A prehistoric village in Israel that dates to approximately 12,000 years ago was discovered in the Jordan Valley by archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The village, named NEG II, is located in Nahal Ein-Gev and links the old and new stone ages.
The team conducted a series of excavations on the site, which revealed numerous findings including human burial remains, flint tools and ground and bone tools. Furthermore, it discovered an extensive habituation with deep cultural deposits.
One of the most surprising findings is the difference between the village and others from the same time period in Israel - the excavated artifacts reveal cultural characteristics that encapsulate both the Old Stone Age, known as the Paleolithic period, and the New Stone Age, known as the Neolithic period.
"Although attributes of the lithic tool kit found at NEG II places the site chronologically in the Paleolithic period, other characteristics - such as its artistic tradition, size, thickness of archaeological deposits and investment in architecture - are more typical of early agricultural communities in the Neolithic period," Leore Grosman, who led the excavations, said in a press release.
"Characterizing this important period of potential overlap in the Jordan Valley is crucial for the understanding of the socioeconomic processes that marked the shift from Paleolithic mobile societies of hunter-gatherers to Neolithic agricultural communities," he added.
The Paleolithic period is the earliest and longest period in the history of mankind, and its end was marked by the transition of humans to settled villages and the domestication of plants and animals, which are key parts of the agricultural practices seen in the Neolithic period.
The village explored in the paper is one of the last settlements in the Levant region of the Late Natufian, which is the last culture of the Paleolithic period.
"It is not surprising that at the very end of the Natufian culture, at a suite of sites in the Jordan Valley, that we find a cultural entity that bridges the crossroads between Late Paleolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers," Grosman concluded.
The findings were published in the Jan. 27 issue of PLOS ONE.
