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Other Archaeological Sites / The Neolithic of the Levant (500 Page Book Online) PreHistoric Nahal Oren (Wadi Fallah) Selected Excerpts on Nahal Oren
The Neolithic of the Levant (1978)
(1) Chapter 2: Neolithic 1 Nahal Oren (Pages 99-106)
(2) Chapter 4: Neolithic 2 Nahal Oren (Pages 218-221)
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums (3) The site of Nahal Oren is 10 kilometers south of Haifa. The first excavations at Nahal Oren were in 1941. Kebaran and Natufian Pre-Pottery A and B industries were found ... Faunal Domestication: ... The change from gazelle to goat husbandry may have been due to the *catholic feeding habits of the more adaptable goat compared with the selective diet of the more environmentally restricted gazelle ... Flora: ... The recovery of wheat from so early a context is unexpected. However almost nothing is known of plant remains from late Palaeolithic sites ... It is uncertain whether the wheat found at the site was cultivated. Occupation: Nahal Oren was repeatedly occupied over thousands of years by culture after culture. It is therefore categorized as a preferred site as distinct from an occasional site. An explanation readily at hand might be that the cave as a habitation was the primary attraction. This is apparently not so. The habitation was predominantly external to the cave. The cave occupation was relatively slight. The presence of the cave however might have been a subsidiary attraction ... Site Territory: ... the site economic potential was low. The site territory was not of exceptional productivity such as would automatically encourage primitive sedentary occupation. Even the advanced technology of current Israeli agriculture is unable to make much of it ... Neither does the site potential under a hunter-gatherer economy appear to have been so high that it would have been an exceptionaly valuable hunting site... Economy Interpretation: The rarity of grain at the site and the unsuitable nature of the site territory for grain agriculture suggests that grain growing was not an important aspect of the economy. The principal evidence for the food supply is overwhelmingly of gazelle bones. The high percentage of immature animals indicates domestication ... *catholic: broad in sympathies -- tastes -- interests ...
(3) Recent Excavations at Nahal Oren in Israel (1973) |
