PALEORIENT, vol. 17/1 - 1991
SEASONALITY AND GAZELLE HUNTING AT HAYONIM CAVE: NEW EVIDENCE FOR "SEDENTISM" DURING THE NATUFIAN
D.E. LIEBERMAN
Introduction
There is growing interest in the problem of seasonality and the existence of preagricultural sedentism during the Natufian (1) period (12,500-10,500 bp) just prior to the development of agriculture in the southern Levant circa 10,500 bp (2). An increase in the degree of sedentism (3) is regarded by many anthropologists to be a necessary precondition for food production (4), but there is little agreement concerning the nature and origins of such reduced mobility in the Middle East. Reduced site mobility, which probably originated during the Natufian, may have resulted from intensification collecting and storage of cereals (5), from some form of population pressure (6), from an increase in the range of foods
Although the term Natufian is often used to refer to any cultural assemblage characterized by lunates in the Levant between roughly 12500 and 10500 bp this paper following BELFER-CO- HEN 1989 restricts the use of the term to the original criteria defined by GARROD 1932 Other contemporaneous sites with si milar lithic industries but without evidence for sedentism inten sive exploitation of cereals etc are referred to as belonging to the Natufian cultural complex see HENRY 1989 BAR-YOSEF and KISLEV 1989 The term sedentism is difficult to define see RAFFERTY 1985 and used by archaeologists for variety of purposes This paper uses the term in its loosest sense to refer to relatively long- term multi-seasonal occupation of site that results in significant anthropogenic alteration of the environment around the site TCHERNOV in press BENDER 1978 HENRY 1989 BINFORD 1968 BAR-YOSEF 1983 BAR-YOSEF and BELFER-COHEN 1989
hunted and gathered (7), or perhaps from the first production of cereals in the region (8). In addition, some researchers (9) have recently questioned the existence of evidence for the year-round occupation of sites until the Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
Before addressing the problem of the causal relationships between the origins of agriculture and the development of relatively permanent villages, more data are necessary to determine the seasons during which Natufian and other Levantine Epipalaeolithic archaeological sites were occupied. There is an unfortunate lack of a priori evidence of site seasonality from the Levantine Epipalaeolithic because of the poor preservation of plant remains in the acidic sediments of the region (10), the lack of flotation in many early excavations, and because of the numerous difficulties of determining season of death from faunal remains. Most researchers (11) have had to estimate the season of occupation of archaeological sites from models that relate the location of sites to the presumed distribution of resources, or from indirect archaeological indicators of mobility such as the presence of houses, storage facilities, etc. (12).
Direct faunal evidence for season of occupation has been reported for only a handful of southern Levantine Epipalaeolithic sites. Tchernov (13) and
BAR-YOSEF 1980 CAUVIN and CAUVIN 1983 MOORE 1982 1985 UNGER-HAMILTON 1989 EDWARDS 1989 TANGRI and WYNCOLL 1989 10 RENFREW 1973 11 e.g PERROT 1966 FEANNERY 1972 BAR-YOSEF 1983 HENRY 1989 12 see RAFFERTY 1985 EDWARDS 1989 13 TCHERNOV 1984 press
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