Social differentiation

Population growth, or, more specifically, pressure, is often viewed as being critical to the development of food production in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East. It is surprising, therefore, to recognize how little detailed archaeological research has explored the rates of population growth and how they might be related to social crowding in early village social environments. Combining archaeological and ethnographic perspectives, this article explores the possible links between demographic change, possible social crowding, and reasons for the “collapse” of large aggregate villages occupied between approximately 8500 to 8000 years before present. Reflection upon the timing, estimated magnitude, and rate of demographic change prompts the researcher to reconsider the perceived links between sedentism, food production, and the emergence of social inequality in the context of early agricultural villages of the south-central Levant. © 2000 Academic Press