Social interaction in the prehistoric Natufian
Subtitle: generating an interactive agency model using GIS.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 297
ISBN-13: 9780494157350
Description: Forty years of research on the Natufian has led to further understanding of their technology and their place in time. Although the technological patterns are quite similar, the documentation of material culture and features from various Natufian sites throughout the Levant reveals variability across time and space. Traditionally, interpretation of variability is based on chronology and its relation to the ecological setting. I hypothesize that this variability reflects, not only the ecological setting in which Natufian populations were located, but also the social groups formed over time and space. The acceptance of new technology, techniques, and ideas depends on the frequency and intensity of interaction with other groups, both near and distant, throughout the region. The more frequent and intense the interaction, the greater the amount of information, or innovation, that is likely to occur.The Levant (Israel and Jordan) has a long history of human occupation. Archaeological sites in the region demonstrate this history as one of continuous change. The focus on understanding this history of change is most pronounced in the overriding interest in the transition from a mobile hunting and gathering economy at the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Age), to a settled agricultural economy in the Holocene, less than 10,000 years ago. This transition from the Late Pleistocene to Holocene is the period when the Natufian culture flourished (approximately 12,800 BP to 10,300 BP).This thesis addresses some of these issues by demonstrating that the ecological environment does not bind past populations. Both social and ecological structures play a role in the dissemination of knowledge through communication. The sharing of information acquires a spatial context through the construction of an interactive-agent model detailing three spheres of interaction: (1) within-group interaction; (2) between-group interaction; and (3) competitive interaction. Both archaeological interpretive methods (collection of site data and analysis of materials) and geographical information science (GISc) (least cost path analysis) are used to show that Natufian groups had the opportunity to interact with one another and that these interactions occurred in defined locations where potential paths cross.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2208.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

Includes bibliographic references.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.