Spyrou, A;
(2015)
Animal procurement and processing during the pre-Natufian Epipalaeolithic of the Southern Levant: Zooarchaeological and Ethnographic Implications of meat and nutrient storage and social organization.
Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).
Abstract
This present research considers a time period preceding the emergence of agriculture and domestication with a major focus on animal bone assemblages. The aim is to explore and understand variability in hunter‐gatherer’s subsistence strategies including procurement and processing together with a particular focus on storage of animal resources. The majority of researchers follow a linear evolutionary model suggesting that human societies evolved via a natural progression from ‘simple’ forms of mobile hunter‐gatherers into ‘complex’ forms of sedentary farmers. Storage of plant and animal resources is regarded as one progressive step on this ladder although research focussed on this activity among pre‐Natufian hunter‐gatherers has been largely neglected. This thesis challenges these assumptions, suggesting an alternative explanatory framework in which subsistence strategies are shown to be adaptations to specifiable ecological conditions that vary temporally and spatially. A review of the Southern Levantine subsistence evidence suggests that discontinuity in material culture and subsistence strategies mainly relates to the diverse environmental settings occupied by people during the Epipaleolithic. In addition, an integrated taphonomic, zooarchaeological and ethnographic approach is used to determine whether certain forms of animal meat and nutrient storage (e.g. meat drying, meat smoking, meat salting, and fat preservation) have been taken place before the Neolithic times. In this study the focus is on the Epipalaeolithic ‘mega‐site’ Kharaneh IV (Area A) in the Eastern Jordanian steppe.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Title: | Animal procurement and processing during the pre-Natufian Epipalaeolithic of the Southern Levant: Zooarchaeological and Ethnographic Implications of meat and nutrient storage and social organization |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology > Institute of Archaeology Gordon Square |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1473385 |
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