Communal Hunting in the Natufian of the Southern Levant

The Social and Economic Implications

Authors

  • Douglas V. Campana New York University
  • Pam J. Crabtree New York University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v3i2.223

Keywords:

Natufian, communal hunting, agriculture

Abstract

The Natufian culture of Palestine has been seen as an important state in the progression from hunting and gathering to food production. Henry (1875) first suggested that the Natufians used traps or surrounds to hunt gazelles collectively. This paper uses Faunal data from the site of Salibiya I in the lower Jordan valley to suggest that the Natufians practiced communal hunting of the mountain gazelle (Gazella, gazella). Ethnographic studies suggest that communal hunting entails planning, timing and the organization of large numbers of people. These are the same features of social organization needed for the initiation of agriculture. We suggest that it was the social organization needed for the communal hunt, rather than sedentarization, or demographic or ecological factors, that provided the preconditions for the beginning of agriculture.

Author Biographies

  • Douglas V. Campana, New York University
    Douglas V. Campana is an Archaeologist for the National Park Service, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born in 1942, he was educated at Columbia University (BA 1972, PhD 1980). His research interests include Near Eastern prehistory, hunting-gathering societies, and the origins of agriculture, pre-historic technology, ware-pattern studies (particularly of bone implements), and computer applications in archaeology. His publications include 'Natufian and Protoneolithic bone tools: the manufacture and use of bone implements in the Zagros and the Levant', BAR International Series 494. He is co-editor with Pam J. Crabtree and Kathleen Ryan of 'Animal Domesticization and its Cultural Context' MASCA Publications in Archaeology and Science.
  • Pam J. Crabtree, New York University
    Pam J. Crabtree is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at New York University. She was born in 1951 and educated at Barnard College (BA 1972) and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD 1982). He research interests include zooarchaeology, European and Near Eastern prehistory, medieval archaeology, and the archaeology of gender. Her publications include 'West Stow: The Anglo-Saxon Animal Husbandry', East Angliam Archaeology (1990), and 'Zooarchaeology and Complex Societies: some uses of faunal analysis for the study of trade, social status and ethnicity', in Archaeological Method and Theory 2, edited by M. B. Schiffer.

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Published

1990-12-01

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 2 (1990)

Section

Articles

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Campana, D. V., & Crabtree, P. J. (1990). Communal Hunting in the Natufian of the Southern Levant: The Social and Economic Implications. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 3(2), 223-246. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v3i2.223