NATUFIAN PLANT USES AT EL-WAD TER RACE (MOUNT CAR … et al. 71new.pdf · Eur asian Pre his tory, 7...

Eur asian Pre his tory, 7 (1): 99–112.

NATUFIAN PLANT USES AT EL-WAD TER RACE(MOUNT CAR MEL, IS RAEL): THE PHYTOLITH EV I DENCE

Marta Portillo1, Arlene M. Rosen1 and Mina Weinstein-Evron2

1 In sti tute of Ar chae ol ogy, Uni ver sity Col lege Lon don; 31-34 Gordon Square, Lon don WC1H 0PY,United King dom; [email protected]; [email protected]

2 Zinman In sti tute of Ar chae ol ogy, Uni ver sity of Haifa; Haifa 31905, Is rael; evron@re search.haifa.ac.il

Ab stractEl-Wad is one of the ma jor Natufian base camps of the Med i ter ra nean core-area. Quan ti ta tive, morphologic and

morphometric anal y ses of phytoliths from the site were con ducted in or der to iden tify the plants used in spe cific ar chae o -log i cal con text. The re sults show that pooid grasses dom i nated the phytolith re cord. High con cen tra tions of phytolithsfrom grass leaves and stems sug gest dwell ing re mains, an im por tant el e ment of Natufian plant ex ploi ta tion. Phytoliths also in di cate that wood and bark were the sec ond most abun dant form of veg e ta tion pre served in the site. This study pro videsnew data about Natufian modes of en vi ron men tal ex ploi ta tion (or sub sis tence) on the thresh old of early food pro duc ingcom mu ni ties in the south ern Lev ant.

Key words: el-Wad Ter race, Natufian, plant ex ploi ta tion, phytoliths.

IN TRO DUC TION

The site of el-Wad Cave and Ter race has long been con sid ered one of the ma jor Natufian basecamps of the Med i ter ra nean core-area, west of the Jor dan River (Garrod, 1957; Bar-Yosef, 1983;Weinstein-Evron et al., 2007; Weinstein-Evron,2009). The site is lo cated on the west ern slope ofMount Car mel at the open ing of Nahal Me‘arot(Val ley of the Caves), to gether with three othercaves–Tabun, Jamal and Skhul, fac ing the nar row Car mel coastal plain (north ern Is rael) (Fig. 1).el-Wad cave and its ad ja cent ter race, cov ers alarger area than any of the other three caves.

The site has been re peat edly ex ca vated sincethe late 1920s (Garrod and Bate, 1937; Valla etal., 1986; Weinstein-Evron, 1998; Weinstein-Evron et al., 2007). Sig nif i cantly, el-Wad hasbeen found to con tain one of the most com pleteNatufian se quences in the Lev ant, span ning fromthe Early Natufian to its fi nal stage (Weinstein-Evron, 1998). The ra dio car bon chro nol ogy forel-Wad spans the pe riod of ca. 12,950 ± 200 years BP (15,700–15,000 cal. BP) to ca. 10,680 ± 190

BP (12,820–12,370 cal. BP), cov er ing prac ti callythe en tire du ra tion of this cul ture. Thus, theel-Wad se quence al to gether rep re sents some3,500–4,000 years of Natufian oc cu pa tion of thesite.

Var i ous lines of ev i dence sug gest a sed en tary site at least for the main Early Natufian hab i ta tion(Weinstein-Evron, 1998). Wide va ri et ies of char -ac ter is tic flint tools and ground stone im ple ments, as well as elab o rate ar tis tic and dec o ra tive itemsof stone, bone and shell were man u fac tured. Fau -nal re mains, in clud ing micro fauna, fish and mol-luscs, were abun dant and well pre served in thesite (Bate, 1937; Valla et al., 1986; Rabinovich,1998; Bar-Oz et al., 2004; Weissbrod et al., 2005; Weinstein-Evron et al., 2007). Moun tain ga zelle(Gazella gazella) was the most heavily ex ploitedspe cies (Bar-Oz et al., 2004). In ad di tion, a richand pro lific Natufian cem e tery was un earthed atthe site.

Di rect paleobotanical ev i dence from pol lenand char coal re mains from the Early Natufian lay -ers of el-Wad cave in di cates that typ i cal east ernMed i ter ra nean woody spe cies were uti lized by the

Natufian in hab it ants of the site (Lev-Yadun andWeinstein-Evron, 1993, 1994, 2005; Weinstein-Evron, 1994). The char coal re mains in di cated theuse of woody plants from the for est/ma quis (ev er -green and oaks), riv er bank and wet low lands(tama risk and wil low), in clud ing Quercus calli-prinos (kermes oak), Quercus ithaburensis(Mount Ta bor oak), Cupressus sempervirens (Ita- lian cy press), and Myrtus cummunis (myr tle)(Lev-Yadun and Weinstein-Evron, 1994). Mostof these com mon dicotyledonous trees and shrubs are found in the re gion to day. This was sup portedby the palynological data (Weinstein-Evron,1994) where the use of Tamarix (as fuel or bed -ding ma te rial?) and the abun dance of ruderalplants de rived from the vi cin ity of the site werefur ther high lighted. It was also sug gested (Wein-stein-Evron, 1998) that the oc cur rence of clumpsof ol ive pol len that prob a bly had dropped from

flow er ing branches and of myr tle pol len grains in -di cates a spring/early sum mer hab i ta tion of thecave. These archaeobotanical stud ies in di catedthat the Natufians ex ploited var i ous lo cal woodyplants in their econ omy dur ing the clos ing stagesof the Pleis to cene.

Phytoliths (sil ica bod ies formed in plants)were an a lyzed in this pi lot study in or der to iden -tify the plants used in spe cific ar eas at el-WadTer race. Sam ples were taken dur ing the 2006–2007 ex ca va tion sea sons of the site. Var i ous liv -ing sur faces and dis tinct struc tures were sam pled.Most of these be long to the later part of the EarlyNatufian (LEN)–the most sig nif i cant con struc tion phase at the site. Only two sam ples may be long tothe lower part of the Late Natufian phase at thesite (Ta ble 1).

MA TE RI ALS AND METH ODS

Forty-one sam ples were col lected in to tal forphytolith anal y ses. Ta ble 1 lists the sam ples an a -lyzed as well as the main re sults ob tained. The lo -ca tions of the sam ples rel a tive to the ex ca va tiongrid squares and the var i ous fea tures are shown in Figs 2 and 3.

