Society for American Archaeology

The Pleistocene to Holocene Transition and Human Economy in Southwest Asia: The Impact of
the Younger Dryas
Author(s): A. M. T. Moore and G. C. Hillman
Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Jul., 1992), pp. 482-494
Published by: Society for American Archaeology
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THE PLEISTOCENE TO HOLOCENE TRANSITION

AND HUMAN ECONOMY IN SOUTHWEST ASIA:
THE IMPACT OF THE YOUNGER DRYAS
A. M. T. Moore and G. C. Hillman
We present new evidence suggesting that the Late Glacial worldwide episode of cooling known as the Younger
Dryas (ca. 11,000-10,000 B.P.) had a significant impact on climate, vegetation, and human economy in southwest
Asia. In the Levant a new pollen core extracted from Lake Huleh and plant remains from the early village of
Abu Hureyra 1 indicate that forest gave way to steppe in response to the onset of drier climatic conditions
contemporary with the Younger Dryas. Similar effects may be seen in pollen cores from elsewhere in southwest
Asia. This alteration in climate and vegetation obliged the inhabitants of Abu Hureyra to modify their plant
gathering, and led to significant disruptions in culture and settlement over a wide area. We argue that the stresses
induced by these events were a contributing factor in the subsequent development of agriculture in southwest Asia.
Presentamos nuevas evidencias que indican que el episodio de enfriamiento global a fines del periodo glacial
conocido como Younger Dryas (ca. 11,000-10,000 A.P.) tuvo un significativo impacto en el clima, la vegetaci6n
y la economia humana en el suroeste de Asia. En el Levante, una nueva columna de polen extraida del Lago
Huleh y restos botdnicos recuperados en la aldea temprana de Abu Hureyra 1 indican que los bosques fueron
reemplazados por estepas en respuesta a condiciones climdticas mds secas contempordneas con el Younger Dryas.
Consecuencias semejantes se observan en columnas de polen provenientes de otros lugares en el suroeste de Asia.
Esta alteraci6n en el clima y la prdctica de recolecci6n de plantas produjo significativos cambios en la cultura y
el asentamiento en un drea extensa. Sostenemos que las tensiones inducidas por estos hechos contribuyeron al
subsiguiente desarrollo de la agricultura en el suroeste de Asia.
The transition from hunting and gathering to farming in southwest Asia coincided with the
environmental changes that marked the close of the Pleistocene: a worldwide increase in temperature
that melted ice sheets and caused sea levels to rise, alterations in atmospheric circulation systems,
and shifts in vegetation zones. The climatic amelioration was an uneven process, with episodes of
increased warmth alternating with reversions to cooler conditions. Our aim in this paper is to
examine new evidence thatat least one major episode of cooling, the Younger Dryas, apparently
had a profound effect on the environment of southwest Asia, and contributed significantly to the

adjustments in human adaptations that resulted in the development of agriculture.

The region within southwest

Asia with the most substantial

record of environmental

and cultural

change is the Levant. The Younger Dryas climatic episode occurred there during the second stage
of the Epipaleolithic, Epipaleolithic 2 (ca. 12,500-10,000 B.P.), one constituent culture of which
was the Natufian in Palestine. This stage is important because it was the last period of hunting and
advent of agriculture;
the it was also during the Epipaleolithic 2 that the inhabitants
gathering before

of some sites on the middle Euphrates River and in Palestine adopted a more sedentary mode of
life. The changes in economy and settlement that took place then are obviously of crucial importance
for understanding the circumstances in which agriculture developed.
THE YOUNGER DRYAS
The Younger Dryas was first recognized in the pollen record of northern Europe. During the Late
Glacial, as the temperature rose and the glaciers began to retreat, the tundra vegetation was replaced
by birch and pine woodland; these trends began during the Bo6llingand Allerod pollen phases (Iversen
A. M. T. Moore, The Graduate School, Yale University, 1504A Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520-7425
G. C. Hillman, Department of Human Environment, Institute ofArchaeology, University College London, 3134 Gordon Square, London, WC1H OPY, England

AmericanAntiquity,57(3), 1992, pp. 482-494.

