-
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19, 75–102
(2000)doi:10.1006/jaar.1999.0352, available online at
http://www.idealibrary.com on
People and Space in Early Agricultural Villages: Exploring Daily
Lives,Community Size, and Architecture in the Late Pre-Pottery
Neolithic
Ian Kuijt
Department of Geography, University of Lethbridge, 4401
University Drive, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada T1K 3M4
Received July 2, 1998; revision received December 20, 1998;
accepted July 13, 1999
Population growth, or, more specifically, pressure, is often
viewed as being critical to thedevelopment of food production in
the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East. It is
surprising,therefore, to recognize how little detailed
archaeological research has explored the rates ofpopulation growth
and how they might be related to social crowding in early village
socialenvironments. Combining archaeological and ethnographic
perspectives, this article exploresthe possible links between
demographic change, possible social crowding, and reasons for
the“collapse” of large aggregate villages occupied between
approximately 8500 to 8000 years beforepresent. Reflection upon the
timing, estimated magnitude, and rate of demographic changeprompts
the researcher to reconsider the perceived links between sedentism,
food production,and the emergence of social inequality in the
context of early agricultural villages of thesouth-central Levant.
© 2000 Academic Press
Understanding the interrelationshipsbetween broader long-term
evolutionarysocial developments and the short-termsocial context of
everyday life is critical tothe archaeological and anthropological
re-construction and interpretation of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of
the Near East. Whileit is widely recognized that the Neolithicwas a
social process, to a degree previousarchaeological attempts at
reconstructionhave failed to noticeably advance our un-derstanding
of the relationships betweeneveryday living conditions and
long-termsocial change, two interpretive dimen-sions that are
complementary. The devel-opment of systems of food production
be-fore and during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic,for example, can be
explored both fromthe perspective of a critical long-term
evo-lutionary event as well as a short-termevent in which community
members en-acted social strategies to deal withchanges in daily
living conditions. Thisstudy examines some of the possible
rela-tionships between the physical and social
75
conditions of life in early agricultural vil-lages with that of
broader long-termchanges. Out of necessity I only considersome of
the interrelationships betweenlong-term population growth and
howthese might have resulted in gradual, yetimportant, changes in
the living condi-tions within early agricultural communi-ties. By
extension, I want to consider howhuman communities might have
re-sponded to such changes, reflecting uponselect aspects of daily
life, such as livingconditions, reduction in privacy, and
thecontrol of subsistence resources.
In focusing on these topics, I want toaddress several very
important interre-lated questions of life in early villages
ingeneral and those of the south-central Le-vantine Pre-Pottery
Neolithic in specific.First, what archaeological data can be
em-ployed to generate estimates of changes inthe size and density
of human communi-ties through different periods of the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic? Second, how mightthese demographic conditions have
influ-
0278-4165/00 $35.00Copyright © 2000 by Academic PressAll rights
of reproduction in any form reserved.
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ttta1BdplnfuogsgfFUegsis
76 IAN KUIJT
enced social relations and living condi-tions within Pre-Pottery
Neolithic com-munities and be connected to theabandonment of these
villages about 8000years ago? Finally, I want to address howthis
awareness alters our understandingof the possible ways in which
demo-graphic change, food production, andemerging social inequality
might havebeen interlinked in the context of earlyagricultural
villages of the south-centralLevant. In this context, I explore how
theemergence of, and changing arrange-ments within, social systems
may havebeen linked both physically and psycho-logically to
regional population growthand increased population aggregation
atindividual settlements.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSIGHTSINTO POPULATION AGGREGATION
AND CROWDING STRESS
Understanding the relationships be-ween demographic change, food
produc-ion, and emerging social inequality con-inues to be a
central focus in archaeologynd anthropology. Between the 1960s
and980s a number of anthropologists (e.g.,inford 1968; Boserup
1965; Cohen 1977)irected new attention to the concept thatopulation
growth is an important stimu-
us to economic and social change. Whileot always explicitly
articulated as some
orm of prime mover by researchers, pop-lation growth is often
envisioned as onef, if not the, major catalyst in the emer-ence of
food production, more complexocial and economic systems, and on
aeneral level, the appearance of social dif-erentiation (Carneiro
1967; Cohen 1977;lannery 1973; Wright 1971; Young 1972).nder this
framework, researchers have
xamined the connections between demo-raphics and social
organization at severalcales of analysis, including understand-ng
past population levels at an individualite (e.g., Longacre 1976;
Plog et al. 1978)
or, more often, modeling of continental orglobal demographic
changes (e.g., Adams1978; Binford 1968; Carneiro 1967; Johnsonand
Earle 1987). In light of the assumedimportance of demographic
shifts as anunderlying foundation for broader eco-nomic and social
changes, little researchhas systematically explored the nature
ofarchaeological evidence for demographicchange in key geographical
and temporalcontexts, such as that of the Pre-PotteryNeolithic of
the Near East, approximately10,000 to 8,000 years ago. Previous
studieshave approached Neolithic demographicchanges and the
establishment of foodproduction from one of two directions:
(a)intuitively arguing that population in-creases, often viewed as
the result of in-creased sedentism, led to population pres-sures
and, eventually, food production;and/or that (b) the Pre-Pottery
Neolithicwas characterized by sudden populationgrowth, and
researchers often, but not al-ways, do not differentiate between
differ-ent phases of the Pre-Pottery Neolithicperiod (e.g., Binford
1968; Bar-Yosef andMeadow 1995; Hershkovitz and Gopher1990). Given
the important role these po-sitions play in modeling social and
eco-nomic change in the Neolithic of the NearEast, it is surprising
to note how limitedour understanding is of the overall patternand
timing of demographic change andhow households and communities
mighthave dealt with such shifts.