The lab o ra tory meth ods used were sim i lar tothose de scribed in the study of the Natufian site of Mallaha (Eynan, north ern Is rael) (Rosen, 2004,2007). The sam ples were an a lyzed in the Phyto-lith Lab o ra tory at the In sti tute of Ar chae ol ogy–Uni ver sity Col lege Lon don. A weighed aliquot of ca. 1 g of .250 mm air-dried sed i ment was treatedwith about 10 ml of 10% HCL to elim i nate thecar bon ates. The sam ple was washed with dis tilled wa ter and then cen tri fuged at 2000 rpm for 5 min -utes. The pel let was dried and the re main ing sed i -ment was weighed. Or ganic mat ter was elim i -nated by burn ing in a muf fle fur nace at 500°C for2 hours. The re main ing sed i ment was weighed.This is re ferred to as the in or ganic acid in sol u blefrac tion (AIF). The clays were re moved with 20ml of So dium hexametaphosphate (calgon) by aset tling and decantation pro cess through a col umn of dis tilled wa ter.

The re main ing min eral com po nents of theAIF were then sep a rated ac cord ing to their den si -ties in or der to con cen trate the phytoliths. TheAIF was trans ferred to a 15 ml poly propy lenecentrifuge tube con tain ing 3 ml of So dium

100 M. Portillo et al.

Fig. 1. Map show ing the lo ca tion of el-Wad andother sites men tioned in the text

Natufian plant uses at el-Wad ter race 101

Ta ble 1De scrip tion of sam ples and main phytolith re sults ob tained from el-Wad Ter race

Sam plenum ber

Square

El e va -tion(cm

be lowda tum)

% AIFN. phytoliths

1 g of AIF

N. phytoliths1 g of sed i -

ment

% WM phyto-liths

De scrip tion

EW06-1 N8 424 79.8 9.900.000 7.900.000 7.7Lo cus 31. Con cen tra tion of ar ti facts andsmall stones



EW06-4 N8 428 82 8.100.000 6.600.000 2.8 East of lo cus 31

EW06-5 N8 428 82.3 11.400.000 9.300.000 11.6 East of lo cus 31

EW06-6 N8 428 81.5 12.000.000 9.800.000 7.7 Stony layer

EW06-7 N8 428 81.6 5.900.000 4.800.000 9.8 Un der lo cus 31

EW06-8 Q8 348 81.7 15.900.000 13.000.000 12.1 Lo cus 24d. Round stone in stal la tion

EW06-9 Q8 341 79 14.500.000 11.500.000 10.3 West of lo cus 24d

EW06-10 Q8 351 79.7 10.200.000 8.100.000 8.9 As so ci ated with lo cus 24d

EW07-1 L8b 461 74.7 3.300.000 2.400.000 14.5 Lo cus 37. Stone cir cle, loose brown sed i ment

EW07-2 L8b 459 73.9 1.900.000 1.400.000 11.9 Lo cus 37. Stone cir cle, loose brown sed i ment

EW07-3 L8c 457 75 1.000.000 780.000 8.9 Out side Lo cus 37, stony layer

EW07-4 L10d 472 74.3 1.800.000 1.300.000 14.4Lo cus 38. Con cen tra tion of stones, be tweenstones

EW07-5 K9a 477 75.8 3.600.000 2.700.000 14.2 Out side Lo cus 38, stony layer

EW07-6 L10c 474 74 13.800.000 10.200.000 15.5Lo cus 38. Con cen tra tion of stones, be tweenstones

EW07-7 M10d 474 73.5 6.400.000 4.700.000 12.5 Lo cus 27. Built fea ture, com pact sed i ment

EW07-8 L10c 474 73.9 11.500.000 8.500.000 12.5 Lo cus 27. Built fea ture, com pact sed i ment

EW07-9 M9d 450 76.5 940.000 720.000 29.9 Stony layer, loose brown sed i ment

EW07-10 N10d 453 72.7 4.300.000 3.100.000 12.4 Stony layer, loose brown sed i ment

EW07-11 M8a 448 63.4 600.000 380.000 26.8 Lo cus 35. Ce mented or ange sed i ment

EW07-12 M8b 447 74.7 0 0 Lo cus 35. Loose or ange-brown sed i ment

EW07-13 M8b 449 71.4 150.000 110.000 26.7 Lo cus 35. Ce mented or ange sed i ment

EW07-14 N7b 425 72.9 1.100.000 830.000 17.9Out side of stony Layer III, com pact brownsed i ment

EW07-15 N7a 425 70 2.100.000 1.500.000 15.5 Stony layer III, be tween stones

EW07-16 N7d 424 71.6 1.500.000 1.100.000 8.5 Stony layer III, be tween stones

EW07-17 N7c 420 68.4 1.900.000 1.300.000 11.9 Stony layer III, be tween stones

EW07-18 N6b 418 70.5 690.000 500.000 17.8Stony layer III, be tween stones, ad her ing towall II

EW07-19 M7c 434 75 0 0 Stony layer III, be tween stones

EW07-20 N6d 401 70.7 1.100.000 810.000 13.8 Loose brown sed i ment, be tween walls I-II

EW07-21 Q8d 358 72 2.400.000 1.700.000 15.9Com pact sed i ment ad her ing to a large flatstone

EW07-22 Q8a 359 66.6 2.300.000 1.600.000 13.1Lo cus 39. Col lapsed stone in stal la tion, be -tween stones

EW07-23 Q8a 365 68.8 1.100.000 740.000 17.4 Out side of lo cus 39, com pact sed i ment

EW07-24 P8c 366 68.1 550.000 370.000 23.8 Com pact sed i ment ad her ing to the large stone

polytungstate so lu tion [Na6(H2W12O40).H2O] of2.35 sp. grav ity. The sus pen sion was thor oughlydis persed by vortexing and then was cen tri fugedat 800 rpm for 10 min utes. The supernatant wastrans ferred to an other cen tri fuge tube, dis tilledwa ter was added to re duce the den sity, the tubewas vortexed and again cen tri fuged at 2000 rpmfor 5 min utes. The sed i ment pel let de pos ited atthe bot tom of the tube was washed and cen tri -fuged two more times. The pel let was dried andweighed.

For ex am i na tion un der the op ti cal mi cro -scope, sam ples were mixed with Entellan New(Merck), and a cover slip was placed over the sus -pen sion. The ae rial cov er age of the sam ple on theslide was es ti mated by count ing the to tal num berof fields con tain ing sam ple grains. Slides wereex am ined us ing an Olym pus BH-2 op ti cal mi cro -scope. Dig i tal im ages were ob tained us ing anOlym pus Color View IIu cam era and Olym pusCell D* soft ware at the De part ment of Pre his tory,An cient His tory and Ar chae ol ogy of the Uni ver -sity of Bar ce lona.

