Cultures of the eighth and seventh millennia BP in the southern Levant: A review for the 1990s

Gopher, Avi; Gophna, Ram

doi:10.1007/bf00974722

Cited by 80 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Information available for the Neolithic in Israel (Gilead, 1988;Gopher, 1993;Gopher & Gophna, 1993;Kuijt & Bar-Yosef, 1994) serves as a base with which to interpret archaeological material discovered at the submerged Carmel coastal sites where olives were found. A recent study of such prehistoric settlements to the east of the study area has refined knowledge of the chronology of cultural entities (Yarmukian, Lodian, Wadi Rabah, Ghassulian), from the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Early Chalcolithic; a time-span ranging from the 8th to the 7th millennium  (Table 1).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Of the four entities, many of the offshore finds can be attributed to the Wadi Rabah culture, and are comparable to Wadi Rabah inland sites. This culture spans most of the 7th millennium, but only a limited number of radiocarbon dates is available for these inland sites (Gopher & Gophna, 1993). The submerged Carmel coast settlements where olive remains are discovered were initially attributed to the first half of the 7th millennium  (Gopher & Gophna, 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This culture spans most of the 7th millennium, but only a limited number of radiocarbon dates is available for these inland sites (Gopher & Gophna, 1993). The submerged Carmel coast settlements where olive remains are discovered were initially attributed to the first half of the 7th millennium  (Gopher & Gophna, 1993). However, on the basis of the new radiocarbon dates from Kfar Samir presented here (Table 3), it now appears that the Wadi Rabah culture prevailed along the Carmel coast during most of the 7th millennium and almost to its very end.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for Earliest Olive-Oil Production in Submerged Settlements off the Carmel Coast, Israel

Galili

Stanley

Sharvit

et al. 1997

Journal of Archaeological Science

114

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for Earliest Olive-Oil Production in Submerged Settlements off the Carmel Coast, Israel

Galili

Stanley

Sharvit

et al. 1997

Journal of Archaeological Science

114

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“…This solitary status for 'Ain Ghazal is incorrect: PPNC settlements are also known at Wadi Shu'eib (Simmons et al 1989), Tel 'Ali in the Jordan Valley south of the Galilee (Garfinkel 1994), and Atlit Yam (Galili et al 1993;Gopher & Gophna 1993). His statement that there is no trace of in situ development of the Pottery Neolithic cultures is curious, since this was clearly treated in a major journal (Rollefson 1993).…”

Section: : An Archaeological Odysseymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture by Jacques Cauvin, translated by Trevor Watkins (New Studies in Archaeology.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-521-65135-2 hardback £37.50 & $59.95 Reviewed by Ian Hodder, Gary O. Rollefson, Ofer Bar-Yosef with a response by Trevor Watkins

Cauvin¹,

Hodder²,

Rollefson

et al. 2001

CAJ

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When, almost a century ago, Raphael Pumpelly put forward the ‘oasis theory’ for the origins of farming in the Near East, his was one of the first in a long series of explanations which looked to environment and ecology as the cause of the shift from hunting and gathering to cultivation and animal husbandry. Pumpelly envisaged climatic desiccation at the end of the last Ice Age as the primary factor, forcing humans, plants and animals into ever closer proximity as the arid zones expanded around them. Subsequent fieldworkers took the closer investigation of environmental changes as a key aim of their research, both in the Near East and elsewhere, and this has remained a fundamental theme in theories for the emergence of agriculture. More recent advances in our understanding of environmental change have placed particular emphasis on the cold Younger Dryas episode, at the end of the last Ice Age. The impact of this sudden reversal of climate warming on the complex Natufian hunter-gatherers of the Levant may, it is argued, have forced or encouraged these communities to explore novel subsistence modes.Not everybody accepts such a chain of reasoning, however, and in The Birth of Gods and the Origins of Agriculture, French archaeologist Jacques Cauvin rejects this emphasis on ecology and environment as the cause of change. Instead, he argues that primacy should be accorded to a restructuring of human mentality from the thirteenth to the tenth millennium BC, expressed in terms of new religious ideas and symbols. Cauvin's book, originally published in French in 1994 under the title Naissance des divinités, naissance de l'agriculture, adopts an ideological approach to explaining the Neolithic which is at odds with many traditional understandings, but which resonates closely with the idea that the Neolithic is much more than an economic transition, and coincided with a transformation in the world view of the prehistoric societies concerned. The present English translation appeared in 2000, and is based on the second French edition (1997) with the addition of a postscript summarizing relevant discoveries made since that date.Owing to illness, Jacques Cauvin has been unable to contribute to this Review Feature as had been hoped, but we are fortunate that his translator, Trevor Watkins, has agreed to draft a response to the comments made by our invited reviewers. These include Ian Hodder, whose own work on the Neolithic transition has been influenced by Cauvin's research, and Ofer Bar-Yosef and Gary Rollefson, both specialists in the prehistory of the Levant. At Dr Watkins' suggestion, the introductory piece which opens the Review Feature is a translated extract from Jacques Cauvin's contribution to a similar review treatment in Les Nouvelles de l'Archéologie (No. 79, 2000, 49–53). As our reviewers make clear, the significance of the book, and the debate which it has initiated, will make it akey text for many years to come.

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“…A phase of site contraction and abandonment was identified by Simmons (2000:223-224), KohlerRollefson and Rollefson (1989) and others (e.g. Banning 1998;Gopher and Gophna 1993;Moore 1985) at the end of the LPPNB, and the subsequent PPNC has been characterised in terms of 'collapse' (e.g. Rollefson and Kohler-Rollefson 1989) or 'transformation' (Verhoeven 2002b) -see Section 4.2.6.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A peacock’s tale: runaway agricultural evolution and the development of pre-pottery Neolithic communities in the southern Levant

Lovell¹

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Cultures of the eighth and seventh millennia BP in the southern Levant: A review for the 1990s

Cited by 80 publications

References 44 publications

Evidence for Earliest Olive-Oil Production in Submerged Settlements off the Carmel Coast, Israel

Evidence for Earliest Olive-Oil Production in Submerged Settlements off the Carmel Coast, Israel

A peacock’s tale: runaway agricultural evolution and the development of pre-pottery Neolithic communities in the southern Levant

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