The Source:
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SYRIA: FROM COMPLEX HUNTER-GATHERERS TO EARLY URBAN SOCIETIES (c. 16,000-300 BC), by PETER M.M.G. AKKERMANS and GLENN M. SCHWARTZ, Cambridge University Press 2003
Chapter Two [extract]
Occupation, mobility, and the organization of society
We still know far too little about the typically small and scattered occupations of the epoch to arrive at a thorough understanding of forager life in Syria in the long period from c. 16,000 to 10,000 BC. But even with the modest amount of information at hand, it is clear that these communities shared certain characteristics: a dispersal of population, low and fluctuating density of population, small group size, mobility and short-term stay, and diverse, seasonal exploitation of resources. The pattern may have been somewhat different at the end of the period, when there is evidence of prolonged stay and greater permanence of shelter. However, in most cases, people remained mobile and continued hunting and gathering in small groups.
The modern ethnographic record has made it clear that hunter-gatherer mobility is flexible and widely diverse. Some communities shift camp very frequently, a practice that results in ephemeral occupations, little accumulation of occupation refuse, and low archaeological visibility. Others move infrequently and are nearly sedentary at well-placed locations, resulting in larger settlements, permanent buildings, and high archaeological visibility. These differences should not be taken as absolute; rather, they are the extreme ends of a continuum, and many modern hunter-gatherer groups easily switch from one mode of mobility to another according to need and season.
A distinction has been proposed between residential mobility and logistical mobility. In residential mobility, the entire group moves from one camp to another according to the abundance of seasonal resources. With logistical mobility, individuals or small groups pursue specific tasks while moving back and forth from a base camp that may or may not be permanently inhabited. If we consider patterns of settlement in the late glacial period, it seems that at least some of the Natufian food collectors were engaged in logistical mobility, while their Geometric Kebaran ancestors might be better associated with residential mobility. Logistical strategies often adjust to situations where the main settlement is located near one essential resource but far from another, equally critical, resource; logistical forays bring these far-away resources within reach. People may have stopped moving residentially in areas where resource patches became more widely spaced and the costs of commuting vis-a-vis the anticipated returns at the next camp exceeded those of remaining at the current camp. Many factors are of importance, such as the distance to the next camp, the terrain that has to be crossed, the amount of material that has to be carried, the time required to construct housing, and the resources that are anticipated at the next location.
In this respect, the decision to become sedentary may have been based on regional, not just local, resource distribution, or in the words of Robert Kelly: “Sedentism can be a product of local abundance in a context of regional scarcity”.
The small size of the prehistoric settlements suggests that the number of residents comprised a few dozen people at most. One also receives an impression of short-lived and intermittent occupation at the sites, given the frequently thin depositional strata. Although we know nothing about the social organization of the people living at these sites, analogy with the contemporary ethnographic record may be useful.
Caution in the use of modern analogies is required because foragers are immensely varied and their strategies are the result of specific historical and environmental circumstances—there is no such thing as a timeless, ahistorical forager way of life.
However, if we wish to identify general patterns in the forager lifestyle beyond the mere description of material culture, analogy is necessary, and the concerns about the dangers of using ethnographic analogies have not yet led to a credible alternative.
Meaning is not intrinsic to the archaeological record but is the product of ever-changing reasoning; in simple terms, history is created by us, not given to us.
Comparative hunter-gatherer ethnography suggests that the organization of society in the late glacial period is likely to have taken the form of a loosely hierarchical structure with three main tiers.
In the lowest tier was the small family-based household, rarely exceeding eight to ten persons.
In the next tier were larger groups of twenty or thirty to one hundred individuals in which families would have congregated and operated together. It is likely that such groups shared a collective perception of unity and common purpose expressed through decisions related to foraging, patterns of migration, conduct of camp affairs, and maintenance of intergroup relationships. Group membership may not have been for life, and people may have freely shifted from one group to another (e.g. for marriage) and may even have been encouraged to do so to strengthen the relationships between different communities.
In their turn, these groups would have been organized into larger networks of at least 250 to 500 people, if only to ensure biological survival. The large networks would also have served to mitigate the omnipresent risks of fluctuation in food resources and to enhance the circulation of goods and information. Simple calculations suggest that the minimum number of sites for an entire social group would have been in the order of eight per season, if we assume that each site was utilized by twenty to thirty people. However, many modern forager groups tend to move much more frequently, and the number of residential localities per season is much larger.