In a different, but not unrelated trend inNear Eastern
prehistoric archaeology, it isimportant to recognize that it is
only re-cently that archaeologists have started toexplore the
nature of, and social/economicprocesses behind, the emergence
andabandonment of village systems in thePre-Pottery Neolithic
period. With a fewexceptions, general treatments of the Le-vantine
Pre-Pottery Neolithic oftenpresent it as an economic and
evolution-ary threshold, one in which there is a rel-ative sudden
and total adoption of agri-
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77NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
culture and the appearance of largevillages (e.g., Mellaart
1975; Moore 1985).This perception is, in many ways, out ofstep with
recent field research conductedat a number of individual sites that
hasoutlined that the size of settlements, andpresumably those of
the human commu-nities that existed in the past, increased
atdifferent rates in the Pre-Pottery Neolithicand that these
lifeways were abandonedat around 8000 years ago (Köhler-Rollefson
and Rollefson 1990; Kuijt 1998;Rollefson 1996; Rollefson and
Köhler-Rollefson 1989). This general perception ofthe Neolithic,
as usually expressed in gen-eral introductory textbooks, also fails
torecognize a number of important studiesof social process in the
Neolithic (e.g., Au-renche and Cauvin 1989; Byrd 1994; Cau-vin
1995; Hodder 1990; Thomas 1991;Watson 1990), as well as the
importantconcurrent trends in Neolithic research ofthe Euphrates
and Anatolia (e.g., Hodder1996; Kozlowski and Kempisty 1990; LeBrun
1981; Rosenberg and Davis 1992;Watkins 1990).
From an anthropological level, re-searchers have approached the
emer-gence of social relations within early agri-cultural village
communities with theassumption that population pressure is akey
explanatory factor, given that (1)changing social arrangements
reflect a re-action to problems of organizing subsis-tence
practices and maintaining economichomeostasis; (2) these changes
are linkedto pressures associated with reduced mo-bility and more
temporally and spatiallylimited food resources; (3) increased
socialsegmentation and differentiation is usu-ally a by-product of
economically basedcompetition between individuals orgroups for
control of power and authoritywithin communities; and (4)
hierarchicalsocial systems, at least those in whichthere are
entrenched dimensions of socialdifferentiation, often emerge from
withinthe social context of population aggrega-
tion. In this context researchers portraypopulation pressure as
linked to subsis-tence resource and economic factors, spe-cifically
the relationship between popula-tion density and the quantity,
location,and availability of subsistence resources.For example,
Cohen (1985: 104–105) statesthat “. . . a number of other specific
as-pects of social complexity have been, orcan be, described as
solving problems inthe logistics of access to resources . . ..”
Inthis light social differentiation emerges asa by-product of
population pressurecaused/elicited by the competition forscarce
resources or development of newmeans for the economic control and
redis-tribution of them.
