconsider plies of plant foods regardless of climatic the questions of where and when crops instability. Domestic species of cereals first appear in the archaeological record of evolved as a result of the cultivation of the Southwest Asia. wild forms. This led to the selection of plants with tough rachises7 that prevented The origins of domestic crops in the the separate spikelets, which enclose the 5 Southwest Asian Fertile Crescent grains, fromshedding naturally once ripe. As the European icesheets began to retreat We encounter the earliest evidence of at the end of the most recent ice age soon the domestic crops on which Neolithic after 18,000 years ago, the climate slowly agriculture was founded in the Fertile became wetter and warmer. This gradual Crescent during the period referred to as amelioration was punctuated by much the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A or PPNA (c. colder and drier periods, lasting for at 10,200 to c. 9500 bp), soon after the first Figure 1 Part ofthe circular tower atferi­ most a thousand years or so, and the dis­ experiments at cultivation had apparently cho (front left), with a deep excavated sec­ tribution and composition of the natural taken place a few hundred years earlier. tion beyond showing the deposits that vegetation cover altered significantly in There were eight founder crops, three of accumulated around the tower during the response to the changes in temperature which were cereals (barley, einkorn and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period. 44 ARCHAEOLOGY INTERNATIONAL (a) (c) Cafer Hoyuk 244 Asiklihoyuk Cayonu .. 512 · �ayonu 833 . M'lefaat Qermez Dere 18 Halula Ganj Dareh Tepe jerf alAhmar 80 678 Te ll Abu Hureyra 260 gTell Mureybit � li 2343 Tepe Abdul Hosein• Ali Kosh 6.....: 476 Parekklisha-Shillourokambos ... Tell Ghoraife 77 . Te ll Aswad 449 Tell Aswad 449 jilat 7 273 250 250 km wild cereals Beidha km '---------' D status indeterminate (b) (d) • domestic cereals Cafer Hoyuk c->,7 A 422 L.-.,) Cayonu Cayonu 1522 . "� • 313 Can Hasan III • 213 'I Halula Djade Tell Abu Hureyra fli 361 Tell Mureybit Tell Ras 10 Shamra 32 Bouqras G 4308 Kissonerga- • Mylouthkia Ali Kosh 630 �Parekklisha- 180 kklisha Shillourokambos �Shillourokambos- Kissodnerga-Myloulhki.a ..Te ll Ghoraife 150 ..1371 Te ll Aswad Q Tell Ramad 157 56252 Jeric 9012 Azraq 31 8 \'Vadi Finan A 267 0 km 250 ' km 250 Figure 2 Th e distribution of early Neolithic sites in the Fertile Crescent, southeasternAnat olia and Cyprus; the changing proportions of wild and domestic cereals identified at them have been calculated for each period: (a) PPNA , 10,200-9500 bp; (b) Early PPNB, 9500- 9200 bp; (c) Middle PPNB, 9200-8500 bp; (d) Late PPNB, 8500-8000. Th e numbers by the site names refer to the total quantity of cereal remains (seeds and ch aff) identified. Such inform ation is lacking for the sites without numbers. that bore the impressions of grains, sam­ subsequent spread of the founder crops dates of their settlements become pro­ ples of charred plant remains were taken during the PPNA and PPNB may need to be gressively later as the distances from the for analysis from the deposits adjacent to redrawn. Figure 2 shows the results of our Southwest Asian heartland increase. The the walls 10 Domestic einkorn and emmer first attempts at reconstructing the chang­ founder crops (and domestic animals) that wheat and domestic barley (the three ing proportions of wild and domestic cere­ evolved in Southwest Asia formed the founder-crop cereals) were identified in als found at PPNA and PPNB sites around the basis of the so-called Neolithic farming these PPNA contexts.11 However, our closer Fertile Crescent. Wild cereals predomi­ package that disseminated throughout examination of the relationship between nate in a majority of the PPNA (phase 1) continental Europe and across the sea to these finds and the radiocarbon dates of sites, whereas at the few Early PPNB (phase Britain and Ireland. Whether it was the the layers with which they were associ­ 2) sites, the pattern is reversed, with most Neolithic farmers themselves who spread, ated has shown that the cereal remains of them having more domestic cereals. or their crops and the knowledge and tech­ were chronologically contemporary with This trend continues during the Middle nology to grow them, or some combination the succeeding Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic and Late PP B (phases 3 and 4), with of both, is hotly and at times acrimoni­ B phase (c. 9500-9200 bp).12 Therefore, we increasing evidence for higher propor­ ously debated.
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