The Last Hunter-gatherers in the Near East

Fifteen papers, eight from a session at the SAA meeting in Denver in 2002 on Natufian cultures and the others invited papers, examine various issues associated with the cultures of the late Pleistocene in the Near East. Adopting a largely theoretical approach, the volume focuses on `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'. Mostly focusing on evidence from Jordan and the Levant, specific subjects include radiocarbon dating, scientific techniques to detect sedentism, the cultural geography of the Levant, Natufian dwelling structures, the domestication of the dog, plant food, Natufian skeletal remains, the model of Mesoamerican lime burning technology, Natufian socio-political organisation.