Abstract:
The goals of this study were to identify and explain subsistence patterns in the faunal assemblages of Baaz, Kaus Kozah, Ain Dabbour and Wadi Mushkuna. These four sites are located in the mountains north of Damascus, Syria, and were excavated starting in 1999. They span a chronological sequence from the Middle Paleolithic (Wadi Mushkuna, Kaus Kozah AH IV) to the PPNA (Kaus Kozah AH I & II), with the Upper Paleolithic and Natufian layers of Baaz and the Geometric Kebaran of Ain Dabbour occurring in between.
The Natufian at Baaz and the question of whether the Natufian could (economically) be considered the initial step in the transition towards the Neolithic became the focus of the analysis. The assemblages from Baaz and Kaus Kozah were analyzed in their entirety, while material from Ain Dabbour and Wadi Mushkuna was sampled.
After briefly discussing the different interpretations for changes in subsistence patterns that are found in the literature, I proposed a scenario arguing that the Late Natufian is not a consequence of aridification but of the progressing development of vegetation.