Phytoliths in a known num ber of ran domlycho sen fields were counted at 400× mag ni fi ca -tion. Quan ti ta tive anal y ses fol lowed the meth odsde scribed in the study of Tabun cave (Al bert etal., 1999). For mor pho log i cal anal y sis, a min i -mum of 200 phytoliths with di ag nos tic morpho-logies were counted in or der to ob tain an er ror ofaround ± 20% (Al bert and Weiner, 2001). Mor -pho log i cal iden ti fi ca tion of phytoliths was basedon stan dard lit er a ture (Twiss et al., 1969; Brown,

1984; Rosen, 1992; Mulholland and Rapp, 1992;Piperno, 2006). When pos si ble, the terms de scrib -ing phytolith morphologies fol low an a tom i cal ter -mi nol ogy, and oth er wise they de scribe geo met ri -cal char ac ter is tics. The In ter na tional Code forPhytolith No men cla ture (ICPN) was also fol -lowed where pos si ble (Madella et al., 2005).

Morphometric anal y sis is an ef fec tive tool for dif fer en ti at ing be tween phytoliths pro duced byclosely re lated taxa (Pearsall et al., 1995; Zhao etal., 1998; Ball et al., 1999; Al bert et al., 2008;Portillo et al., 2009). Sev en teen pa ram e ters ofsize and shape were mea sured for di ag nos tic in -flo res cence grass phytolith morphotype, namelyden dritic epi der mal long cell phytoliths, us ingCell D* im age anal y sis soft ware (Ta ble 2). Amin i mum of 45 phytoliths were mea sured fromeach ar chae o log i cal sam ple. Sta tis ti cal anal y sesused SPSS soft ware for Win dows, with cal i bra -tion data from the same spe cies, fol low ing themeth od ol ogy of Ball et al. (1999). The phytolithsiden ti fied in the ar chae o log i cal sam ples werecom pared to phytoliths pro duced by mod ernplants from a ref er ence col lec tion at the In sti tuteof Ar chae ol ogy–Uni ver sity Col lege Lon don,which in cludes sev eral wild spe cies of wheat, bar -ley and oat, as well as other wild grasses from theLev ant.

RE SULTS

Ta ble 1 lists the sam ples an a lyzed, to getherwith their lo ca tion in the site and de scrip tion, per -cent age of acid in sol u ble frac tion (AIF), num bers


Ta ble 1 continued

Sam plenum ber

Square

El e va -tion(cm

be lowda tum)

% AIFN. phytoliths

1 g of AIF

N. phytoliths1 g of sed i -

ment

% WM phyto-liths

De scrip tion

EW07-25 Q8b 369 69 2.500.000 1.700.000 11.3 Com pact brown sed i ment

EW07-26 Q5b 319 72 840.000 605.000 14 Lo cus 25. Stony fea ture, be tween stones

EW07-27 Q5a 285 57.6 54.000 31.000 60 Lo cus 25. Stony fea ture, be tween stones

EW07-28 P6d 347 68.3 2.700.000 1.800.000 13.1Lo cus 40. Con cen tra tion of stones and ar ti -facts

EW07-29 P6a 349 69.6 140.000 96.000 33.3 Com pact sed i ment

EW07-30 Q9a 376 69.8 1.900.000 1.300.000 9.6 Com pact sed i ment

EW07-31 P10d 390 73.7 610.000 450.000 5.6 Com pact sed i ment

All be long to the late Early Natufian (LEN) phase of the site, ex cept for the sam ples from loci 24d, 25 and 27, which may be longto the Late Natufian.

of phytoliths per 1 g of AIF, and per cent age ofphytolith weath ered morphotypes (WM). Theacid in sol u ble frac tion (AIF) in di cates the per -cent age pres ence of si li ceous ma te rial, in clud ingquartz, clay, heavy min er als and phytoliths. Ingen eral, sam ples showed a high per cent age ofAIF. This is es pe cially true for sam ples from Lo -

cus 31 and 24d (squares N8 and Q8, re spec tively)where the AIF av er age is 80.5% (Ta ble 1). Sam -ples from other lo ca tions showed a lower AIFper cent age (be tween 57.6–76.5%), which in di -cates a dif fer ent dis tri bu tion of the min er al og i calcom po nents with a higher pres ence of car bon atesand other non-si li ceous min er als.


Fig. 2. Gen eral plan of the re newed ex ca va tion at el-Wad Ter race. Stone-built fea tures where phytoliths weresam pled are de picted

An other im por tant is sue in phytolith anal y sisis their states of pres er va tion. In di ca tions of par -tial dis so lu tion of phytoliths were noted in allsam ples by the pres ence of sur face pit ting andetch ing at dif fer ent de grees. This how ever is not

ex ten sive enough to pre vent their iden ti fi ca tion.Those phytoliths which were not un iden ti fi ablebe cause of their bad state of pres er va tion are ex -pressed as weath ered morphotypes (WM, ta ble 1). In gen eral, the ex tent of weath er ing cor re lates


Fig. 3. Sche matic sec tion A–A’ along the M–N line (for lo ca tion see fig ure 2) show ing the re la tions be tween fea -tures at the East Area

Ta ble 2De scrip tions of the morphometric pa ram e ters mea sured

Morphometric Type De scrip tion

Area Size Sim ple area of the fea ture.

Con vex area Size Area within a taut-string around the fea ture.

Per im e ter Size Length of the fea ture bound ary.

Con vex per im e ter Size Length of a taut-string around the fea ture.

Di am e ter in ner max SizeThe max i mum di am e ter through the mea sured ob ject cen ter with out leav ing the mea suredob ject.

Di am e ter in ner min SizeThe min i mum di am e ter through the mea sured ob ject cen ter with out leav ing the mea suredob ject.

Di am e ter outer max SizeThe max i mum di am e ter through the mea sured ob ject cen ter from outer bor der to outerbor der.

Di am e ter outer min SizeThe min i mum di am e ter through the mea sured ob ject cen ter from outer bor der to outerbor der.

Di am e ter max SizeThe max i mum di am e ter of a mea sured ob ject (for an gles in the range 0° through 179° with step width 1°).

Di am e ter min SizeThe min i mum di am e ter of a mea sured ob ject (for an gles in the range 0° through 179° with step width 1°).

Equiv a lent di am e ter Size Di am e ter of a cir cle with the same area as the fea ture.

Ra dius max Size Ra dius of larg est cir cle that can be drawn in the fea ture.

Shape fac tor ShapeEquals 4 × Area × ? / Per im e ter (it is 1.0 for a per fect cir cle and di min ishes for ir reg u larshapes).

Sphe ric ity ShapeEquals 4 × Area / ? × Length2 (it is 1.0 for a per fect cir cle and di min ishes with elon ga tionof the fea ture).

