14,300-Year-Old Pre-Younger Dryas Major Settlement!

Hello everybody and welcome to Ancient Architects. Please subscribe to the channel for regular content on ancient architecture as well as all of the latest news from the world of archaeology. The Latuvian culture occupies a special place in the evolution of human societies. This culture occupied the Levant from 15,000 to 11,500 years ago and covered a wide area, living in seasonal camps, sedentary and semi-sedentary settlements. These are the people that started agricultural practices. They made bread and brewed beer. They created organised settlements, built structures from stone and wood, made intricate art and figurines, and used flint, chert, basalt and bone to make effective tools. They worked stone to make objects like pestles and mortars, bowls, beads and pendants, and also had a sophisticated microlithic industry. As I showed in my recent video on the grave of a Latuvian shaman, they had very specific burial practices for important members of society. In communal burial pits, we see the removal of long bones and skulls, maybe to be used for ritual, or maybe for reburial. Here we can see a skull from the site of El Wad and it has decorative dentalium shells stuck to it. There is also clear evidence the Latuvians kept domesticated dogs and this burial shows a woman laid to rest in the fetal position with her hands cradling the head of a puppy, a clear gesture of affection. So, this is a snapshot of the world of one Ice Age Stone Age culture, a sophisticated, intelligent culture, who lived for hundreds of years before the pre-pottery Neolithic, before the amazing sites of Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe. To me, these incredible later sites were just the next stage in the process of human development and evolution. It's what people were building towards in the preceding years. To achieve these phenomenal feats, evidence shows that people had the skills already, just maybe not the labour force to achieve them, or even the inclination to build such large permanent settlements. And that's because the climatic conditions were more chaotic, from cold to warm to cold and dry, and so maybe having small population centres and the ability to become mobile were more beneficial for survival. The start of the pre-pottery Neolithic pretty much coincides with the beginning of the warmer Holocene, and I don't think that's a coincidence. In my research, I've been finding out just how sophisticated the Latuvians were, and so I want to highlight their knowledge and technology on this channel, so we can better understand the origins of sites like Gobekli Tepe, so we can understand that its origins are the product of human evolution, as opposed to some kind of unexplainable revolution. The Latuvians already knew how to plan and build complex settlements, and they built sophisticated structures from stone and wood. They made intricate works of art, made tools, weapons, jewellery and everyday objects, and had burial customs and beliefs. They knew how to hunt and fish, they started agriculture and also domesticated the dog. The list goes on. So, in this video, I'm going to shed further light on this culture, and showcase one incredible Latuvian settlement in particular. I'll be giving you an overview of what archaeologists have found at Ain Malaha, also known as Ainan, which is found in Upper Galilee on the shores of Lake Hula. At the site was an active natural spring, and there was marshland and shores rich in animal and plant life. And also, before the Latuvians, there is evidence that people were here in the era, it was one of the main settlements in the Levant, and it was inhabited intermittently for several millennia. Radiocarbon ages show early Latuvian occupation dating to around 14,300 years ago, with the latest occupation being 11,900 years ago. The settlement, which archaeologists described as being like a small village or hamlet, was constructed to the south of the natural spring. It consisted of semi-subterranean buildings overlooking the natural spring. The structures have circular or semicircular walls, and amazingly, even though more than 12,000 years have passed, in places the walls were still found to be one metre in height. The oldest early Latuvian houses had a diameter of around 7 metres, but the latest structures were 3.5 metres. The walls were made of raw, undressed limestone blocks applied against a vertical surface that was cut into the slope of land. Interestingly, one of the early Latuvian buildings was coated with red-painted lime plaster. Some structures have associated post holes, indicating they were covered. This was the first reconstruction of the roof by archaeologists, but a more recent study took a fresh look at the layout of the post holes, and experts now believe that this is a more accurate portrayal of the building's roof structure. Although a wooden frame, the remains of pollen show that the roof was mainly composed of reeds. Each building also had a stone-built hearth that was set on the floor, and these floors were often partially paved with either slabs of rock or pebbles or both. The internal space of each structure was also organised. For example, we find workspaces for working stone, with flint debris on the floor, as well as large stones that looked to be possible seating. In the early Natuvian phase, the houses were also associated with graves, and these were placed either under the floors or sometimes in fills. Most people were buried individually and were flexed on their side, their back or even their face. Some of the bodies were ornamented