Copyright?) 1992 by the Society for AmericanArchaeology

482

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REPORTS

483

1954). Then in the ensuing Younger Dryas (pollen zone III) the temperature fell sharply, the glaciers
advanced once more, and the woodlands retreated southward, giving way to open tundra characterized by Dryas octopetala from which the name of the episode is derived. This phase lasted
approximately 1,000 radiocarbon years, from 11,000 to 10,000 B.P. (Berger 1990).1 Radiocarbon
dates for the end of the Younger Dryas are subject to uncertainty because they fall in a period during
which the calibration curve levels off for at least three centuries; the age of this event has, however,
been established at 11,100 dendroyears B.P. (Becker and Kromer 1986; Becker et al. 1991). The
pollen evidence suggests that the climate turned so cold during the Younger Dryas that it approached
the conditions of the full glacial. This has been confirmed by studies of fossil coleoptera in Britain
(Coope 1977:330). In the succeeding Preboreal and Boreal phases the temperature rose once more
and the forest advanced rapidly northward. The precise timing and effects of the rises and falls in
temperature are still subjects of discussion; the evidence of fossil coleoptera, for example, while
confirming the oscillatory nature of late glacial environmental change, suggests that the fluctuations
in temperature may have preceded by several centuries the advances and retreats of the forest zones
(Coope 1975:167).
The Younger Dryas period of cooling was originally defined in northern Europe, but parallel
vegetation changes occurred elsewhere, making it a worldwide phenomenon. We therefore use the
term Younger Dryas, not just for the advance of Dryas-dominated tundra in the far north, but also
for all the other changes in vegetation that were induced by the same climatic episode. It is the one
period of cooling of sufficient intensity and duration to be seen clearly in the stage 1 Late Glacial
section in deep-sea cores from the Pacific (Shackleton and Opdyke 1976). It also appears as a welldefined episode in the Greenland ice cores (Dansgaard et al. 1982:Figure 1). Studies of coral reefs
off Barbados have provided direct evidence of the effect on sea levels of the Younger Dryas cooling.
The rise in sea level slowed sharply between 11,000 and 10,500 B.P., and then increased slightly
from 10,500 to 10,000 B.P. (Fairbanks 1989:639). The Younger Dryas coincided with the episode
of major mammal extinctions in Eurasia and North America, lending weight to the hypothesis that
such rapid climatic fluctuations contributed to those events. Haynes (1991:447) has argued that a
brief, intense period of drought, corresponding in time to the Younger Dryas, was a factor in the
demise of many species of the Rancho La Brea fauna in North America.
Given that the Younger Dryas episode of cooling was a worldwide phenomenon, its effects should
have been felt in southwest Asia, but pollen cores and sedimentological analyses have provided
little indication that it had a significant influence on the environment there. The main reason for
this is that the environmental sequences for the different regions of southwest Asia are still very
coarsely delineated. Relatively few pollen cores have been analyzed, and they have not provided
such detailed replicated sequences of vegetation change as those from northern Europe, North
America, and elsewhere. Furthermore, they are dated with very few radiocarbon determinations.
Pollen cores extracted from locations in the Levant, the Ghab section of the Orontes Valley and
Lake Huleh, much of which today is a marsh, for example (Figure 1), showed that the forest cover
expanded during the Late Glacial (Niklewski and van Zeist 1970; van Zeist and Bottema 1982:
Figure 14.6). The Ghab core suggested that the forest expanded quite steadily. The Huleh sequence,
analyzed by Tsukada and reviewed by van Zeist and Bottema, did indicate that the vegetation cover
fluctuated during the period in which the forest was expanding, but this section of the core lacked
radiocarbon dates. A general increase in forest cover, especially cedar, until sometime between
12,000 and 11,000 B.P. is again apparent at Karamik Batakhgi in western Anatolia, and the same
could be inferred for oak forest at Sogot Golii, although with only two dates available in each case,
exact correlation is difficult (van Zeist and Bottema 1982:Figures 14.4, 14.14; van Zeist et al. 1975).
A steady increase in forest cover could also be seen in the cores from Lake Zeribar in the Zagros
Mountains, but there it was delayed until the mid Holocene (van Zeist and Bottema 1977:Figures
Ib and II, 1982:Figure 14.2), reflecting the arrival of trees migrating from forest refuges remote from
Zeribar.
The information available from geomorphological studies was even more sketchy. Fluctuations
in the levels of lakes across southwest Asia provided some information for a very general reconstruction of climatic sequences (Roberts 1982), but they were not detailed enough to detect the

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484

Figure 1.