Con vex ity ShapeRa tio of con vex per im e ter to per im e ter (it is 1.0 for a per fectly con vex shape and di min -ishes if there are sur face in den ta tions).

As pect ra tio Shape Equals length / width.

Elon ga tion Shape Equals fi ber length / width.

with the num ber of phytoliths per unit gram ofAIF. This is es pe cially true for the sam ples thatcon tain the low est amounts of phytoliths (over30–60% of dis so lu tion). It should be noted thatother mi cro-re mains such as starch grains and di a -toms were not ob served in the sam ples.

The phytolith dis tri bu tions are shown in Ta -ble 1. Phytoliths were noted in dif fer ent pro por -tions in the sam ples, with a greater abun dance insome con texts but only small amounts in oth ers.The only ex cep tions were sam ples EW07-12 (Lo -cus 35, square M8b; a ce mented or ange sed i mentad ja cent to a floor of a struc ture) and EW07-19(Stony Layer III, square M7c; prob a bly the floorof a struc ture), where phytoliths were not ob -served. Lo cus 31, a small con cen tra tion of stonesand ar ti facts em bed ded in a floor of a struc ture,showed the larg est amounts (sam ple EW06-2,square N8, 17,800,000 phytoliths/g of AIF).Other groups of sed i ment sam ples con tain ing rel -a tively large pro por tions of phytoliths were: sam -ples from Lo cus 24d–a stone-lined pit (EW06-8and EW06-9, square Q8), sam ple from Lo cus

38–a con cen tra tion of stones not as so ci ated with a struc ture (EW07-6, square L10c), and sam plefrom Lo cus 27 (EW07-8, square L10c), rang ingfrom 11,500,000 to 15,900,000 phytoliths/g ofAIF.

Phytoliths were di vided mor pho log i cally into three ma jor groups ac cord ing to the type of plantin which they orig i nated and the plant part:grasses, leaves and wood of di cot y le dons (woodyand her ba ceous plants) (Fig. 4). The mor pho log i -cal study was based on a mod ern ref er ence col lec -tion of plants of the Mount Car mel area (Al bert,2000; Al bert and Weiner, 2001). As it can be ob -served, the mor pho log i cal re sults ob tained weresim i lar for all the sam ples. Note that not all thean a lyzed sam ples were in cluded in the his to -grams, due to the fact that in some cases therewere in suf fi cient phytoliths counted with con sis -tent mor phol ogy to ob tain a re li able in ter pre ta tion in these sam ples.

Grasses dom i nated the phytolith re cord (withan av er age close to 65% of the to tal of countedmorphotypes), fol lowed by dicotyledonous


Fig. 4. His to gram show ing the rel a tive abun dances (%) of phytoliths from grasses, dicotyledonous leaves, dico-tyledonous wood/bark and weath ered morphotypes

plants. Sedges (Cyperaceae) and reeds (in cludedin side the grass group) and char ac ter is tic of weten vi ron ments, were noted in all the sam ples.There are no sig nif i cant dif fer ences be tween theper cent ages of mono cot y le dons among the sam -ples. Grass phytoliths were then mor pho log i callydi vided into the dif fer ent plant parts in which they were formed, in this case leaves/stems and in flo -res cen ces. Fig ure 5 showed dif fer ent rel a tiveabun dances of phytoliths from the in flo res cenceand from leaves/stems in the sam ples, the lat terdom i nat ing in all the stud ied sam ples. Grasses be -longed mostly to the C3 pooid subfamily (Fig. 6a).

It should be noted that in flo res cen ces wererel a tively more abun dant in two fea tures lo catedin the east ern area of the site. These were Lo cus37 (a stone en clo sure con tain ing an in-situ com -plete por ta ble mor tar, rep re sented by sam plesEW07-1 and EW07-2) and Lo cus 38 (both in sidethe fea ture and around it, rep re sented by sam plesEW07-4, EW07-5, and EW07-6), with an av er age reach ing around 24.7% of the to tal of grasses.This may sug gest lo cal i ties of grass seed pro cess -ing or con sump tion.

For the morphometric study two sam plesfrom Lo cus 27 were se lected, EW07-7 andEW07-8 (squares M10d and L10c), both camefrom com pact sed i ments col lected in side the builtfea ture, where di ag nos tic den dritic epi der mallong cell in flo res cence phytoliths were abun dant(Fig. 6b). The dat ing of these two sam ples is notyet clear. They are ei ther late Early Natufian, orbe gin ning of the Late Natufian. How ever, we

used these sam ples for morphometic anal y sis dueto the sta tis ti cally sig nif i cant num bers of the den -dritic phytoliths which was unique. The sta tis ti calre sults ob tained from these two sam ples werecom pared to a mod ern plant ref er ence col lec tionof the In sti tute of Ar chae ol ogy–Uni ver sity Col -lege Lon don, which in cludes se lected wildgrasses from the Levantine area. We con ductedde scrip tive sta tis ti cal anal y ses us ing cal i bra tiondata from a min i mum of 100 phytoliths pro ducedby Triticum dicoccoides, Hordeum spontaneum,Bromus sterilis and Avena sterilis (Ta ble 3). Thefirst re sults showed that both ar chae o log i cal sam -ples were sim i lar and, as it can be ob served in thecor re spon dence anal y ses (Fig. 7), were moreclosely re lated to mea sured morphologies of wildoat, more spe cif i cally to Avena sterilis. Al though,the sim i lar ity ma trix in di cated that the dif fer ences in mea sure ments were too min i mal to clearly dif -fer en ti ate among these grass gen era. In or der to be able to dis crim i nate wild grasses, it is strictly nec -es sary to con tinue with morphometric analysesfrom this and other contexts that can provide more information on the nature of plants exploited atthe site.

The study also in di cated that woody and her -ba ceous di cot y le dons were the sec ond most abun -dant plant group ob served in the site (Fig. 4). In -ter est ingly, hon ey combed and spher oid phytoliths (Bozarth, 1992), de rived from the in ter nal tis suein the epi der mis of the leaves of dicotyledonoustrees and bushes, were ob served in the sam ples(Fig. 6c). The mod ern ref er ence col lec tion of


Fig. 5. His to gram show ing the per cent age pres ence of phytoliths from grasses ac cord ing to where they wereformed (leaves/stems and in flo res cen ces)

plants from the Mount Car mel area showed thesephytolith morphotypes in the leaves of Kermesoak (Quercus calliprinos), Mount Ta bor oak(Quercus ithaburensis), al mond (Amygdaluscommunis), wil low (salix acmophylla) andLaurus nobilis (Al bert, 2000). At pres ent, the twooaks are the most common tree species in the area.

