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Interaction before Agriculture: Exchanging Material and Sharing Knowledge in the Final Pleistocene Levant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Tobias Richter
Affiliation:
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Snorresgade 17-19, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark Email: t.richter@gmx.com
Andrew N. Garrard
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H PY, UK, a.garrard@ucl.ac.uk
Samantha Allock
Affiliation:
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, 8 Kirkby Place, University of Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK, samantha.allcock@plymouth.ac.uk
Lisa A. Maher
Affiliation:
Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam St, Cambridge, CB2 1QH, UK, Email: l.maher@human-evol.cam.ac.uk

Abstract

This article discusses social interaction in the Epipalaeolithic of southwest Asia. Discussions of contact, social relationships and social organization have primarily focused on the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and are often considered to represent typical hallmarks of emergent farming societies. The hunter-gatherers of the final Pleistocene, in particular those of the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic, have more rarely been the focus of such discussions. In this article we consider evidence for interaction from the Azraq Basin of eastern Jordan, to question the uniqueness of the Neolithic evidence for interaction. We argue that interaction between differently-constituted groups can be traced within the Early Epipalaeolithic of the southern Levant, suggesting that it is of far greater antiquity than previously considered.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2011

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