The largest groups may have gathered seasonally when environmental conditions and hunting opportunities were conducive to such activity. Such a moment may have occurred with the arrival of the gazelle herds at sites like Abu Hureyra in northern Syria in the spring, the same season when wild cereals and other plants ripened and had to be harvested—times of plenty. This time of annual gathering is often the moment for ceremonies and initiation rites the reconfirmation of social bonds and allegiances, and the exchange of commodities and marriage partners.
The extent of the territories exploited by the Epipalaeolithic communities is unknown, but in order to meet the long-term needs of survival it must have been extensive—many hundreds or even thousands of square kilometres, depending on the distribution of natural resources and the character of the landscape. It must have included supplies of water, an adequate variety and density of food plants, sufficient grazing facilities for antelopes and other game, locations of firewood, and materials for constructing shelters.
Studies of modern hunter-gatherers have shown that they are well aware of the boundaries of their territories, and so undoubtedly were their prehistoric forerunners.
Natural landmarks such as mountains and rivers may have been useful in this respect, but cultural signs such as sacred places and burial fields may have had a similar significance. Ceremonies, initiation rites, and group meetings add to the expression of the rights of exclusive use of a territory. The degree to which boundaries were defined and, if necessary, protected may have varied in response to variations in resource densities and population size, and groups may have trespassed on another group's land only during times of excessive drought, depletion of game, or other catastrophes.
The Geometric Kebarans are likely to have exploited their territories on the basis of immediate returns: they probably gathered the required food products in the surroundings of their camps on a daily basis and for immediate consumption. An ethic of sharing food and other goods may have been actively encouraged in a fashion similar to that of many modern hunter-gatherer societies. Sharing has little or nothing to do with sentiments or generosity; instead, sharing is a banking strategy that brings security as it entitles people to a portion of someone else's catch in a time of resource scarcity. Such a strategy also facilitates an approximately even distribution of food among all members of the community, tying the group together strongly. However, theory and practice are not always the same: although sets of social rules and sanctions against individual accumulation of surpluses try to maintain the sharing ethic, people often find ways to avoid its demands or to limit it to the family level; there probably never was a fully egalitarian society.
In the Natufian era, food collection took place in the context of delayed-return rather than immediate-return economies, employing a range of strategies based on logistical mobility. There were long-lasting settlements at favored sites from which small task groups probably made forays of several days or weeks, searching for food for much larger groups. There are indications of storage, a growing dependence on the procurement of food in bulk, and the accumulation of surpluses in anticipation of future, seasonal resource shortages.
Although strategies of mobility depend on environmental factors, social and ritual considerations are equally important. Mobility is a social affair, part of what has been termed the “appropriation” or “enculturation” of the landscape: migratory routes may receive physical marks of recognition, the location of settlement may be given ritual significance, and mountains and rivers may enter the cosmological world.
The distinction between the practical, economic use of the landscape and its social, ritual use is largely a modern, western perception. A vast body of ethnographic evidence reveals that daily life in hunter-gatherer societies is wholly embedded within a broad framework of cosmology, mythology, and associated symbolism and ritual.
The Wave, by Gustave Courbet (Date: 1869)
Extensive knowledge of the landscape and its resources is critical in order to have alternatives in case an expected resource is not available; it requires total memorization, which is maintained and passed on from generation to generation through often elaborate ceremonies and initiation rites and many years of intermittent training. The symbolic and ancestral significance often given to landmarks such as rivers, forests, and mountains may emphasize principles of belief, but it may also serve to support more mundane aims, as a means of communication, icon of power, or claim of ownership. Order and meaning are brought to the natural world and the role of people in it.
Although there is as yet little or no proof in the archaeological data base that any of the above considerations were of importance to the late glacial foragers in Syria, reasoning on the basis of the modern ethnographic record suggests that the option is, at least, not unlikely.
There has been much speculation on the degree of complexity of the Natufian communities. The greater permanence of settlement, the intensification of food collecting, and (in the southern Levant) the occurrence of objects of art and complex burial customs have all been taken as evidence of an increasing elaboration of society in the thirteenth to twelfth millennia BC and afterwards—a development that turned people, in the words of one famous archaeologist in the 1940s, into “active partners with nature instead of parasites on nature” [reference to Childe, V.G. 1942, What Happened in History]. The distinction is phrased differently today, but it still is of considerable significance in modern archaeology. … The main point is that, although scatters of flint are often the sole remnants of life many thousands of years ago, the late glacial foragers were knowledgeable and flexible, shared social values and goals, had ethics and principles of belief, and practiced ritual and ceremony. [END]
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Hunter on Horseback, Rediscovering the Trail, by Gustave Courbet (Date: 1864)