DIS CUS SION

Be cause of their poor pres er va tion, macrobo-tanical re mains have not pro vided much ev i dencefor Natufian plant use, and other im por tant as -pects of plant ex ploi ta tion, in clud ing ce real foodcon sump tion and pro cure ment. How ever, phyto-lith anal y ses have dem on strated a great po ten tialto in crease our knowl edge of the Natufian pat -terns of plant ex ploi ta tion (Rosen, 1993, 1999,

2004; Al bert et al., 2003; Rosen, this volume).The re sults of this pi lot phytolith study at

el-Wad Ter race have pro vided new di rect data for trac ing Natufian pat terns of plant ex ploi ta tion inthe Mount Car mel re gion. Un der stand ing sub sis -tence pat terns in the site is im por tant for dis cern -ing how the Natufians ex ploited their en vi ron -ment on the thresh old of food pro duc tion. Thestudy has also shed im por tant light on the un der -stand ing of site lay out and uses of spe cific ar easwithin this Natufian ham let. One of the mainchar ac ter is tics of the sam ples an a lyzed is the rel a -tively large com po nent of sil i cate min er als. How -ever, sam ples from dif fer ent lo ca tions at the siteshowed dif fer ent dis tri bu tions of the min er al og i -cal com po nents with a greater pro por tion of car -bon ates and other non-si li ceous min er als. Fur therre search in volv ing min er al og i cal anal y ses (Fou -


Fig. 6. Pho to mi cro graphs of phytoliths iden ti fied in el-Wad Ter race sam ples. The pho to graphs have been takenat 400 x. a) short cell ron del, b) long cell with den dritic mar gin, c) Hon ey combed as sem blage spher oid fromdicotyledonous leaves, d) bulliform cell from com mon reed (Phragmites sp.)

rier Trans form In fra red Spec trom e try – FTIR) can pro vide more in for ma tion and de ter mine the iden -ti ties of the ma jor sed i men tary min er als. Quan ti -ta tive anal y ses of phytoliths to gether with min er -al og i cal anal y ses can pro vide much in for ma tionabout the man ner in which veg e ta tion was used,as dem on strated in the same re gion in the stud iesof Mid dle Paleolithic lay ers of Tabun and Kebaracaves (Mount Car mel) and Natufian and Mous -terian lev els of Hayonim Cave (Gal i lee, north ernIs rael) (Al bert et al., 1999; Albert, 2000; Albert et al., 2000, 2003).

Phytoliths dis tri bu tions in di cated plant con -cen tra tions in spe cific con texts at the site (e.g. Lo -cus 31 and 24d) be long ing to the Early Natufianphase. Grasses dom i nated the phytolith re cord, aswould be ex pected in an econ omy that ex ploitedgrass-seeds. The abun dance of ground-stone im -ple ments and sickle blades, with the oc cur rence of

sev eral sickle hafts (Garrod and Bate, 1937; Valla et al., 1986; Weinstein-Evron, 1998; Weinstein-Evron et al., 2007), in clud ing one spec i men withem bed ded blades (Garrod and Bate, 1937, plateXIII, fig. 1, no. 2) pro vide am ple in di rect ev i -dence for such plant ex ploi ta tion. Grass phyto-liths iden ti fied at the site de rived mostly from theC3 pooid (festucoid) subfamily (Fig. 6a). Thisgroup is com mon in the na tive grasses of theMed i ter ra nean ba sin, and con tains some of thema jor Near East ern crops, in clud ing the “foundercrops” that started food pro duc tion in this part ofthe world, such as wheat and barley (Zohary andHopf, 2001).

In ter est ingly, at el-Wad, grass multicellularstruc tures with di ag nos tic morphologies were rare in the sam ples, and phytoliths could not be con fi -dently iden ti fied to ge nus. Due to the ab sence aswell of other type of mi cro-re mains such as star-


Morphometric Avena sterilis Bromus sterilisHordeum

spontaneumTriticum

dicoccoidesSam ple EW07_7 Sam ple EW07_8

Mean STD Mean STD Mean STD Mean STD Mean STD Mean STD

Area 1048.04 602.16 188.81 72.73 211.45 135.88 311.53 122.03 528.04 430.16 349.41 197.93

Con vex area 1562.56 866.41 393.58 168.14 405.07 256.77 708.62 325.61 749.18 547.01 558.54 298.97

Per im e ter 300.53 116.56 166.70 58.96 156.35 69.16 220.18 76.57 160.96 67.85 151.86 48.18

Con vexper im e ter

190.96 72.82 89.97 25.30 93.13 39.06 123.66 37.81 118.77 49.98 107.21 34.59

Di am e ter in ner max

76.53 33.45 31.52 11.28 34.87 17.73 45.36 16.39 45.44 21.4 40.47 15.57

Di am e ter in ner min

11.45 2.99 3.80 1.38 4.19 1.59 5.16 1.62 10.02 4.78 7.57 2.88

Di am e ter outer max

77.2 33.37 34.90 11.61 36.57 17.48 48.03 17.25 46.05 21.3 41.37 15.56

Di am e ter outer min

11.62 3.1 4.03 1.48 4.36 1.64 5.29 1.54 10.14 4.83 7.64 2.88

Di am e ter max 79.21 33.92 35.80 11.55 37.83 17.55 49.64 17.37 47.19 21.14 42.74 15.49

Di am e ter min 30.38 14.07 14.95 3.59 14.81 6.08 20.16 5.62 19.76 7.26 19.29 8.47

Equiv a lentdi am e ter

35.14 10.04 15.20 3.07 15.67 4.88 19.53 3.91 24.17 9.49 20.29 5.82

Ra dius max 39.61 16.96 17.90 5.77 18.91 8.77 24.82 8.68 23.59 10.57 21.37 7.75

Shape fac tor 0.15 0.05 0.1 0.05 0.12 0.04 0.09 0.04 0.24 0.07 0.19 0.07

Sphe ric ity 0.08 0.07 0.1 0.14 0.09 0.09 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.11 0.13 0.13

