Michael Rosenberg
(Published in "Globes" on August 11-10, 2004, and published on the Hedaan website courtesy of the author)
The drop in the level of the Kinneret in recent years has made it possible to carry out archaeological excavations in areas that have dried up, revealing new information about the transition that man made from hunting to agriculture.
The drop in the Kinneret's level in recent years has given rise to an unexpected blessing for the world of scientific research. Near Midrash Ohalo in the south of the Sea of Galilee, an archaeological site was uncovered that sheds new light on one of the most fateful and significant developments in human history - the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society that produces its own food. The development of agriculture was a gradual process that happened at different times in different regions of the world. The earliest agriculture appeared in Western Asia, in the area called the "Fertile Crescent" about 11 thousand years ago. Before, all humans were small hunters. Only those companies that developed food production in an intelligent way, later moved to permanent settlements and developed complex companies, political structures and advanced technologies. It is now possible to clearly point out that the most technologically advanced societies are those that were early to develop agriculture, while the societies left behind are those that were late to develop agriculture or remained hunter-gatherers.
A rabbit instead of a mammoth
The uncovered site, called Ohlu-II, represents in its archaeological remains a culture of hunter-gatherers from about 23 thousand years ago who did not engage in agriculture at all. At the site, which covers 2000 square meters, many remains of various foods that were consumed by that culture were discovered. These findings indicate the occurrence of the transition phase towards an agricultural society - 10,000 years earlier than it was commonly believed until now. An Israeli research team led by Dr. Ehud Weiss from Harvard University reported this in an article recently published in the scientific journal "Records of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA" (PNAS). In the article, the team explains the connection between the findings from Ohlo-II and the development of agriculture. This connection is rooted in the expansion of the food variety of the hunter-gatherer society, a step that pushed man to develop agriculture and was a prerequisite for it. "Our article proves that the field of archaeological botany has great research potential, and that the investment in Israeli research is bearing fruit in first-rate scientific publications," said Dr. Weiss from Harvard.
The most accepted theory in recent years to explain the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society is called the "Broad Spectrum Revolution" (BSR) hypothesis. According to this theory, the roots of the transition to agriculture are rooted in the need to expand food sources due to the depletion of previous food sources. This depletion occurred in areas where human density increased until there was a decrease in the availability of the wild animals that used to be hunted. The depletion of the population of many wild animals (such as moose and deer) and even their disappearance (of mammoths, for example), is attributed, among other things, to the phenomenon of human expansion in their habitats. This phenomenon forced man to hunt other smaller animals, such as rabbits and other rodents, partridges and birds. The energy required to catch these animals was sometimes greater than their nutritional value. Many evidences of this phenomenon have been found in prehistoric sites discovered around the world. The BSR theory talks about a similar process also in relation to the plant food sources of the hunter-gatherer. The depletion of the large wild animals, the decrease in the territories available to the hunter and the low nutritional benefit of hunting the smaller animals, forced the hunter-gatherer to also expand his plant food sources. The first step in this direction, was to collect seeds, small herbs and fruits, a move that led to the introduction of new plant species and gradually started their domestication. Following the collection of seeds, man learned to benefit from them by sowing them in areas close to his residence and growing them intelligently.
Tourism from 23,000 years ago
The expansion of the variety of foods from plants according to the BSR theory was therefore a necessary intermediate step towards the development of agriculture (alongside other necessary developments such as the development of tools for harvesting and collecting the crop that occurred later in the process). Man gradually domesticated the grains such as wheat and barley, while the small weeds that he used to collect disappeared from the human diet since the energy involved in collecting them and selecting them from their chaff was greater relative to the nutritional value of collecting the grains. However, while the remains of hunter-gatherer animal bones were well preserved, there were few findings regarding the expansion of the variety of plant foods, as plant food remains decay over the years. The Ohlo-II site, which was submerged in the waters of the Sea of Galilee until its discovery, preserved the plant remains so well in this low-oxygen environment that the research team was able to identify them to the level of types and species. At the site, the team found over 90 seeds and fruits from 142 types of prehistoric plants, along with remains of straw huts, mats, stone and flint tools, and remains of bonfires and graves. These findings provide for the first time a detailed picture of life in our region about 23 thousand years ago - the Late Stone Age.
In the Ohlo-II excavations, the seeds of wild wheat and barley were discovered, along with tools that were probably used as blades and a mortar. The site also found, among other things, remains of acorns of the Tabor oak, wild grapes, raspberries, almonds, pistachios, and figs. In addition, remains of small and large mammals, rodents, birds, fish and oysters were also found. These findings indicate that the diet of the people of the Late Stone Age in this area was much more diverse than it was commonly believed. This area, which was extremely rich in food sources, was probably used as a "tourist site" of the Stone Age. The research team discovered that nomadic populations used to stay at the site even for short periods. The phase in which man was forced to expand his nutritional base, occurred according to the BSR theory in the Fertile Crescent area about 13 thousand years ago. The findings from the Ohlo-II site show that this stage in the BSR theory occurred about 10,000 years earlier - about 23 years ago.
A selected collection of finds from the Ohlu-II site is currently on display in a unique exhibition on the subject, at the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa until December 2004.