AMERICANANTIQUITY

[Vol. 57, No. 3, 1992]

Locations of Lake Huleh, the Ghab, and the prehistoric village of Abu Hureyra in the Levant.

impact of the Younger Dryas episode. Sedimentological studies in the southern Levant and Sinai
yielded very little relevant information for the Late Glacial (Goldberg 1981).
This evidence, limited though it was, seemed to suggest that, as the temperature rose during the
Late Glacial, rainfall also increased, leading to an expansion of forest cover (van Zeist and Bottema
1982). Thus it appeared that the transition to farming took place in quite favorable environmental
conditions (Moore 1985:12).
THE NEW EVIDENCE
Our impression of a steady improvement in environment over much of southwest Asia from the
Late Glacial into the early Holocene needs to be revised in the light of two new lines of evidence
that have been obtained in the Levant (Figure 1). Firstly, Baruch and Bottema (1991) have recently
extracted and analyzed a new pollen core from the Huleh Basin that provides a more detailed, well-

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485

REPORTS

depth

-lm

9 270

^--

+ 120

B.P

GrN-17067

I 10,440 ? 120 B.P

GrN-17068

-11,540+

100 B.R

GrN-14986

| 17,140 ?220 B.P

G*

-1 .67m

arboreal

GrN-14463

nonorboreal

pollen
0

25

50

75

100%

Figure 2. The ratio of arboreal to nonarboreal pollen in the diagram from Lake Huleh (after Baruch and
Bottema 1991).

dated sequence of vegetation change from the end of the Pleniglacial ca. 17,000 B.P. into the early
Holocene (Figure 2). The information most pertinent for our discussion concerns the changing ratio
between arboreal and nonarboreal pollen. At the end of the Pleniglacial the ratio of tree pollen to
grasses and steppe plants was low, about 20 percent. Then at an estimated date of ca. 15,000 B.P.
the ratio of tree pollen increased steadily until it reached a maximum of 75 percent at 11,540 ?
100 B.P. (GrN-14986). Baruch and Bottema suggest that the increase in tree cover was caused by
a marked rise in precipitation because it happened during the period of Late Glacial warming.
Others such as El-Moslimany (1986) reasonably argue that such a change can be attributed more
specifically to increased availability of moisture during the growing season of spring and summer,
regardless of precipitation during the autumn and winter. Thereafter the forest shrank and/or thinned
rapidly until ca. 10,650 B.P. when the ratio was slightly less than 25 percent arboreal pollen. It
recovered to nearly 50 percent at 10,440 + 120 B.P. (GrN-17068), and then declined again over

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486

AMERICANANTIQUITY

[Vol. 57, No. 3, 1992]