Con vex ity 0.67 0.07 0.5 0.08 0.53 0.07 0.45 0.06 0.68 0.09 0.62 0.1

As pect ra tio 3.53 1.48 2.7 0.86 3.05 1.3 2.93 1.05 2.62 0.82 2.87 1.21

Elon ga tion 4.78 2.25 4.25 1.6 4.7 2.34 4.83 2.06 3.43 1.19 4.06 2.19

Ta ble 3De scrip tive sta tis tics for morphometries of the dendrictic phytoliths from mod ern spe cies and ar chae -

o log i cal sam ples. Mea sure ments in mi crons (µm or µm 2)

ches or macro-re mains of seeds, the pi lot morpho- met ric study fo cused on in flo res cence den driticlong cells com mon in the sed i ments from Lo cus27 (Fig. 6b). The pres ence of these morphotypesalso im plies oc cu pa tion dur ing the sea son thatthese plants flow ered and ma tured (March–April). While a spring oc cu pa tion is sup ported bythe palynological data from the cave (Weinstein-Evron, 1994), ob vi ously this does not nec es sar ilymean that peo ple were not pres ent dur ing othersea sons as well. The size of the Early Natufianham let, the in ten sity of oc cu pa tion, the pro lificcem e tery, the ar chi tec tural re mains, the oc cur -rence of com men sals – all at test to a multi-sea -sonal, sed en tary hab i ta tion. Pre lim i nary re sultssug gested the pres ence of wild oat, likely Avenasterilis. How ever, it is nec es sary to con tinue withmorphometric anal y ses in or der to be more con fi -dent about this de ter mi na tion. Portillo et al.(2006) have dem on strated that morphometricanal y sis of den dritic phytoliths is an ef fec tive tool for dis crim i nat ing be tween spe cies in the Avenage nus. The abil ity to con sis tently dis tin guish spe -cific cereal species through morphometric ana-lyses is a promising approach to delineating plantuse in the site.

In the Levantine re gion, wild oats fre quentlygrow to gether with wild wheats and bar leys. Wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides), bar ley(Hordeum spontaneum) and oat (Avena sterilis)form “fields of wild ce re als” (Zohary and Hopf,2001). That hunter-gath er ers pop u la tions hadlong been ex ploit ing wild ce re als, and other grassgen era, is es tab lished from macrobotanical findsat Ohalo II (19,500 BP, ca. 23,000 BP, cal i -

brated), a sub merged early Epipaleolithic site onthe south shore of the Sea of Gal i lee (north ern Is -rael). Here, re search ers iden ti fied abun dant quan -ti ties of wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides) and bar ley (Hordeum spontaneum), to gether withsev eral other large and small-seeded grasses, in -clud ing wild oat (Avena sterilis), goat-faced grass(Aegilops sp.) and Bromus sp., as well as otherfruits and acorns (Kislev et al., 1992; Weiss et al., 2004). Phytolith stud ies have also pro vided di rectev i dence that ce re als and other grass seeds werecon sumed by Natufian pop u la tions (Rosen, 1993,1999, 2004, this volume).

Sig nif i cantly, large amounts of phytolithsfrom the leaves and stems of sedges (Cyperaceae)and com mon reeds (Phragmites sp.) (Fig. 6d),sug gest dwell ing re mains at the site and ac cordwell with their pro veni ence from liv ing floors and stone-con structed foun da tions of dwell ings(Yeshurun et al., n.d.). This pat tern was pre vi -ously ob served at the Fi nal Natufian lev els ofMallaha (Eynan, north ern Is rael), where phyto-liths in di cated a wide spread use of leaves andstems of sedges and reed grasses–such as Phrag-mites, con sti tut ing some of the first di rect ev i -dence for con struc tion ma te ri als for dwell ings(Rosen, 2004, 2007). The new data from el-Wadin di cate that this was an ear lier prac tice, al readyev i denced dur ing the Early Natufian habitation ofthe site.

An other sig nif i cant point to emerge from thispi lot phytolith study is the use of woody and her -ba ceous dicotyledonous at the site. The Natufianpeo ple might have ex ploited these plants as build -ing ma te ri als for con struct ing their dwell ings.


Fig. 7. Com par i son of phytolith morphometries be tween ar chae o log i cal and mod ern plant ref er ence col lec tionsam ples show ing near est neigh bor anal y sis us ing Pearson’s cor re la tion in dex

Again, di rect ev i dence from the site of Ohalo IIshowed that hut con struc tions were made of thickbranches of lo cal trees such as tama risk (Tama-rix), wil low (Salix), and oak (Quercus), form ingthe skel e ton of the struc tures, and smaller leaf-bear ing branches and grasses were placed on top(Nadel, 2003). While at el-Wad Early Natufianstruc tures were prob a bly con structed above sev -eral stone–courses, the use of sim i lar tree spe ciesalso has been in di cated by the char coal and pol len anal y ses from the cave (Lev-Yadun and Wein-stein-Evron, 1994; Weinstein-Evron, 1994).

Ad di tion ally, dicotyledonous plants in thesite also could be re lated to other pur poses, suchas fuel pro cure ment. A study of the min er al ogyand phytolith as sem blages of hearths in HayonimCave (Gal i lee, north ern Is rael), in di cated that themain source of fuel used by the Natufians wassmall branches de rived prob a bly from trees orbrushes and other her ba ceous di cot y le dons (Al -bert et al., 2003). Phytoliths de rived from the epi -der mis of the leaves of dicotyledonous plants –prob a bly oaks, were also iden ti fied in the sam ples (Fig. 6c). These data are con sis tent with other di -rect paleobotanical ev i dence from pol len andcharcoal re mains from the Early Natufian lay ersof el-Wad Cave (Lev-Yadun and Weinstein-Evron, 1993, 1994, 2005; Weinstein-Evron,1994). These stud ies in di cated that typ i cal East -ern Med i ter ra nean spe cies were uti lized by the in -hab it ants of the site, in clud ing oak spe cies (Quer-cus calliprinos and Q. ithaburensis) as well asother woody di cot y le dons, such as Ital ian cy press(Cupressus sempervirens) and myr tle (Myrtuscummunis). Al to gether, the archeobotanical re -cord from el-Wad thus con firms that there was awide spread use of local dicotyledonous plants inthe Early Natufian economy.

CON CLU SIONS

Our phytolith study has pro vided di rect ev i -dence for plant ex ploi ta tion at el-Wad Ter race.Fur ther re search at the site can pro vide more re li -able in for ma tion and a better un der stand ing ofhow the Natufians ex ploited their en vi ron ment on the thresh old of early food pro duc ing com mu ni -ties in the southern Levant.

The re search showed that de tailed quan ti ta -tive, morphologic and morphometric stud ies of

phytoliths, to gether with the ref er ence col lec tionof mod ern plants in the area, can pro vide new in -sights into the man ner in which Natufian ham letswere ar ranged, how the var i ous site-in stal la tionsfunc tioned, and the way the sur round ing veg e ta -tion was ex ploited by Natufian pop u la tions.More over, the abil ity to dis tin guish wild grassspe cies through morphometric anal y ses pro videsa prom is ing ap proach for de ter min ing plant use,and ce real ex ploi ta tion at this and other sites. This type of in for ma tion would oth er wise be un avail -able at this and other Natufian sites using othersources of archaeobotanical data.