with bone beads and jewellery. Stones were also added on and around the bodies, likely to keep them in a desired position. At Ain Malaha, we find bodies of both men and women, and people of all ages, including a newborn. One grave of an elderly woman even included a puppy. Interestingly, some skeletons show evidence of hyperplasia, a condition that indicates either dietary deficiency or infectious diseases during childhood. The burial customs seem to change in the later Natuvian era, where we find communal pits, and these include up to 11 different burials. None of the bodies include any decoration, but two of the skulls may have had gazelle horn cores attached to them. Large stones were sometimes added in or on the pits. The later bodies show less hyperplasia, and the communal graves have no newborn burials, and there are also more male skeletons compared to female. Then, at the final stage of the settlement's life, the burials seem to return to earlier customs, with individual graves connected to the floors of houses. Hyperplasia also becomes even rarer. So, that's an overview of the structures and burials, but what about the artefacts? Well, unsurprisingly, in each phase of the settlement's life, we find a huge amount of flint. There were flakelets, bladelets, flakes and blades, and the types of artefacts and techniques used to make them don't change throughout all the phases of occupation. Half of the samples were microliths, of which lunates, a hallmark of the Natuvian culture, were only a minor component. As well as flint, volcanic basalt was the stone most commonly worked into tools. The source of the rock was a few kilometres away. From basalt, we have a large variety of different objects, including pestles, mortars, grinding slabs and hand stones. They each show a high degree of workmanship, and look to have been well cared for. The basalt objects had a variety of uses. The height of the mortars varied from 12 to 60 centimetres. Some grinding stones were stained with red ochre. There was also a variety of cairns, and one of them was found in situ in a Natuvian house. As well as stone, bones were also modified for both tools and ornamentation. We find bone and shell beads, for necklaces and bracelets, and also pendants. A gazelle phalanx bone was the common type used for ornamentation, and these were sawn to a desired shape. Bone was also used to make sickles and projectile points, and also curved hooks. Only a handful of decorative artefacts were discovered. We do find some figurines, some of which are interpreted as schematic human representations, with others being inspired by animals. Some pebbles have thin engravings of a zigzag and ladder-like pattern, and these can be found at other Natuvian sites as well. Animal bones are found in abundance, and this gives us a good idea about dyers. The people that lived at this site did eat quite a variety of food. We find the remains of mammals, birds, tortoises, reptiles, amphibians, crustaceans, fish and molluscs. To the Natuvians and also later pre-pottery Neolithic cultures, gazelles are often the dominant food type. But not so much at Ain Malaha, where the remains of wild boar outnumber gazelles. We also find a lot of remains from hare and fox. For the study of the ancient past, Ain Malaha is significant. It was the site when Natuvian architecture was first identified in 1955. The architectural remains, together with the abundance of graves, the heavy basalt pounding stones, the wealth of resources available to the people, and the fact there is a natural spring nearby, makes the experts believe that at this site, the Natuvians were very much living a sedentary way of life. Gone is the old idea that agriculture led to sedentism, because the Natuvians showed it was actually the other way around. First people settled down, and then agriculture could follow. But the Natuvians were not the first people to live a sedentary lifestyle, and I showed in a recent video that the people of Ahalo II had a permanent settlement 23,000 years ago, and this was the height of the last glacial maximum. It's therefore no surprise that these people are responsible for the world's oldest known cultivation, because sedentism does seem to lead to agriculture. I guess it's a natural next step. People are intelligent, and want to live as efficiently as possible. And I should add, even though Ain Malaha was occupied in the Younger Dryas, when average temperatures were somewhat cooler, the ecological habitats of the Hula Basin were not that different compared to what we see today. In the Younger Dryas, compared to other parts of the world, evidence suggests the climate was not as harsh in the Near East, and animal and plant life was abundant. The Natuvian society was more advanced than many think, and evidence shows they also traded, as seen by a large number of Cappadocian obsidian pieces at Ain Malaha, and this rogue type is not native to the area. What I've done in this video is give you an overview of one of the many Natuvian settlements uncovered in the Levant, to show you just how far society had come in the millennia before the beginning of the Holocene, when we see the rise of the large pre-pottery Neolithic sites in southeastern Anatolia. I look at the Natuvians as very capable and intelligent people, who had mastered so many skills that would help humanity push forward when we entered the warmer Holocene. Thank you very much for watching this episode of Ancient Architects. If you enjoyed the video, please subscribe to the channel, please like the video and please leave a comment below. Thank you very much!