Crop Domestication and Gender j 3333 33
Written sometime during the Iron Age, these terrifying lines remind us that early seden-
tary foragers were blessed with an abundant year- round food supply. They would have little
reason to convert to an agricultural lifestyle, exchanging relative leisure for back- breaking
work. Even today, some groups living in naturally productive areas avoid agriculture, pre-
ferring the less arduous lifestyle of hunting and gathering. The bountiful supplies of wild
cereals, legumes, nuts, and fruits were a disincentive for the Natufians to plant crops. No
doubt powerful cultural disincentives existed as well.Paradise Lost, Agriculture Gained?
According to a widely held theory, the Natufian lease on Paradise eventually ran out.
Foraging conditions began to worsen around 12,500 years ago. The climate became
drier, the supply of wild foods decreased, and the Natufian culture came under envi-
ronmental stress. This stress is thought to be associated with a period of global cooling
referred to as the Younger Dryas climatic episode (13,100– 11,000 years ago), during
which the temperatures in the north approached those of the LGM. (Both the Older
Dryas, which occurred before the Natufians, and the Younger Dryas episodes are
named after a f lower, Dryas octopetala, a small arctic- alpine member of the Rose family
whose pollen^10 is particularly abundant in the archaeological record during these cooler
periods.)
Although the environmental stress theory based on a reduction in rainfall during the
Younger Dryas has been challenged, pollen analyses of the Fertile Crescent region have
confirmed a relatively rapid decline in forest habitats during this period in the Levant, con-
sistent with a marked reduction of moisture in the spring and early summer. Some archae-
ologists believe it was this drought that caused a catastrophic decline in the supply of wild
foods and helped spur the transition from sedentary foraging to agriculture. Those living
in relatively dry areas were forced to seek new locations where water was abundant. Those
already living by springs or rivers, such as the inhabitants of Jericho, stayed put, but gradu-
ally reduced their foraging lifestyle in favor of the more labor- intensive but less risky agri-
cultural lifestyle.
The agriculturally unfavorable Younger Dryas episode eventually ran its course, and,
by around 10,000 years ago, the former pluvial (i.e., rainy) conditions returned to the
Levant. Temperatures rose, the annual rainfall increased by nearly 30%, and the grow-
ing season was extended, resulting in a major surge in plant biomass. Once again, wild
food resources became abundant—emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, almonds, acorns,
and pistachio nuts. The end of the Younger Dryas roughly coincides with the appear-
ance of a new culture called the Khiamians, named after the El Khiam terrace in Wadi
Khareitoun, near Bethlehem, where a new type of arrowhead, signaling the presence of
a new, post- Natufian culture, was found.^11 Dating to between 12,200 and 11,800 years
ago, Khiamian culture belongs to a period called the Pre- Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)
because ceramic pottery, usually considered a marker for the Neolithic, was not present
at the site.^12
The second PPNA culture in the Northern Levant, the Mureybetian, is named after an
ancient settlement mound or “tell” on the bank of the Euphrates in northern Syria. Both
are found primarily in the Northern Levant, although some Khiamian deposits have been
found in the Southern Levant as well (Figure 3.2).