the next few centuries. The same trends may be detected in the Tsukada core, but are more clearly
visible in the Baruch and Bottema diagram where they are more closely dated.
It appears from Baruch and Bottema's analysis that the improved conditions for forest growth
that took place in the region during the Late Glacial were spread over several millennia. The
improvement thus tends to correlate with the lengthy period of climatic warming to be seen in the
Barbados coral reefs (Fairbanks 1989). The most important observation for us, however, is the
sharp reversal in the arboreal-nonarboreal pollen ratio from ca. 11,500 to 10,650 B.P. that Baruch
and Bottema believe marks the Younger Dryas. Evidently the cooler conditions that obtained then
were associated with a sharp decline in precipitation during the growing season and thus to a
substantial reduction in forest cover.
The second important source of new evidence for environmental change in the Levant during the
Younger Dryas is the food-plant remains recovered from the early village of Abu Hureyra on the
Euphrates. The first settlement there, Abu Hureyra 1, of Epipaleolithic 2 cultural affinities, was
inhabited from ca. 11,500 to 10,000 B.P. (Moore 1991) by a settled population of hunters and
gatherers (Hillman, Colledge, and Harris 1989; Legge and Rowley-Conwy 1987). Charred seeds and
fruits recovered through systematic flotation have provided a record both of vegetation change and
human plant exploitation throughout the occupation of this village (Hillman, Colledge, and Harris
1989:Figure 14.1). On later sites with clear patterns of context-related variation, diachronic change
in plant use can generally be demonstrated only when there are large numbers of productive samples
derived from equivalent context types from each phase of occupation (Charles and Hillman 1992;
Hillman 1981). It is possible to use the floated samples from Epipaleolithic Abu Hureyra (from 39
of the 80 levels excavated) to explore diachronic change by virtue of the fact that (a) the source
deposits were relatively uniform, and were dominated in most cases by mixed accumulations of
ashes from many years of fires that incorporated numerous cycles of seasonal activities, and (b)
most of the float samples were extracted from very large volumes of these deposits (ranging from
370 to 4,000 liters in all but three cases), and each contained literally thousands of identifiable items
of food plants.2
The Abu Hureyra 1 sequence of occupation has been divided into three periods, of which Period
1A (ca. 11,500-11,000 B.P.) is the oldest. During 1A the inhabitants gathered plant foods from
three vegetation zones, the moist flood plain of the Euphrates, the adjacent steppe, and a broad
forest-steppe ecotone that was within foraging distance of the site. The latter extended eastward
from the edge of the oak-Rosaceae forest that lay an unknown distance to the west. The predominant
vegetation of the Abu Hureyra region was steppe, just as it is today. However, three classes of food
plants represented in the remains indicate that conditions were much moister during the spring and
summer growing seasons than they are now (Figure 3). Firstly, remains of fruit stones and seeds of
the hackberry tree Celtis tournefortii, plum, pear, and medlar, all characteristic of the Mediterranean
oak-Rosaceae forest zone, together with seed remains of a white-flowered asphodel Asphodelus
microcarpus, characteristic of the Mediterranean zone generally, indicate that the oak-Rosaceae
forest fringe must have been a great deal closer than the ca. 120 km to the west to which it could
theoretically extend under natural conditions today.
Secondly, the presence of Pistacia fruitlet remains and the apparent absence of Pistacia wood
charcoal suggests that, although this tree did not grow close enough for its twigs or wood to be
gathered as fuel, it must have grown much closer than it does today (Hillman, Colledge, and Harris
1989).3 The nearest patches of Pistacia steppe-woodland are now high on the Jebel Abu Rujmein
90 km to the south, and on the Jebel Abdul Aziz 180 km to the east-northeast. In Period 1A Pistacia
probably penetrated the steppe in the form of lines of trees growing along low wadi terraces, perhaps
to within a few kilometers of Abu Hureyra, just as it today penetrates the Azraq Desert Basin in
eastern Jordan along the Wadi Butum.
The third source of evidence that Period 1A was characterized by relatively moist springs and/
or summers comes from the remains of wild einkorn wheat and two wild ryes. Today these wild
cereals are characteristic of the ecotone between oak-Rosaceae forest and steppe, and although two
of them are able to extend well beyond the forest fringe on deep, fine-grained soils (Blumler 1984,
1992), recent surveys suggest that they cannot penetrate steppe as far as the Pistacia steppe woodland

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FRUITTREES
&HERBACEOUS
PERENNIALS PISTACIA
OFFOREST FOREST-STEPPE

ABUHUREYRA
1 TRENCH
OCCUPATION E
E .
SEQUENCE LEVELS
10,000 B..

10

WILDCEREALS
TODAY
TYPICAL
OFOPENOAKFOREST
AND
OAKFOREST-STEPPE
ECOTONE

PERENNIAL
TUSSO
OFSTEPPEANDFO

.
X*

- ?
400
402
AM~
411

412
420
418
419

10,400 B.P

427
425
426
430

lB

449
454
455
457

1 1,000 B.P

1A
1A
11,500 B.P

467
468
473
474
^
469
470
471

I-

il
0
I

50
I

100
I

200
I

numbers of charred seeds or fruits per 200 I1of deposit

Figure 3. Trends in the exploitation of wild cereals, pulses, and other open-forest plants by the inhabitants of Abu H
occupation. The diagram is based on a small portion of the evidence recovered (compare Hillman, Colledge, and Harris 198

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488

AMERICANANTIQUITY

[Vol. 57, No. 3, 1992]