Ac knowl edge ments

The morphometric study was made pos si ble bysup port from the Pro ject Or i gins and de vel op ment ofag ri cul tural prac tices in the Lev ant, funded by theSpan ish Min is try of Sci ence and Ed u ca tion–MEC(HUM2006-26456-E/HIST). The el-Wad ex ca va tionsare sup ported by the Wenner-Gren Foun da tion.

We would like to thank Dr. Dorian Q. Fuller forpro vid ing the mod ern plants from the ref er ence col lec -tion of the In sti tute of Ar chae ol ogy–Uni ver sity Col lege Lon don, used in the morphometric study. Thanks aredue to Reuven Yeshurun for pro vid ing the de tailed de -scrip tion of the sam ples an a lyzed in this study and forhis use ful re marks. The first au thor was a post-doc toralfel low at the In sti tute of Ar chae ol ogy–Uni ver sity Col -lege Lon don (MEC/ FECYT–Span ish Sci ence andTech nol ogy Foun da tion).

REF ER ENCESAL BERT R.M. 2000. Study of ash lay ers through

phytolith anal y ses from the Mid dle Peleolithic lev -els of Kebara and Tabun cave (Is rael). Ph.D. The -sis. Uni ver sity of Bar ce lona.

AL BERT R.M., WEINER S. 2001. Study of phytolithsin pre his toric ash lay ers us ing a quan ti ta tive ap -proach. In: J.D. Meunier, F. Colin (eds.) Phytoliths:Ap pli ca tions in earth sci ences and hu man his tory.A.A. Balkema Pub lish ers, Lisse, 251–266.

AL BERT R.M., BAR-YOSEF O., MEIGNEN L.,WEINER S. 2000. Phytoliths in the Mid dlePaleolithic de pos its of Kebara cave, Mt. Car mel, Is -rael: Study of the plant ma te ri als used for fuel andother pur poses. Jour nal of Ar chae o log i cal Sci ence27, 931–947.

AL BERT R.M., BAR-YOSEF O., MEIGNEN L.,WEINER S., 2003. Quan ti ta tive phytolith study ofhearths from the Natufian and Mid dle Paleolithiclev els of Hayonim Cave (Gal i lee, Is rael). Jour nal of


Ar chae o log i cal Sci ence 30, 461–480.AL BERT R.M., LAVI O., ESTROFF L., WEINER S.,

TSATSKIN A., RONEN A., LEV-YADUN S.1999. Mode of oc cu pa tion of Tabun Cave, Mt Car -mel, Is rael dur ing the Mous terian pe riod: a study ofthe sed i ments and phytoliths. Jour nal of Ar chae o -log i cal Sci ence 26, 1249–1260.

AL BERT R.M., SHAHACK-GROSS R., CA BANESD., GILBOA A., LEV-YADUN S., PORTILLO M., SHARON I., BOARETTO E., WEINER S. 2008.Phytolith-rich Lay ers from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages at Tel Dor (Is rael): Mode of For ma tion andAr chae o log i cal Sig nif i cance. Jour nal of Ar chae o -log i cal Sci ence 35, 57–75.

BALL T.B., GARDNER J.S., AN DER SON N. 1999.Iden ti fy ing in flo res cence phytoliths from se lectedspe cies of wheat (Triticum monoccum, T. dicoccon,T. dicoccoides, and T. aestivum) and bar ley(Hordeum vulgare and H. spontaneum)(Gramineae). Amer i can Jour nal of Bot any 86,1615–1623.

BAR-OZ G., DAYAN T., KAUFMAN D.,WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 2004. The Natufianecon omy of el-Wad Ter race with spe cial ref er enceto ga zelle ex ploi ta tion pat terns. Jour nal of Ar chae o -log i cal Sci ence 31, 217–231.

BAR-YOSEF O. 1983. The Natufian in the south ernLev ant. In: T.C Young, P.E.L. Smith, P.Mortensen(eds.) The hilly flanks and be yond: es says on thePre his tory of South west ern Asia. R.J. Braid wood,Ori en tal In sti tute, Uni ver sity of Chi cago press, Chi -cago, 11–42.

BATE D.M.A. 1937. Palaeotology: the fos sil fauna ofthe Wady el-Mughara caves. In: D.A.E. Garrod,D.M.A. Bate (eds.) The Stone Age of Mount Car mel, vol. I. Ex ca va tions at the Wadi Mughara, Part II.Clar en don Press, Ox ford, 138–233.

BOZARTH S.R. 1992. Clas si fi ca tion of opal phytoliths formed in se lected di cot y le dons na tive to the GreatPlains. In: Jr. G. Rapp, S.C. Mulholland (eds.)Phytolith Sys tem at ics, Emerg ing Is sues, Ad vancesin Ar chae o log i cal and Mu seum Sci ence. Ple numPress, New York, 193–214.

BROWN D.A. 1984. Pros pects and lim its of a phytolith key for grasses in the cen tral United States. Jour nalof Ar chae o log i cal Sci ence 11, 345–368.

GARROD D.A.E. 1957. The Natufian cul ture: the lifeand econ omy of a Mesolithic peo ple in the NearEast. Pro ceed ings of the Brit ish Acad emy 43,211–227.

GARROD D.A.E., BATE D.M.A. 1937. The Stone Age of Mount Car mel, vol. I. Ex ca va tions at the WadiMughara. Clar en don Press, Ox ford.

KISLEV M.E., NADEL D., CARMI I., 1992.Epipalaeolithic (19,000 bp) ce real and fruit diet at

Ohalo II, Sea of Galiee. Is rael. Re view ofPalaeobotany and Palynology 73, 161–166.

LEV-YADUN S., WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 1993.Pre his toric wood re mains of Cupressussempervirens L. from the Natufian lay ers of el-WadCave, Mount Car mel, Is rael. Tel Aviv 20, 125–131.

LEV-YADUN S., WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 1994.Late Epipalaeolithic wood re mains from el-WadCave, Mount Car mel, Is rael. New Phytologist 127,391–396.

LEV-YADUN S., WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 2005.Mod el ing the in flu ence of wood use by theNatufians of El-Wad in the for est of Mount Car mel.Jour nal of the Is rael Pre his toric So ci ety 35,285–298.

MADELLA M., ALEXANDRE A., BALL T.B., ICPNWORK ING GROUP 2005. In ter na tional Code forPhytolith No men cla ture 1.0. An nals of Bot any 96,253–260.

MULHOLLAND S.C., RAPP JR. G. 1992. A mor pho -log i cal clasification of grass sil ica-bod ies. In: Jr. G.Rapp, S.C. Mulholland (eds.) Phytolith Sys tem at ics, Emerg ing Is sues, Ad vances in Ar chae o log i cal andMu seum Sci ence. Ple num Press, New York, 65–89.