At times such discussions also illustrateone of the more
problematic aspects ofstudies of population dynamics and socialand
economic relations: the conflation ofthe distinctive variables of
populationgrowth, population density, and popula-tion “pressure” on
resources (see Hassan1982, Wood 1998 for more detailed
discus-sion). As noted by Wood in his skillfultreatment of the
topic, researchers oftenconfuse the three concepts,
frequentlypresenting them as synonymous. Popula-tion growth can be
defined as the changein population size through the birth anddeath
of individuals within a communityand migration of people between
commu-nities. The rate of this growth, as well asthe overall
population size, is clearlylinked to available food resources on
alocal and regional level. In light of certainenvironmental
potentials and a specificregime of food procurement and
technol-ogy, the theoretical maximum number ofpeople who can be
supported at one timein a single region is represented as
thecarrying capacity of the region. Populationdensity refers to the
relationship betweenoverall population level and a unit ofspace,
such as that of a valley or residen-tial community. Population
pressure, asdefined strictly in subsistence terms, is
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78 IAN KUIJT
when overall population levels have out-stripped the ability of
humans to produceor procure enough food for their needs ona short-
or long-term basis, thus overex-ploiting the carrying capacity of a
region.As Hassan (1982) demonstrates, however,one of the major
weaknesses of the pop-ulation pressure concept as applied
byoriginal researchers lies in confusing pop-ulation increase with
population pressure.
These are clearly very different con-cepts, as an increase in
population sizedoes not necessarily imply that resourceshave been
depleted or that the survival ofhuman communities is at risk. The
adop-tion of agricultural systems by a commu-nity, for example, may
well have permit-ted an increase in population size, but, atthe
same time, would not have resulted inany increased population
pressure. Inmost cases (e.g., Binford 1968; Boserup1965)
researchers construct demographicmodels by focusing on population
pres-sure, with inequities between food re-sources and population
growth, and as-sume that this condition emerges fromincreases in
population growth or density.Needless to say, as pointed out by
Wood(1998: 101), in some situations populationgrowth may provide a
useful measure ofpopulation pressure, but this is a ques-tionable
relationship at times, and onethat, if nothing else, is
frustratingly diffi-cult to quantify.
There are, however, alternative ways toexplore the importance of
demographicpressure in the context of cultural change:that of
population growth and aggrega-tion as a social, rather than
subsistence,concern. As noted earlier, researchershave
traditionally explored how demo-graphic change and population
pressuremight be linked to the overall health ofindividuals, the
links between food avail-ability and population size, and their
pos-sible relationships with human labor. Ap-proaching the possible
impact ofdemographic change from a different di-
rection, researchers have started to ex-plore how increases in
the scale and den-sity of communities required changes inthe
organization of labor, how changes incommunity size might have been
ex-pressed through the built environment,and how people actually
tried to deal withchanging social and environmental condi-tions. On
a very broad level Johnson(1982) and Cohen (1985), for example,
linkthe appearance of hierarchical or heterar-chical social
organizations to populationpressure. As changes in social scale in
vil-lages require adjustments at the individ-ual, household, and
community scale,these changing structures reduce the abil-ity of
individuals to process informationand deal with kin-members and
non-kinof the community. Within many hunter-gatherer and
horticultural communities,social arrangements are organized
tocross-cut kin and household lines, therebyreducing interpersonal
tensions and con-flicts over authority (Johnson 1982).
Thereorganization of these social relation-ships and authority,
therefore, can serveas a situational response to short-
andlong-term population-related problems.
A second very important dimension ofdemographic change is that
populationgrowth influences other less observabledimensions of
household and communityrelationships, particularly increases in
in-terpersonal tensions and social crowding.Social crowding, as
defined by Cohen(1985) and applied here, refers to tensionsthat
occur when hunter-gatherers, horti-culturists, or agriculturists
remain in largeaggregates for a long time. Cohen (1985:106; cf.
Altman 1977) argues that underconditions of population aggregation,
an-imals and humans respond negatively to anumber of features in
their environment:congestion, loss of control, loss of privacy,and
information load. Members of earlyagricultural communities may have
expe-rienced the by-products of social crowd-ing expressed in
physical congestion in
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plsoiolsmbWtctmmt
hahoml1p1BK1
79NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
housing, resource procurement, or inscheduling conflicts.
Similarly, loss of con-trol, or the perception that individualshave
lost the ability to achieve some de-sired end through their own
action anddecision-making (Altman 1977), may alsohave been a
characteristic of growingcommunities. Cohen (1985: 106) notes“. . .
perceived control may be the most im-
ortant quality for an organism’s psycho-ogical and social
well-being and the mostalient quality affecting its decisions.”
Inrder to ensure privacy, or the ability of
ndividuals to retain control over access tother people and
resources, or, more
ikely, restrict access, people may con-truct physical boundaries
to impedeovement and access and develop social
arriers in interpersonal interaction.hile subject to some of the
same limita-
ions (when is physical crowding suffi-ient to result in
“pressure”?), both ofhese approaches may represent comple-
entary perspectives to explore how de-ographic change is linked
to social sys-
ems.
PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHICDEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
Examining the important dimension ofuman subsistence resource
imbalances,number of researchers have examined
ow increased sedentism and the devel-pment of new forms of food
productionay have been linked to increased popu-
ation growth in the Natufian (c. 12,500–c.0, 500/300 B.P.) and
Pre-Pottery Neolithiceriods of the south-central Levant
(c.0,500/300–c. 8,000 B.P.) (Bar-Yosef andelfer-Cohen 1989, 1991;
Bar-Yosef andislev 1989; Cohen 1977; Smith et al.984).1 The
development of food produc-
1 The Pre-Pottery Neolithic period of this region, anarea
encompassing the modern political states of Jor-dan, Israel,
southern Lebanon and Syria, and the Sinaidesert of Egypt, was
originally subdivided by Bar-Yo-sef (1981) into the Early, Middle,
and Late Pre-Pottery
tion based on several wild and domesticplant species in the Late
Natufian andPPNA resulted in several important socialchanges.
Archaeological evidence demon-strates that the appearance of food
pro-duction corresponds with three criticalpatterns in the
archaeological record: (1) aradical improvement of the
predictabilityand scheduling of plant availability, (2) anincreased
capacity for food storage, and(3) a growth in the potential
maximumsize of individual communities in the en-tire region. The
first of these points is im-portant in that increased knowledge
andmanipulation of the predictability andscheduling of plants
ultimately leads toimproved control of certain food re-sources,
thereby reducing the susceptibil-ity of communities to
environmental fluc-tuations. In a related fashion, thedevelopment
of food storage not onlyserves as a short-term buffer for
foodstress, but also enhances the managementof subsistence
resources over the longterm. Finally, the development of
foodproduction, as exemplified by horticultureand agriculture,
increases the potentialmaximum community size as well as
in-fluences a variety of interlinked factors(for example, new
weaning foods, de-
Neolithic B periods (EPPNB, MPPNB, and LPPNB), abroad scheme
that continues to be employed by ar-chaeologists. Although not
defined in Bar-Yosef’s orig-inal study, it is generally held that
Early Pre-PotteryNeolithic B lasted from approximately 9600 to 9300
B.P.,followed by the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (9300–8500
B.P.) and the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (8500–8000 B.P.).
Reconsideration of the archaeological evi-dence for a distinct
transitional stage between thePPNA and MPPNB question if there is
sufficient evi-dence to support arguments for an EPPNB phase,
al-ternatively noting that the PPNA may lead directly intowhat has
been termed the MPPNB. In this article Iadopt this more
conservative scheme, but at the sametime continue to employ the
original terms MiddlePre-Pottery Neolithic B, lasting from 9300 to
8500 B.P.,and the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B lasting from 8500to
8000 B.P. to maintain standardization with previousliterature.
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cw
80 IAN KUIJT
creased birth spacing, and stable resourceeconomies) (Smith et
al. 1984).
In addressing the nature of the possibleconnections between
population growthand changing social arrangements insouthern
Levantine villages, it is impor-tant to address two scales of
analysis: ex-tracommunity- (regional) and communi-ty- (site) level
changes through time.Needless to say, developing accurate
esti-mates for these is highly complex andcomplicated by issues of
changing archae-ological visibility of settlements throughdifferent
periods (such as the PPNA withmud architecture and the PPNB
withstone architecture and painted plasterfloors) as well as by
variations in the loca-tion, architectural remains, and size of
set-tlements within an individual cultural–historical period in
different environ-mental regions (Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Co-hen 1991;
Kuijt 1994). Smaller seasonalPPNB encampments are, for example,more
likely to have been totally destroyedand are less likely to be
recorded in fieldsurveys than large PPNB villages. If oneaccepts
this proposition, then this resultsin a classic bad news/good news
situation:archaeologists are unlikely to be able toreconstruct the
nature of total settlementvariability for a single period with
anydegree of confidence, but have a betterchance of understanding
the overallchange in the size of the largest settle-ments through
time, as they are mostlikely to be recorded. Thus, drawing uponsite
size data from a single environmentalzone, such as the
Mediterranean zone ofthe south-central Levant, probably pro-vides
our best means of understandingregional- and site-level
demographicchanges through time.
