ABSTRACT
In the midst of the Last Glacial Maximum, around 23,000 years ago, hunter-gatherer societies in at least some parts of the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent began to reduce their mobility and stay in one place seasonally, or even for the whole year. They adopted what Flannery has called a ‘broad-spectrum’ strategy in hunting and trapping, and they harvested and stored wild cereals and grasses. The best evidence comes from the southern Levant, where long-lived, open-air settlements with permanent, stone-founded buildings, and sometimes burials within the settlement have been found. In seasonal wetland areas within the semi-arid interior of Jordan, there also appeared ‘aggregation sites’ where large numbers of groups gathered to spend seasons together.
