The Last Hunter-gatherers in the Near East

Description

This volume gathers papers on the Natufian and other contemporary Late Epipaleolithic cultures in Southwest Asia. It offers general reflections on the interpretative potential of data gathered in past studies, exploring theoretical issues concerning the position of the Natufian at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and the beginning of the food production process from more critical viewpoints and different angles. Settlement patterns, mobility, patterns of natural resources exploitation, the place of the Natufian in the process toward food production, the complexity of its social organization between nomadic Epipalaeolithic bands of hunter-gatherers and sedentary farming Neolithic societies are the main issues and topics addressed in this book. In this sense, site and fieldwork reports have a limited space in this collection of essays. It has instead a clear theoretical orientation with mainly critical discussions and interpretations of current available data.