(Hillman, Colledge, and Harris 1989). Today, even without grazing and cultivation, it is unlikely
that they could grow any closer than 100 km to the west and north. However, to have been gathered
by the people of Abu Hureyra 1, they must have been growing very much nearer than that.
This pattern of gathering persisted throughout Period 1A. Then an abrupt change took place. The
inhabitants appear to have ceased all gathering of tree fruits of the forest or forest fringe. One
explanation is that the fruits were now out of range of foragers from Abu Hureyra simply because
increasing aridity was preventing fruit formation on trees in the nearest areas of the forest fringe,
and was thereby inducing the start of a forest retreat. This explanation is arguably supported by the
ensuing set of changes at the beginning of Period 1B (ca. 11,000-10,400 B.P.), which show a brief
episode of sharply increased exploitation of the wild cereals, grains of feather-grass (Stipa spp.), and
seeds of asphodel (Figure 3; Hillman, Colledge, and Harris 1989:Figure 14.1). This fits the temporary
increase in yields from forest-fringe grasses and other herbs such as asphodel that might be expected
when the trees started dying back and cast less shade on the herb layer.4 However, our evidence for
this brief episode early in 1B comes from two rich samples and, despite the essential similarity of
the formation processes reflected in most of the Abu Hureyra 1 levels and the huge amounts of
deposit sampled, a difference in two such samples could theoretically represent no more than aberrant
taphonomy.
Very soon thereafter we see a more abrupt and unequivocal change, a complete cessation of the
use of asphodel seed, perhaps for food or medicine, and a dramatic decline in the use of the three
wild cereals and at least some of the feather grass species. These changes, combined with declining
exploitation of Pistacia fruitlets, suggest that advancing aridity was now also causing a retreat of
the herbaceous plants of the forest fringe, following the earlier dieback of the trees. This view is
supported by the increased use of small-seeded legumes such as the clovers and medicks (Trifolium,
Trigonella, and Medicago spp.), which require careful detoxification, and that we regard as "fallback
foods," which would generally have served as staples only when other major plant foods were
becoming scarcer. In addition, a number of these small-seeded legumes can tolerate very arid
conditions, and some of them would have continued to be available in undiminished abundance.
We estimate from the 12 radiocarbon dates for Period 1B that this abrupt change began about
10,600 B.P. (Moore 1992). These trends became even more marked in Period 1C (ca. 10,40010,000 B.P.), when we also see a decline in the use of valley-bottom foods, perhaps reflecting reduced
overbank flooding as a result of lower levels of precipitation over the Anatolian catchment of the
headwaters of the Euphrates.
Abu Hureyra is in a semiarid region where slight changes in climate can lead to major adjustments
in the composition and extent of vegetation zones and their component communities (cf. Davis
1986; Webb 1986). We argue that the most economical explanation of such a series of shifts in the
pattern of plant collecting is an alteration in the composition of plant communities in the Abu
Hureyra catchment brought about by climatic change. Certainly, Abu Hureyra 1 was inhabited long
enough for the effects of the Late Glacial climatic fluctuations to be reflected in the vegetation
record, and Periods 1B and 1C coincided with the Younger Dryas when cooler and/or more arid
conditions prevailed in many regions. Reduction in moisture availability during the spring and/or
summer growing seasons in lowland and some upland areas of southwest Asia is strongly indicated
by the forest retreat seen in the pollen cores from Lakes Huleh and Zeribar, and Karamik Batakligi
(van Zeist and Bottema 1977, 1982; van Zeist et al. 1975), and this can arguably be extended to
the Ghab as well.
It is precisely this reduction in the availability of growing-season moisture that we see reflected
in the record of vegetation change at Abu Hureyra. As aridity increased in the Younger Dryas, the
forest and forest-steppe ecotone retreated westward, to be replaced by more drought-resistant types
of steppe. In consequence, the availability of many former foods was progressively reduced, and in
compensation the inhabitants of Abu Hureyra seem to have increased their consumption of other
foods such as the small-seeded legumes, thus allowing them to continue occupation for several
centuries more.5 However, the population was already sedentary by Period 1A, and the constraints
on population growth occasioned by a mobile existence would probably have already been relaxed
(Hillman 1987). The resulting combination of increasing population and declining availability of

