The plant component of an Acheulian diet at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel.

Diet is central for understanding hominin evolution, adaptation, and environmental exploitation, but Paleolithic plant remains are scarce. A unique macrobotanical assemblage of 55 food plant taxa from the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel includes seeds, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and plants producing underground storage organs. The food plant remains were part of a diet that also included aquatic and terrestrial fauna. This diverse assemblage, 780,000 y old, reflects a varied plant diet, staple plant foods, environmental knowledge, seasonality, and the use of fire in food processing. It provides insight into the wide spectrum of the diet of mid-Pleistocene hominins, enhancing our understanding of their adaptation from the perspective of subsistence. Our results shed light on hominin abilities to adjust to new environments, facilitating population diffusion and colonization beyond Africa. We reconstruct the major vegetal foodstuffs, while considering the possibility of some detoxification by fire. The site, located in the Levantine Corridor through which several hominin waves dispersed out of Africa, provides a unique opportunity to study mid-Pleistocene vegetal diet and is crucial for understanding subsistence aspects of hominin dispersal and the transition from an African-based to a Eurasian diet.

Experimental Barley Flour Production in 12,500-Year-Old Rock-Cut Mortars in Southwestern Asia.

Experimental archaeology at a Natufian site in the Southern Levant documents for the first time the use of 12,500-year-old rock-cut mortars for producing wild barley flour, some 2,000 to 3,000 years before cereal cultivation. Our reconstruction involved processing wild barley on the prehistoric threshing floor, followed by use of the conical mortars (a common feature in Natufian sites), thereby demonstrating the efficient peeling and milling of hulled grains. This discovery complements nearly 80 years of investigations suggesting that the Natufians regularly harvested almost-ripe wild cereals using sickles hafted with flint blades. Sickles had been replicated in the past and tested in the field for harvesting cereals, thusly obtaining the characteristic sheen along the edge of the hafted flint blades as found in Natufian remnants. Here we report that Natufian wide and narrow conical mortars enabled the processing of wild barley for making the groats and fine flour that provided considerable quantities of nourishment. Dishes in the Early Natufian (15,000-13,500 CalBP) were groat meals and porridge and subsequently, in the Late Natufian (13,500-11,700 CalBP), we suggest that unleavened bread made from fine flour was added. These food preparing techniques widened the dietary breadth of the sedentary Natufian hunter-gatherers, paving the way to the emergence of farming communities, the hallmark of the Neolithic Revolution.

Extinction of water plants in the Hula Valley: Evidence for climate change.

We describe two events of water plant extinction in the Hula Valley, northern Israel: the ancient, natural extinction of 3 out of 14 extinct species at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, which occurred some 800-700 k.yr., and an anthropogenic, near contemporary extinction of seven species in the artificial drainage of the Hula Lake in the 1950s. We conclude that the considerable fraction of water plants that disappeared from the Hula Valley in the Early-Middle Pleistocene was the result of habitat desiccation and not global warming. Thus, there is evidence that the hominins who lived in the Hula Valley inhabited a comparatively dry place. The disappearance of water plant species was partially the result of reduced seed dispersal by birds (ornitochory) as a result of the shrinkage of water bodies and their number along the Rift Valley. We suggest that the disappearance of a group of rare, local water plants can be used as an indicator of climate drying and impacts on the local vegetation.

Spatial organization of hominin activities at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel.

The spatial designation of discrete areas for different activities reflects formalized conceptualization of a living space. The results of spatial analyses of a Middle Pleistocene Acheulian archaeological horizon (about 750,000 years ago) at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel, indicate that hominins differentiated their activities (stone knapping, tool use, floral and faunal processing and consumption) across space. These were organized in two main areas, including multiple activities around a hearth. The diversity of human activities and the distinctive patterning with which they are organized implies advanced organizational skills of the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov hominins.

Germination, genetics, and growth of an ancient date seed.

An ancient date seed (Phoenix dactylifera L.) excavated from Masada and radiocarbon-dated to the first century Common Era was germinated. Climatic conditions at the Dead Sea may have contributed to the longevity of this oldest, directly dated, viable seed. Growth and development of the seedling over 26 months was compatible with normal date seedlings propagated from modern seeds. Preliminary molecular characterization demonstrated high levels of genetic variation in comparison to modern, elite date cultivars currently growing in Israel. As a representative of an extinct date palm population, this seedling can provide insights into the historic date culture of the Dead Sea region. It also has importance for seed banking and conservation and may be of relevance to modern date palm cultivation.

