See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32894187 Neolithic Dispersals from the Levantine Corridor: a Mediterranean Perspective Article in Levant · January 2001 DOI: 10.1179/007589101790217300 · Source: OAI CITATIONS READS 72 945 6 authors, including: Edgar Peltenburg Sue Colledge The University of Edinburgh University College London 43 PUBLICATIONS 412 CITATIONS 67 PUBLICATIONS 3,166 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Paul Croft Carole J. Mccartney University of Cyprus University of Cyprus 21 PUBLICATIONS 363 CITATIONS 9 PUBLICATIONS 240 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Chlorakas-Palloures, Leiden University View project Elaborating Early Neolithic Cyprus View project All content following this page was uploaded by Sue Colledge on 20 May 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. LEVANT 33 2001 Pp. 35-64 Neolithic Dispersals from the Levantine Corridor: a Mediterranean Perspective 1 2 3 1 Edgar Peltenburg , Sue Colledge , Paul Croft , Adam Jackson , Carole McCartney3 and Mary Anne Murray2 1 Department of Archaeology) University of Edinburgh) Old High School) Edinburgh EH1 1LT) Scotland U.I<'.E. Peltenburg@ed. ac. uk. Ajackson@hsy1. ssc.ed. ac.uk 2 Institute of Archaeology) University College London) 31-34 Gordon Square) London WC1H OP~ England U.1<. S. [email protected]. uk. [email protected]. 3 Lemba Archaeological Research Centre) 8260 Lemba) Paphos District) Cyprus. Paulcroft@cytanet. com. cy. Carole@spidernet. com. cy The earliest agro-pastoralists of the Near East are generally held to have emerged in a narrow Levantine Corridor. Agricultural life initially spread from this discrete core zone in the Early Pre- Pottery Neolithic B to adjacent inland regions, only reaching the Mediterranean coast of Syria by the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. Recent discoveries on Cyprus, far to the west of the core zone, prompt re-configuration of several elements of this model. They also provide evidence for characteristics of a regional variant of the PPNB and, in a broader context, fresh data for an understanding of the triggers and mechanics of precocious neolithic dispersals. In a flurry of recent reviews of evidence for the tran- Cauvin (1989; 1997) has suggested a stadial sition from foraging to agricultural societies in the model for this dispersal. According to his model, N ear East, emphasis is placed on the Levantine expansion took place from north Syria in the Corridor as .the geographical focus of this seminal EPPNB towards the north, into south-east Anatolia, process (e.g. Bar-Yosef 1993; 1998a; 1988c; Bar- still within the corridor, followed by migration to the Yosef and Belfer-Cohen 1989; Bar-Yosef and south Levant in the MPPNB and the Mediterranean Meadows 1995; Byrd 1992; Cauvin 1989, 1997; coasts and the arid zone in the LPPNB (cf. also Cauvin et at. 1998; Garrard 1999; Harris 1996a). Cauvin et ale 1998, 62, 64). Ozdogan (1997) has The corridor is a narrow belt of land stretching from added a fourth episode at the· end of the PPNB the Dead Sea to the Balikh River and the great bend which saw movement westwards through Anatolia of the Euphrates in north Syria and south-east towards Europe (cf. Van Andel and Runnels 1995). Anatolia (see Fig. 1 which only shows the northern Leaving aside questions about types of diffusion, the Published by Maney Publishing (c) The Council for British Research in the Levant part of the corridor for the sake of convenience). appearance of domestic-type grains in the PPNA, There is a growing consensus that the cultivation of and ephemeral settlement with domestic-type cereals and other crops began here in the eleventh- einkorn and barley at Jilat 7 in arid zone Jordan, tenth millennia BP and that animal husbandry already in the EPPNB, demonstrate how tenuous appeared as much as a millennium later, at different these models are in our present state of knowledge times in the Early-Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (Garrard et at. 1996). It may be more prudent to fol- (Bar-Yosef and Meadows 1995; Harris 1998). It was low Bar-Yosef and Meadows (1995, 41) who prefer especially after the establishment of agro-pastoral an uneven series of movements into areas bordering communities that demographic expansion took the Levantine Corridor, rather than particular place and that farming spread beyond the Levantine waves. Whatever the sequence and mechanics, all Corridor. [All dates in this paper are in uncalibrated recognise the patchiness of the archaeological record radiocarbon years BP; E, M and L PPNB = Early, in areas adjacent to the Levantine Corridor, hence Middle and Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B]. the important issue of initial neolithic dispersals 35 36 LEVANT 33 2001 Cafer."- -Erbaba .•. Cayonu• - Catal" •••• Suberde- .• -Can Hasan .• Akanthou Arkosyko •• ? - Asprokremnos •.• . - - Kalavasos Tenta ••.•. Mylouthkla Shillourokambos ••.• Period •.