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REPORTS

489

previously preferred plant staples in the vicinity of Abu Hureyra may have imposed increasing
stresses on the carrying capacity of the local environment, and so contributed to the temporary
abandonment of the settlement. When Abu Hureyra was reoccupied a few centuries later, its new
inhabitants were already farmers.
The records of Late Glacial vegetation change from the new Huleh core and Abu Hureyra show
analogous trends: an initial flourishing of forest and forest-fringe vegetation reflecting a relative
abundance of growing-season moisture, followed by a sharp reversal as drier conditions set in during
the Younger Dryas. Direct comparison of radiocarbon dates would suggest that the effects were
experienced slightly earlier in the southern Levant than farther north. That may have been so, but
we also need to allow for the possibility of interlaboratory error when comparing sequences of dates
obtained by different laboratories. Recent studies have shown that the dates obtained by different
laboratories for the same samples may vary systematically by several hundred years (Scott et al.
1990). In any case, the abrupt change in vegetation at both localities correlates with the worldwide
Younger Dryas episode of cooling.
Having established that the Younger Dryas had a significant effect on the environment of the
Levant, we should examine some of the other pollen cores obtained years ago to see if its impact
can be discerned elsewhere in southwest Asia. The section of the original Ghab core covering the
Late Glacial and earlier Holocene (pollen zone Z) exhibited much the same trends as the new Huleh
core: a major expansion of forest followed by a decrease, then a modest growth of tree cover once
more (Niklewski and van Zeist 1970:Figure 3). The core had three radiocarbon dates, but only one
of them related to the last 40,000 years. This date of 10,080 ? 55 B.P. (GrN-5810) seemed to
correspond to the climax of the main period of forest expansion, suggesting that the Ghab vegetation
sequence was out of phase with the rest of the Levant. Given that the vegetation sequences from
Lake Huleh and Abu Hureyra seem to correlate quite well, and that Abu Hureyra is just 180 km
downwind of the Ghab, the most likely explanation for this discrepancy is that the radiocarbon
date, obtained from a sample of shells, is discordant with its stratigraphic position. Baruch and
Bottema (1991) have also allowed the possibility that the date may be in error. If that is the case,
then the evidence from the Ghab core would indicate that the cooler conditions of the Younger
Dryas were also felt in northwest Syria where they caused a synchronous decline in tree cover.
Away to the east at Lake Zeribar in the Zagros Mountains, the Late Glacial was marked by an
increase in the pollen of herbaceous plants at the expense of chenopods and Artemisia (van Zeist
and Bottema 1982:Figure 14.2), implying an increase in moisture during the growing season. That
trend was sharply reversed for several centuries after ca. 11,500 B.P., an event that again correlates
chronologically with the Younger Dryas. It implies that there was a decrease in moisture during
this period, just as we have seen in the Levant. A similar reduction in moisture availability during
the growing season can likewise be inferred from the dramatic decline in cedar pollen after ca.
11,500 B.P. at Karamik Batakligi in western Anatolia, and from its continued depression until the
start of the Holocene (van Zeist et al. 1975).
Another contiguous region with a good pollen record from the Pleniglacial through the Holocene
is northern Greece (van Zeist and Bottema 1982). The general trend in the published pollen curves
is similar: dry, steppic conditions in the Pleniglacial that persisted into the Late Glacial. Then oak
and pine forest spread throughout the region as temperature and growing-season moisture increased.
The initial phase of tree growth at Tenaghi Philippon on the Plain of Drama took place during the
Late Glacial, and was then sharply reversed at an estimated date of ca. 10,500 B.P., before resuming
once more in the early Holocene (Wijmstra 1969:523). This return to dry, steppic conditions appears
to correspond approximately to the Younger Dryas, and correlates with the vegetation record from
southwest Asia.
These pollen sequences all suggest that the colder conditions of the Younger Dryas had a significant
impact on vegetation throughout southwest Asia and also in the extreme southeast of Europe.
Everywhere the Younger Dryas in southwest Asia was accompanied by a decrease in moisture that
caused a temporary reversion to partially steppic conditions more typical of the Pleniglacial.
It should also be noted that the five pollen cores cited above exhibit synchrony not only with the
Younger Dryas episode, if the Ghab date is adjusted as proposed, but also with the two preceding

