Bone aerophones from Eynan-Mallaha (Israel) indicate imitation of raptor calls by the last hunter-gatherers in the Levant.

Direct evidence for Palaeolithic sound-making instruments is relatively rare, with only a few examples recorded from Upper Palaeolithic contexts, particularly in European cultures. However, theoretical considerations suggest that such artefacts have existed elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, evidence for sound production is tenuous in the prehistoric archaeological record of the Levant, the study of music and its evolution being sparsely explored. Here we report new evidence for Palaeolithic sound-making instruments from the Levant with the discovery of seven aerophones made of perforated bird bones in the Final Natufian site of Eynan-Mallaha, Northern Israel. Through technological, use-wear, taphonomic, experimental and acoustical analyses, we demonstrate that these objects were intentionally manufactured more than 12,000 years ago to produce a range of sounds similar to raptor calls and whose purposes could be at the crossroads of communication, attracting hunting prey and music-making. Although similar aerophones are documented in later archaeological cultures, such artificial bird sounds were yet to be reported from Palaeolithic context. Therefore, the discovery from Eynan-Mallaha contributes new evidence for a distinctive sound-making instrument in the Palaeolithic. Through a combined multidisciplinary approach, our study provides important new data regarding the antiquity and development of the variety of sound-making instruments in the Palaeolithic at large and particularly at the dawn of the Neolithic in the Levant.

The onset of faba bean farming in the Southern Levant.

Even though the faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is among the most ubiquitously cultivated crops, very little is known about its origins. Here, we report discoveries of charred faba beans from three adjacent Neolithic sites in the lower Galilee region, in the southern Levant, that offer new insights into the early history of this species. Biometric measurements, radiocarbon dating and stable carbon isotope analyses of the archaeological remains, supported by experiments on modern material, date the earliest farming of this crop to ~10,200 cal BP. The large quantity of faba beans found in these adjacent sites indicates intensive production of faba beans in the region that can only have been achieved by planting non-dormant seeds. Selection of mutant-non-dormant stock suggests that the domestication of the crop occurred as early as the 11(th) millennium cal BP. Plant domestication| Vicia faba L.| Pre-Pottery Neolithic B| radiocarbon dating| Δ(13)C analysis.

Form and function of early neolithic bifacial stone tools reflects changes in land use practices during the neolithization process in the levant.

For many, climate change is no longer recognized as the primary cause of cultural changes in the Near East. Instead, human landscape degradation, population growth, socioeconomic adjustments, and conflict have been proposed as the mechanisms that shaped the Neolithic Revolution. However, as Bar-Yosef noted, even if there is chronological correlation between climate changes and cultural developments, what is important is to understand how Neolithic societies dealt with these improving or deteriorating environments. Changes in bifacial stone tools provide a framework for examining some of these interactions by focusing on changing land use practices during the Neolithization process. The results of microwear analysis of 40 bifacial artifacts from early Pre-Pottery Neolithic (EPPNB) levels at Motza in the Judean hills document changes during the PPNA-PPNB transition at the onset of the Levantine Moist Period (ca. 8000 cal B.C.) when conditions for agriculture improved. EPPNB villagers added heavy-duty axes to a toolkit they had used for carpentry and began to clear forests for fields and grazing lands. Sustainable forest management continued for the duration of the PPN until the cumulative effects of tree-felling and overgrazing seem to have led to landscape degradation at end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC), when a cold, dry climatic anomaly (6600-6000 cal B.C.) may have accelerated the reduction of woodlands. Early PPNB components at sites like Motza, with data from nearly five millennia of Neolithic occupations, show how complex hunter-gatherers and early food producers were able to establish sustainable resource management systems even as climate changed, population increased, and social relations were redefined.