Working on the assumption that thelargest settlements provide a
relative ideaof changing demographic patternsthrough time, it is
informative to comparehow the size of the five largest
settlementschanged through time. Viewed collec-
tively, we witness a pattern of consider-able expansion in
communities from theperiod of 11,000 to c. 8,000 B.P., and
mosttotably in the LPPNB (Table 1, Figs. 1 and2). For example,
while the five largestknown Late Natufian settlements are
eachapproximately 2,000 m2, this figure in-reased dramatically in
the PPNA period,ith settlements averaging over 10,000 m2.
The largest known MPPNB period settle-ments range in area from
45,000 to 50,000m2, and later post-8,500-B.P. LPPNB set-tlements
such as Basta and ‘Ain Ghazal,cover nearly 140,000 m2 (Fig. 3). The
dis-tribution of Early Neolithic sites by sizeillustrates a
trajectory of a steady increasein the size of largest settlements
throughtime, while remembering that this patternis not necessarily
representative of the to-tal variability in settlement practices.
Evenif smaller sites were underrepresented inthe archaeological
record, which is likelyto be the case, this does not eliminate
theneed to explain the emergence of large(between 10 and 14 ha)
LPPNB mega vil-lages/towns situated along the
Jordanianhighlands.
This pattern of expansion provides uswith a coarse means of
developing a pre-liminary understanding of the overallcomparative
magnitude of change in thesize of individual Neolithic
communities,within different physiographic regions,and sets the
stage for exploring how peo-ple in these communities coped
withshifts in settlement and lifeways duringthe Neolithic. Although
clearly limiteddue to several methodological issues, eth-nographic
observations on the relation-ship between the physical size of
agricul-tural settlements, the number and size ofresidential
structures, and the number ofpeople who live in them provides us
witha useful, albeit coarse grained, means ofestimating the
relative numbers of peopleliving in prehistoric agricultural
settle-ments (Tables 1 and 2). Making any pop-ulation estimate
based on settlement size
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TABLE 1
P
M
L
P
y
81NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
relies on several critical assumptions: (1)the type and density
of structures in exca-vated areas are representative of the siteas
a whole, (2) the horizontal extent ofcultural materials for each
site is repre-sentative of the actual extent of the site
Estimated Site Area and Possible Correlated CPPNC Periods in
the
Period Site
Approxdeptcultudepo
Late Natufian(11,000–10,300 B.P.) ’Ain Mallaha (Ic/b) ,1
Nahal Oren ,1Hatoula (4a,b,5) ,1Saaı̈dé II ,1Shukbah ,1
PNA(10,300–9,300 B.P.) Jericho 8
Netiv Hagdud 3Gilgal I 3Dhra’ 2.5Nahal Oren 2
PPNB(c. 9,300–8,500 B.P.) ’Ain Ghazal 3
Tell Aswad ?Jericho 4Yiftahel 1.5Kfar Hahoresh 2
PPNB(c. 8,500–8,000 B.P.) Basta 4
’Ain Ghazal 1.5Wadi Shu’eib (?) 4Beisamoun 2Es-Sifiya 3’Ain
Jammam 3Ramad I ?
PNC/Final PPNB(c. 8,000–7,500 B.P.) ’Ain Ghazal 1
Basta (?) ?Ramad II (?) ?
a Based on Byrd (1989); Belfer-Cohen (1991); Kuijtb Kramer
(1982: 162) and Watson (1979: 35–47) esti
people living in a 1000-m2 village ranges from 83ear-round in a
1-ha settlement, figures rounded up
c Based on research on Tell Marib, a modern site iof 286–302
people per hectare. For the purposes of scommunity population
levels with results rounded u
d Mean population based on the largest five comm
while occupied and the occupation den-sity is constant in all
areas of the site, and(3) the social and economic systems forsites
from different periods are similarenough to 20th-century
ethnographicstudies to permit comparisons. There is no
munity Levels for the Late Natufian throughuth-Central
Levanta
atef Site
area(ha)
Estimatedpopulation
levelb
Estimatedpopulation
levelc
Meanpopulation
leveld
0.2 18 59 590.2 18 590.2 18 590.2 18 590.2 18 59
2.5 225 735 3321.5 135 4411.0 90 2940.45 41 1320.2 18 59
4.5 405 1323 7644 360 11762.5 225 7351.5 135 4410.5 45 147
14 1260 4116 329310 900 294010 900 294010 900 294010 900
2940
6–8 (7) 630 2058? ? ?
12 1080 3528 382214 (?) 1260 (?) 41162 (?) ? ?