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490

AMERICANANTIQUITY

[Vol. 57, No. 3, 1992]

changes in vegetation cover. All five indicate a period of intense aridity from approximately 18,000
to 15,000 B.P. This was followed, ca. 15,000 to 11,500 B.P., by a sharp increase in growing-season
moisture reflected in dramatic forest expansion at Lake Huleh, the Ghab, Karamik Batakligi, and
Tenaghi Philippon, and an increase in grasses and other herbs, at the expense of the more aridtolerant Artemisia and chenopods, in the then mountain-steppe flora around Lake Zeribar.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
The new evidence has a number of significant implications for our understanding of human
adaptations during the late Epipaleolithic in the Levant and the subsequent adoption of agriculture.
The improvement in the environment that began in the Late Glacial ca. 15,000 B.P. provided
increasingly favorable conditions for hunter-gatherers throughout the region from late in Epipaleolithic 1 into early Epipaleolithic 2. This helps to explain the florescence of such groups, for example
those labeled Geometric Kebaran and early Natufian in the southern Levant (Bar-Yosef and BelferCohen 1989), and the Epipaleolithic inhabitants of Abu Hureyra 1A on the Euphrates. The climatic
reversal that followed profoundly altered the environment in which such groups lived. The return
of drier conditions sharply reduced the extent of the forest and caused the rich zone of open foreststeppe along its edge to retreat westward, and probably to diminish in width. Thus there was a sharp
reduction in the extent of those zones most favorable for the, by now quite numerous, groups of
Epipaleolithic 2 hunter-gatherers. Those conditions appear to have lasted about a millennium,
coincident with the duration of the Younger Dryas elsewhere. The environment improved towards
the end of the period, on the evidence of the new Huleh core and that from the Ghab, but the ratio
of arboreal pollen never reached the level it had attained in the Late Glacial before the onset of the
Younger Dryas.
It has always seemed anomalous that the pollen cores suggested a steady improvement of conditions from the Late Glacial into the early Holocene, while Leroi-Gourhan's studies of the pollen
from Epipaleolithic 2 sites indicated that their environs were often quite steppic (Darmon and LeroiGourhan 1991; Henry 1989:73; Leroi-Gourhan 1984). That anomaly is now resolved; evidently
steppe species of plants increased around those sites during the eleventh millennium B.P. because
the climate became drier.
The decrease in moisture availability set in during Epipaleolithic 2 and would have had a considerable impact on prevailing human patterns of foraging. It may have taken several centuries for
the full effects to be felt, especially on sites in the better-watered zones, but they would have been
experienced by people throughout the Levant, and adjustments in subsistence would have been
necessary.
The pattern of hunting remained the same throughout the sequence of occupation at Abu Hureyra
1, indicating that the deterioration in climate had no adverse effect on the density of the herds of
Persian gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa), a steppe species that was the main source of meat (Legge
and Rowley-Conwy 1987). That may have been the case elsewhere, although at other Epipaleolithic
2 sites in the forest zone the increase in the proportions of the various gazelle subspecies killed
compared with Epipaleolithic 1 (Moore 1982:227) may partly reflect the onset of more steppic
conditions. We have seen, however, that the inhabitants of Abu Hureyra apparently modified their
gathering of plants in response to the alterations in the vegetation in the site catchment. Abu Hureyra
is the only Levantine site excavated so far that was inhabited throughout the Younger Dryas, and
is also the only one to have yielded a long sequence of plant remains. Thus we should not expect
to see such direct evidence of changes in subsistence from other sites occupied for shorter lengths
of time. There is much other evidence, however, of major changes in culture and the pattern of
settlement as the Levantine environment deteriorated.
Most of the more substantial sites in the Natufian heartland were inhabited during the earlier
stages of that culture. It is on those sites, Mugharet el Wad (Garrod 1957), Ain Mallaha (Perrot
1966), Wadi Hammeh 27 (Edwards et al. 1988), and several others, that the Natufian culture has
been found in its most developed form. They were substantial sites with huts and other structures,
rich assemblages of bone and ground-stone artifacts, and also exquisite naturalistic carvings in bone