NADEL D. 2003. The Ohalo II brush huts and thedwellig struc tures of the Natufian and PPNA sites in the Jor dan val ley. Ar chae ol ogy, Eth nol ogy and An -thro pol ogy of Eur asia 1 (13), 34–48.

PEARSALL D.M., PIPERNO D.R., DINAN E.H.,UMLAUF M., ZHAO Z., BENEFER JR. R.A.1995. Dis tin guish ing rice (Oryza sativa Poaceae)from wild Oryza spe cies through phytolith anal y sis:re sults of pre lim i nary re search. Eco nomic Bot any49, 183–196.

PIPERNO D.R., 2006. Phytoliths: A com pre hen siveguide for ar chae ol o gists and paleoecologists.AltaMira Press, Lanham.

PORTILLO M., BALL T.B., MANWARING J. 2006.Morphometric anal y sis of in flo res cence phytolithspro duced by Avena sativa L. and Avena strigosaSchreb. Eco nomic Bot any 60, 121–129.

PORTILLO M., AL BERT R.M., HENRY, D.O. 2009.Do mes tic ac tiv i ties and spa tial dis tri bu tion in AinAbu Nukhayla (Wadi Rum, South ern Jor dan): Theuse of phytoliths and spheru lites stud ies. Qua ter -nary In ter na tional 193, 174–183.

RABINOVICH R. 1998. Taphonomical as pects of there cent ex ca va tions at el-Wad. In: M.Weinstein-Evron (ed.) Early Natufian el-Wad Re -vis ited. Études et Recherches Archéologiques del’Université de Liège (ERAUL) 77 – Ap pen dix III,Liège, 199–224.

ROSEN A.M. 1992. Pre lim i nary iden ti fi ca tion of sil ica skel e tons from Near East ern ar chae o log i cal sites: an an a tom i cal ap proach. In: Jr. G. Rapp, S.C.


Mulholland (eds.) Phytolith Sys tem at ics, Emerg ingIs sues, Ad vances in Ar chae o log i cal and Mu seumSci ence. Ple num Press, New York, 129–147.

ROSEN A.M. 1993. Phytolith ev i dence for early ce real ex ploi ta tion in the Lev ant. In: D.M. Pearsall, D.R.Piperno (eds.) Cur rent re search in phytolith anal y -sis: ap pli ca tions in ar chae ol ogy and paleoecology.Masca Re search Pa pers in Sci ence and Ar chae ol -ogy, vol. 10. The Uni ver sity Mu seum of Ar chae ol -ogy and An thro pol ogy. Uni ver sity of Penn syl va nia,Phil a del phia, 160–171.

ROSEN A.M., 1999. Phytolith anal y sis in Near East ern ar chae ol ogy. In: S. Pike, S. Gitin (eds.) The prac ti -cal im pact of sci ence on Near East ern and Aegeanar chae ol ogy. Ar che type Press, Lon don, 86–92.

ROSEN A.M. 2004. Phytolith ev i dence for plant use atMallaha/Eynan. Les fouilles a Mallaha en 200 et2001 : 3ème rap port préliminaire. Jour nal of the Is -rael Pre his toric So ci ety 34, 189–201.

ROSEN A.M. 2007. Phytolith Re mains from Fi nalNatufian Con texts at Mallaha/Eynan. Jour nal of theIs rael Pre his toric So ci ety 37, 340–355.

TWISS P.C., SUESS E., SMITH R.M. 1969. Mor pho -log i cal clas si fi ca tion of grass phytoliths. Soil Sci -ence So ci ety of Amer ica Pro ceed ings 33, 109–115.

VALLA F.R., BAR-YOSEF O., SMITH P.,TCHERNOV E., DESSE J. 1986. Un nou veausondage sur la terrasse d’El Ouad, Is rael. Paléorient12, 21–38.

WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 1994. Bi ases in ar chae o log i -cal pol len as sem blages: case stud ies from Is rael.AASP Con tri bu tions se ries 29, 193–205.

WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 1998. Early Natufianel-Wad re vis ited. ERAUL 77, Uni ver sity of LiègePress, Liège.

WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 2009. Ar chae ol ogy in theAr chives: Un veil ing the Natufian Cul ture of MountCar mel. Brill Ac a demic Pub lish ers, Boston.

WEINSTEIN-EVRON M., KAUFMAN D.,BACHRACH N., BAR-OZ G., MAYER B.Y.,CHAIM S., DRUCK D.,GROMAN-YAROSLAVSKI I., HERSHKOVITZI., LIBER N., ROSENBERG D., TSATSKIN A,WEISSBROD L. 2007. Af ter 70 Years: New Ex ca -va tions at the el-Wad Ter race, Mount Car mel, Is -rael. Jour nal of The Is rael Pre his toric So ci ety 37,37–134.

WEISS E., WETTERSTROM W., NADEL D.,BAR-YOSEF O. 2004. The broad spec trum re vis -ited: ev i dence from plant re mains. Pro ceed ings ofthe Na tional Acad emy of Sci ences of the USA 101,9551–9555.

WEISSBROD L., DAYAN T., KAUFMAN D.,WEINSTEIN-EVRON M. 2005. Micromammaltaphonomy of el-Wad Ter race, Mount Car mel, Is -rael: Dis tin guish ing cul tural from nat u raldepositional agents in the Late Natufian. Jour nal ofAr chae o log i cal Sci ence 32, 1–17.

YESHURUN R., BAR-OZ G., WEINSTEIN-EVRONM. n.d. Do mes tic Re fuse Main te nance in theNatufian: Some Ev i dence from Con tex tualTaphonomic Anal y sis of Fau nal Re mains at el-WadTer race. In: O. Bar-Yosef, F.R. Valla (eds.) TheNatufian Cul ture in the Lev ant II. In ter na tionalMono graphs in Pre his tory, Ann Ar bor.

ZHAO Z., PEARSALL D.M., BENEFER A.B.,PIPERNO D.R. 1998. Dis tin guish ing rice (Oryzasativa Poaceae) from wild Oryza spe cies throughphytolith anal y sis, II: Fi nal ized method. Eco nomicBot any 52, 134–135.

ZOHARY D., HOPF M. 2001. Do mes ti ca tion of Plants in the Old World. Ox ford Uni ver sity Press, Ox ford.


NATUFIAN PLANT USES AT EL-WAD TER RACE (MOUNT CAR … et al. 71new.pdf · Eur asian Pre his tory, 7...

Documents

Transcript of NATUFIAN PLANT USES AT EL-WAD TER RACE (MOUNT CAR … et al. 71new.pdf · Eur asian Pre his tory, 7...