Natufians

Afro Asiatic was probably imported from North east Africa by a population movement that arrived in Southern Anatolia about 16k ago - the expansion of the Halfan culture, which had an offspring culture in Syria called the Natufians, which parented the Belbasi culture in Southern Anatolia, which in turn colonised Southern Greece and Crete.

Proto-Semitic as a second language 2008

Many archaeologists believe that the Natufians were the first truly sedentary peoples.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

In recent years a number of leading prehistorians have focused their attention on a mysterious group of prehistoric peoples called the Natufians, who thrived in modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan about 12,500 years ago.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

Hilazon Tachtit was occupied by the Natufians, a people who inhabited the Near East between about 15,000 and 11,500 years ago.

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The Natufians, whom many archaeologists consider the earliest truly sedentary peoples, were the first to bury their dead on site, either in their houses or in adjacent cemeteries.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

Then the Natufians disappeared from the archaeological record.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

It was a cold, sharp, downturn in the weather that made the Natufians reach for their animal skins and invent agriculture in a big hurry.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

The world of the Natufians had not been turned upside down by the goddess and the bull, the processualists declared, but by something called the Younger Dryas.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

Some archaeologists have speculated that the practice of transforming heads and other bones into portable objects corresponded to the more mobile lifestyle that the late Natufians adopted in the face of the severe downturn in the weather.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005

The Natufians, for example, clearly stored food within their communities, a subsistence strategy that required everyone to have confidence in the rules, regulations, and social structures that dictated who was entitled to what, and when.

The Goddess and the Bull MICHAEL BALTER 2005