95) and references therein.te that among agriculturists the
average number of97. This calculation assumes that 90 people
lived
emen, van Beek (1982: 64–65) provides an estimatelicity a mean
of 294 has been employed to calculate
ities, based on van Beek (1982) estimates.
omSo
imh oralsits
mmmmm
mmmmm
m
mmm
mmmmmm
m
(19mato.n Y
impp.un
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82 IAN KUIJT
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83NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
question that some of these assumptionsare tenuous, and,
therefore, it is best toemploy the resulting data as
comparableestimates rather than as straightforwardreferents for
past populations (see Ed-wards 1989; Fletcher 1986; Hassan
1982;
FIG. 1. Population shifts from the Late Pre-Pperiods. (A)
Expansion of existing Middle Pre-Poof large Late Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B period villareduction in size or total abandonment of
largeestablishement of new small Pre-Pottery NeolJericho IX)
villages and hamlets (c. 8000–7000 B
FIG. 2. Increase of total area of the five largeLPPNB
settlements compared to mean compart
Hershkovitz and Gopher 1990 for furtherdiscussion). Research in
western Iran byKramer (1982: 162), for example, indicatesthat, on
average, 97 adults, children, andinfants live within a 1-ha
agriculturalcommunity. Similar research by Watson
ry Neolithic B period to the Pottery Neolithicry Neolithic B
period settlements and foundingin southern Levant (c.
8500/8300–8000 B.P.); (B)te Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period villages
andc C period/Pottery Neolithic (Yarmukian and.
south-central Levantine Late Natufian throughntalization for the
same periods.
ottette
gesLa
ithi.P.)
stme
-
FIG
.3.
Ch
angi
ng
dim
ensi
ons
ofso
uth
-cen
tral
Lev
anti
ne
Nat
ufi
anan
dN
eolit
hic
mor
tuar
yp
ract
ices
,foo
dp
rod
uct
ion
,an
dd
emog
rap
hic
chan
ge.
84 IAN KUIJT
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TABLE 2
85NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
(1982: 35) in Hasanabad provides a meanof 83 people for the same
area. Researchby van Beek (1982) at Tell Marib, inYemen, provides
considerably higherpopulation estimates with around 294
in-dividuals living within the same 1-ha area.This variability
indicates that it is neitherpractical nor wise to employ such
datawith the purpose of determining defini-tive population levels
for individual com-munities; however, I believe that these
es-timates facilitate comparative studies ofdemographic shifts for
the Neolithic inspecific geographical contexts.
While also limited, examination of theamount of roofed-floor
area provides asecond means of estimating populationchange within
Neolithic communities.Ethnographic studies of roofed-floor
area,numbers of structures, and household sizesuggest that each
adult person in a seden-tary agricultural and horticultural
contextgenerally requires between 9 and 10 m2 offloor space (Kramer
1982; Leblanc 1971;Naroll 1962; Watson 1982). If we assumethat
these behavioral observations offerreasonable correlates for the
Late Natu-fian and Early Neolithic, these estimatespredict a
pattern of a phenomenal in-crease in the size of LPPNB aggregate
vil-lage communities in comparison to the
Estimated Increases in Site Size, Population Levels,PPNC Period
Settlements in the Medite
Period
Estimatedmean sitesize (ha)
Estimateincreas
site si
Late Natufian(11,000–10,300 B.P.)
0.2 —
PPNA(10,300–9,300 B.P.)
1.0 500%
MPPNB(9,300–8,500 B.P.)
3.0 1500%
LPPNB(8,500–8,000 B.P.)
10.0 5000%
PPNC(c.8,000–7,750 B.P.)
12.0 (?) 6000%
previous period (Figs. 2 and 4). Althoughpopulation estimates
differ dependingupon which ethnographic source one fa-vors, the
overall reconstructions that re-sult from these analyses are very
similar.Based on these reconstructions the largestLate Natufian
communities consisted offewer than 50 people, while the largestPPNA
communities contained severalhundred people, living in
residentialstructures over an area of 0.5 to 1.5 ha,such as at
Jericho, Netiv Hagdud, Dhra‘,and Gilgal I. MPPNB settlements
ex-panded to approximately 2–4 ha, with acorresponding increase in
the density ofresidential structures within the settle-ment, and
were occupied by as many asseveral hundred to over a thousand
peo-ple. At about 8500 B.P. the size of thesealready large
communities increased dra-matically and may well have
numberedupward of several thousands of people,living in
high-density housing such as thatseen at Basta, ‘Ain Ghazal, and
Es-Sifiya,and covering an area of at least 10 ha(Mahasneh 1995;
Nissen et al. 1987; Rollef-son et al. 1992). These data illustrate
anincrease of nearly 5000% in the size ofsettlements over the
2000-year transitionfrom the Late Natufian to the LPPNB
pe-riod.
d Compartmentalization for Late Natufian throughnean Zone of the
South-Central Levant
Estimated meanpopulation (van
Beek 1982)
Estimated meancompartmentalization(mean from Table 3)
59 1.6 compartments/100 m2
332 2.4 compartments/100 m2
764 6.4 compartments/100 m2
3293 14.5 compartments/100 m2
3822 (?) unclear
anrra
d %e inze
(?)