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REPORTS

491

and stone. As Garrod (1957:224) noted in her original survey of the culture, and Valla and Henry
have since reaffirmed (Henry 1989:181; Valla 1988:582), most of those elements ceased to be made
in the later Natufian, and occupation on sites in the heartland was disrupted. It now appears that
this disturbance in the pattern of settlement in the later Natufian coincided with the environmental
deterioration of the Younger Dryas. It would seem that conditions worsened sufficiently to upset
the pattern of subsistence plant gathering at sites in the Natufian heartland and with it the relatively
sedentary life of their inhabitants. If supplies of wild plants and animals were no longer so abundant
close by those sites because of environmental deterioration, their inhabitants would have been
their It appears that
obliged to modify their subsistence activities.
initial response was to resume a
more mobile pattern of hunting and gathering, which had probably characterized life in the Pleniglacial. Farther south, in the Negev and Sinai, there were quite rapid changes in culture and the
pattern of settlement, but there was continuity of occupation (Goring-Morris 1987:436-439). Thus,
the deterioration in climate apparently had less impact there.
The transition from Epipaleolithic to Neolithic ca. 10,000 B.P. coincided with the end of the
Younger Dryas climatic episode. It was a time of major readjustment in culture and patterns of
settlement throughout the Levant. Settlements in the steppe zone were abandoned. Thus, the Azraq
Basin and the oasis of El Kum were deserted (Cauvin 1981:387; Garrard et al. 1988), not to be
reoccupied for at least a millennium. Even in the better-watered zones occupation ceased at nearly
all sites. At the few settlements like Abu Hureyra, Jericho, and Beidha that were inhabited both in
the Epipaleolithic and the succeeding Neolithic, occupation was briefly disrupted at the end of the
Epipaleolithic. The new Neolithic pattern of settlement was based initially on a relatively few large
sites in locations with rich soils and ample surface water, that is in locations that were suitable for
agriculture. Remains of domesticated cereals and pulses have been found at Jericho and Tell Aswad,
dating from about 10,000 B.P. (Hopf 1983; van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres 1979), and a little later
at Abu Hureyra. The economic and cultural transformations that marked the transition from Epipaleolithic to Neolithic therefore appear to have been rapid.
COMMENTARY
The Younger Dryas climatic episode evidently had a significant impact on the environment of
southwest Asia. It interrupted the Late Glacial improvement in climate and vegetation, and caused
a brief return to the conditions of the Pleniglacial. The consequences were severe for the Epipaleolithic
2 peoples of the Levant. Their modes of gathering were disrupted and the resulting stresses led to
widespread dislocation in patterns of settlement. It is surely no coincidence that the transition from
Epipaleolithic to Neolithic and from hunting and gathering to farming happened at about the same
time, just as the Younger Dryas had run its course. We suggest that the disruption that took place
in Epipaleolithic 2 patterns of adaptation acted as a powerful incentive for the peoples of the Levant
to develop new modes of subsistence. The Younger Dryas episode was not the only factor that led
to this result. Among other processes, the advent of sedentary life, demonstrated at Abu Hureyra
at least, and population growth during the Epipaleolithic undoubtedly contributed to the outcome
(Hillman 1987; Moore 1985:13). Nevertheless, it was probably a significant catalyst in each of the
areas within southwest Asia where cultivation is likely to have begun.
Acknowledgments. We wish to thankSytze Bottemafor helpfuldiscussionsconcerningthe new Huleh pollen
core, and for kindly allowing us to reproduce here part of the pollen diagram prepared by Uri Baruch and
Bottema.We also thankthe reviewersforAmerican Antiquity and othercolleagueswho have offeredconstructive

comments on earlierdrafts of this paper. The hypothesisexploredhere was developed duringthe 1990-1991

academic year when Moore held a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers;
the support of the National Endowment is gratefully acknowledged.
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NOTES
' All the radiocarbon dates we quote in this paper are uncalibrated.
2 The
probability that these edible species of seed actually served as food is discussed in Hillman, Colledge,
and Harris 1989.
3 The Pistacia species identified here are the terebinths P. atlantica and P. khinjuk, and not the nut-producing
P. vera.
4 Although many Stipa species thrive in arid steppe and desert steppe, some species such as S. lagascai seem
to form their densest stands closer to the forest fringe.
5Whether overexploitation of particular plant foods played a role here is unknown. Certainly, ethnobotanical
studies of recent foragers suggest that they would have been acutely aware of the risk, and correspondingly were
careful to avoid it (see, for example, Hallam 1989:142; Lee 1959:163-164; Lee 1979; Shipek 1989). The welldocumented overkill of certain wild animals by hunter-gatherers is unlikely to have many parallels among foodplant species, as plant utilization strategies can be devised and implemented with much greater precision (Hillman,
Madeyska, and Hather 1989:180).

Received December 12, 1991; accepted February 21, 1992

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