Early domesticated fig in the Jordan Valley.

It is generally accepted that the fig tree was domesticated in the Near East some 6500 years ago. Here we report the discovery of nine carbonized fig fruits and hundreds of drupelets stored in Gilgal I, an early Neolithic village, located in the Lower Jordan Valley, which dates to 11,400 to 11,200 years ago. We suggest that these edible fruits were gathered from parthenocarpic trees grown from intentionally planted branches. Hence, fig trees could have been the first domesticated plant of the Neolithic Revolution, which preceded cereal domestication by about a thousand years.

Evidence of hominin control of fire at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel.

The presence of burned seeds, wood, and flint at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel is suggestive of the control of fire by humans nearly 790,000 years ago. The distribution of the site's small burned flint fragments suggests that burning occurred in specific spots, possibly indicating hearth locations. Wood of six taxa was burned at the site, at least three of which are edible--live, wild barley, and wild grape.

Stone Age hut in Israel yields world's oldest evidence of bedding.

The earliest archaeological remains of dwelling huts built by Homo sapiens were found in various European Upper Paleolithic open-air camps. Although floors of huts were found in a small number of cases, modern organization of the home space that includes defined resting areas and bedding remains was not discovered. We report here the earliest in situ bedding exposed on a brush hut floor. It has recently been found at the previously submerged, excellently preserved 23,000-year-old fisher-hunter-gatherers' camp of Ohalo II, situated in Israel on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The grass bedding consists of bunches of partially charred Puccinellia confer convoluta stems and leaves, covered by a thin compact layer of clay. It is arranged in a repeated pattern, on the floor, around a central hearth. This study describes the bedding in its original context on a well preserved intentionally constructed floor. It also reconstructs on the basis of direct evidence (combined with ethnographic analogies) the Upper Paleolithic hut as a house with three major components: a hearth, specific working locales, and a comfortable sleeping area near the walls.

Impetus for sowing and the beginning of agriculture: ground collecting of wild cereals.

The Agricultural Revolution in Western Asia, which took place some 11,000 years ago, was a turning point in human history [Childe, V. G. (1952) New Light on the Most Ancient East (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London)]. In investigating the cultural processes that could have led from gathering to intentional cultivation, various authors have discussed and tested wild cereal harvesting techniques. Some argue that Near Eastern foragers gathered grains by means of sickle harvesting, uprooting, plucking (hand stripping), or beating into baskets [Hillman, G. C. & Davies, M. S. (1999) in Prehistory of Agriculture: New Experimental and Ethnographic Approaches, ed. Anderson, P. (The Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles), pp. 70-102]. During systematic experiments, we found that archaeobotanical data from regional Neolithic sites support ground collection of grains by early hunter-gatherers. Ground collecting suits the natural shattering of wild species that ripen and drop grains at the beginning of summer. We show that continual collection off the ground from May to October would have provided surplus grains for deliberate sowing in more desirable fields, and facilitate the transition to intentional cultivation. Because ground gathering enabled collectors to observe that fallen seeds are responsible for the growth of new plants in late fall, they became aware of the profitability of sowing their surplus seeds for next year's food. Ground collecting of wild barley and wild wheat may comprise the missing link between seed collecting by hunter-gatherers and cereal harvesting by early farmers.

Nuts, nut cracking, and pitted stones at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel.

The Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Israel) has revealed a unique association of edible nuts with pitted hammers and anvils. Located in the Dead Sea rift, on the boundary between the Arabian and African plates, the site dates to the Early-Middle Pleistocene, oxygen isotope stage 19. In a series of strata, seven species of nuts, most of which can be cracked open only by a hard hammer, were uncovered. Five of the species are extant terrestrial nuts, and two are aquatic nuts now extinct in the Levant. In addition, the site yielded an assemblage of pitted hammers and anvils similar in pit morphology to those used by chimpanzees and contemporary hunter-gatherers. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that a site has offered both paleobotanical and lithic evidence of plant foods eaten by early hominins and technologies used for processing these foods. The evidence also sheds light on the structure of the community: ethnographic analogies suggest that mixedgender groups may have been active on the shores of paleoLake Hula.