-
86 IAN KUIJT
The extent to which this increase in thesize of settlements
reflects regional popu-lation growth or population aggregationat
individual sites remains unclear. Thisreconstruction of regional
Neolithic de-mographics is probably a conflation of twointerrelated
processes: (1) gradual andsteady regional population growththrough
the Neolithic period; and (2) pop-ulation aggregation in large and
impor-tant settlements, like Basta and ‘AinGhazal, for ritual,
political, and economic
FIG. 4. Changes in south-central Levantinerelation to Neolithic
mortuary practices and foogate LPPNB villages postdates the
domesticatio2000 years.
reasons (Rollefson 1987). Based on figuresfor the total
settlement area for the periodof c. 11,000 to 8,000 B.P., it can be
arguedthat population levels increased graduallyup to, and probably
including, the PPNA.In the LPPNB, and perhaps more specifi-cally
for the period between c. 8,300 and8,000 B.P., human communities
increasedat a much greater rate during and imme-diately after the
widespread introductionof domesticated plants and animals in
thesouth-central Levant (Figs. 3 and 4). With-
Natufian through LPPNB settlements size inroduction. Note that
the appearance of aggre-most plants and animals by between 1000
and
Lated p
n of
-
87NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
out future field research on the distribu-tion of
different-sized settlements andchanges in the density of
residential hous-ing through time it is not possible to esti-mate
the extent to which increased settle-ment area is due to regional
populationgrowth rather than to population aggrega-tion. At the
same time, based on thesecomparative estimates it is clear that
thedemographic changes must have influ-enced social structures in
these communi-ties.
LPPNB COMMUNITIES: SOCIALCROWDING AND RELATIONS
While questions remain as to the degreeto which regional
population levels in-creased through the PPNB, current evi-dence
indicates that individual communi-ties increased significantly and
leads us toexamine some of the short-term aspects tothis
transition: what kinds of strategiesdid people employ to deal with
thesechanges, and how did these changes alterdaily life and living
conditions of peoplein these communities? Specifically,
whatevidence do we have for how people mayhave coped with increased
populationpressure, aggregation, and social crowd-ing in daily
life, and how might this berelated to the eventual abandonment
ofagricultural villages at around 8000 B.P. atthe end of the Late
Pre-Pottery Neolithic Bperiod of the south-central Levant? In
theLPPNB of the south-central Levant thereappears to have been
considerable vari-ability in economic orientation, subsis-tence
systems, and the size and per-manence of settlements in different
envi-ronmental areas (see Bar-Yosef andMeadow 1995; Byrd 1992;
Garrard et al.1994). In desertic areas, for example, wefind
settlements comprised of round oroval stone structures covering a
relativelysmall area, inhabited by people combin-ing the hunting of
wild game and agricul-ture as a subsistence strategy. In other
areas, such as in or to the west of theJordan Valley, LPPNB
communities wereconsiderably larger (covering c. 2.5 ha),with
rectangular architecture and foodproduction based on domesticated
plantsand animals (Bar-Yosef and Meadow1995). Along the eastern
side of the JordanValley, we find a very different settlementtype,
including the emergence of large LP-PNB communities of several
thousandpeople living in tightly packed residentialstructures
covering an area between 10and 14 ha (Fig. 1). These LPPNB
commu-nities, including the settlements of Basta,‘Ain al-Jammam,
‘Ain Ghazal, and Es-Si-fiya, were situated along the ecological
ec-otones of the Jordanian highlands, an areathat receives
considerable rainfall even to-day (see Bisheh et al. 1993; Nissen
et al.1987; Rollefson et al. 1992). Although theenvironmental,
demographic, and socialreasons for the emergence and
eventualcollapse of these villages is still poorlyunderstood, these
large LPPNB communi-ties can be envisioned as aggregate vil-lages,
resulting from regional populationincreases as well as the
aggregation ofmembers from earlier MPPNB communi-ties. While it is
not entirely clear howthese large LPPNB communities werelinked to
each other, or for that matterwith other smaller LPPNB
communitiessituated in desertic environments orwithin the
Mediterranean zone, recentfield research illustrates that the
relativescale of these communities embodied adistinctly different
lifestyle from othertypes of earlier, contemporaneous, andlater
settlements.
