ABSTRACT
The Epipalaeolithic (EP) period (ca. 20,000–10,200 BP) in the southern Levant witnessed several critical changes in economy, technology, social organization, and ideology. The Late EP (Natufian) is often argued to represent the first appearance of socially complex hunter-gatherers on the basis of several interrelated features, including sedentism, architecture, a ubiquitous and diverse bone tool industry, flourishing artistic expression, intensified plant use, and the presence of burials with grave goods and in formal cemeteries (Belfer-Cohen and Bar-Yosef 2000). Despite statements about gradual development and long-term cultural change throughout the EP, emphasis is placed on supposed dramatic changes appearing suddenly in the late EP as a series of pre-conditions necessary to and setting the stage for the Neolithic (e.g. Belfer-Cohen and Bar-Yosef 2000; Byrd 2005). The perceived sudden appearance of social complexity in the Natufian period has created a dichotomy between simple, mobile pre-Natufian groups and complex, sedentary Natufian groups.