• Site 23.? EPPNB • MPPNB • LPPNB .• MEDITERRANEAN SEA Site Location _ Levantine Corridor o 250km i i Figure 1. Map of the northern mainland Levant and Cyprus during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, c. 9500-8000 BP. For other sites that may have been occupied during one or more phases of this period see p. 56. Area of Levantine Corridor (shaded) after Bar-Yosef 1998a. from pristine centres can only be addressed in a gen- this view, we are dealing with migration rather than eral manner. Indeed, if the archaeological record stimulus diffusion, although empirical evidence for around the corridor is so poorly known, then the migration and its causes, such as stress due to Published by Maney Publishing (c) The Council for British Research in the Levant integrity of the corridor itself must be in some density of large sites or insufficient size of sustaining doubt. The discovery and excavatio~ of key sites in territories, is lacking. In spite of much valuable that zone is more the result of rescue excavation in research in the south Levant and Syro-Anatolia, it is dam areas along the Euphrates than systematic evident that we are still poorly informed about the survey. In short, the exclusiveness of the corridor distribution of PPNA-EPPNB sites that will supply concept during the PPNA-EPPNB may be more a contextual evidence for initial neolithic dispersals. reflection of the current concentration of fieldwork Thus, "there is no clear picture of the spread of than past reality. [cereal] species from the Levantine Corridor" (Bar- In what is a widely debated issue, many contend Yosef 1998c, 60) and "the mechanisms by which that the impetus for this movement was demo- agriculture spread throughout the fertile Levant dur- graphic expansion following the advent of increased ing the PPNB are as yet undemonstrated" (Byrd sedentism, cultivation and agriculture. According to 1992, 53). E. PELTENBURG ET AL. Neolithic Dispersals from the Levantine Corridor 37 The Cypriot background foragers only stayed for a short time and abandoned the island when the indigenous megafauna on which As sometimes happens in research, new light on old they depended became extinct (Simmons et al. problems comes from unexpected quarters, in this 1999, 319-23). In sum, standard prehistories of case the island of Cyprus. Until now, Cyprus has Cyprus claim that hunter-gatherers did not survive had little to offer to debates concerning the transi- on the island which to all intents and purposes tion from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies or remained uninhabited until the Khirokitian. to neolithic dispersals. Maps conveying the forma- Our understanding of this hiatus was radically tive transition stages exclude the island or leave it as altered in the 1990s as a result of excavations and a blank canvas because there were no Aceramic renewed study of chipped stone assemblages. To Neolithic sites that could certainly be ascribed to the anticipate, some six sites are now recognised to period prior to the fully-fledged Khirokitian of the belong to the tenth-ninth millennia BP, one pos- eighth-seventh millennium BP (e.g. LeBrun 1989). sesses domestic cereals in the later tenth millennium This lacuna helped to reinforce the argument most BP, and combined evidence from two sites estab- clearly put forward by Cauvin (1989) that neolithic lishes the presence of morphologically wild cattle, dispersal beyond the corridor to the west was a sheep and goat, and domestic pig, also in the later belated episode, occurring only in the LPPNB in tenth millennium BP. The existence of such an array coastal Syria and after that to Cyprus. The earlier of cultigens and subsistence animals on a arrival of farmers much further west at Franchthi Mediterranean island in the EPPNB, far outside the cave in Greece c. 8000 BP highlights the anomalous Levantine Corridor, provides new insights into the nature of the Cypriot, and to some extent also, the timing and direction of early neolithic dispersals and west Syrian archaeological record (Hansen 1992). the motives and abilities of the earliest farmers to Claims for earlier occupation of Cyprus based on migrate. It would seem that agro-pastoralism was poor flint assemblages remain highly equivocal established more widely and much earlier than even (Cherry 1990). More certain evidence emerged in recent evidence has allowed us to think (e.g. Harris the mid-1980s when Ian Todd published a series of 1998, 9). radiocarbon dates from Aceramic Neolithic deposits That such diffusion was the result of the migration at Kalavasos- Tenta (hereafter, Tenta) that included of Near Eastern groups is evident from the PPN one as early as the tenth millennium BP (Todd character of the earliest Cypriot neolithic material 1987, 173-8). On the basis of the dates shown in culture, the apparent lack of indigenous foragers Fig. 3, two phases of the site could be dated to who may have adopted agriculture and the absence before Khirokitia.