LPPNB Compartmentalization and Two-Story Architectural
Systems
Two of the more visible strategies thatLPPNB community members
adopted inresponse to increased population levelsand control of
food resources involved thedevelopment of two-story
architecture
-
TABLE 3
88 IAN KUIJT
and the compartmentalization of build-ings. Drawing on
architectural data from‘Ain Ghazal and Beidha, Banning andByrd
(1987, 1989), among others, note thatthe later phases of the PPNB
period arecharacterized by a greater subdivision ofstructures.
Placing these observations in abroader regional and more detailed
tem-poral framework, examination of themean number of compartments
in a100-m2 area illustrates a significant in-crease in
compartmentalization of resi-dential structures from the Late
Natufian
Estimated Compartmentalization for Lin the South
Period Site/areaS
size
Late Natufian(11,000–10,300 B.P.)
’Ain MallahaNieveu I
Jericho cSQ E I,II,VPhase Ii
PPNA(10,300–9,300 B.P.) Netiv Hagdud Upper area
JerichoSq E I,II,III Phase IV xvi
JerichoSq M I Phase VIII xxxix
JerichoSq M I Phase L
Nahal OrenMPPNB
(9,300–8,500 B.P.)’Ain Ghazal
(Central field)Jericho
Sq M I Phase XV lxxviiiJericho
Tr III Phase IX xxiJericho
Tr I Phase XVIa xxviiiJericho
Sq E I, II, III Phase Xxlii
JerichoTr I Phase XXI
LPPNB(8,500–8,000 B.P.) Basta (Area A) 1
Basta (Area B) 1
through to the LPPNB aggregate villages(Table 3, Fig. 2). In the
Late Natufian, forexample, available data indicate that therewere
approximately 1.6 compartments per100 m2, and by the PPNA this
figure in-creased marginally to 2.4. By the MPPNB,however, we see a
substantial increase incompartmentalization, with an average of6.3
compartments per 100 m2. This trendcontinued into the LPPNB. Recent
excava-tions at several settlements, includingBasta, ‘Ain
al-Jammam, and Es-Sifiya,document a dramatic increase in this
pat-
Natufian through LPPNB Settlementsntral Levant
a)
Totalexc.area(m2)
No. ofstructures/
compts.
Estimatedmean compts./
100m2Estimated
mean compts.
240 c.4/4 1.7 LNat 5 1.665 1/1 1.5
500 10/11 2.2 PPNA 5 2.475 2/2 2.6
90 2/2 2.2
90 2/2 2.2
500 13/13 2.6
200 5/c.15 7.5 MPPNB 5 6.495 2/5 5.3
92 3/5 5.4
80 2/5 6.3
70 3/5 7.1
112 3/7 6.3
240 Unknown/32 13.3 LPPNB 5 14.5108 Unknown/22 15.7
ate-Ce
ite(h
0.2.0.2
1.52.5
2.5
2.5
0.5
4.02.5
2.5
2.5
2.5
2.5
4.04.0
-
89NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
tern, with an average of 14.5 compart-ments per 100 m2 (Fig. 5)
and with re-duced space between buildings as well(Fig. 6). This
suggests that as the size ofthe community grew, PPNB peoples
con-tinually subdivided the space in theirdwellings: perhaps this
compartmental-ization reflects the increased stress of so-cial
crowding and desire to delineatespace for privacy, or growing
emphasis onpersonal goods and ownership, or, mostlikely, a
combination of these and otherfactors.
FIG. 5. Plan view of exposed LPPNB (c. 8200floor central room, 1
3 1.5-m storage rooms alcentral room and storage rooms. Profile of
exca(after Nissen et al. 1987: Fig. 7).
Significantly, this LPPNB trend towardincreasing segmentation of
space was ac-companied by another important devel-opment: the
development of two-storybuildings. One of the most obvious
differ-ences between LPPNB aggregate villagesand contemporary
smaller settlements indesertic areas, as well as earlier
MPPNBcommunities, was the development of ar-chitectural systems
that employed two-story structures. Two-story architecture,combined
with the high overall density ofbuildings within LPPNB
communities,
.) building at Area B, Basta, Jordan. Note firstouter edges, and
access openings connecting
d interior walls (section A–A9) is seen in Fig. 7
B.Pongvate
-
FIG
.6.
Est
imat
edch
ange
sin
com
mu
nit
ysi
zeto
den
sity
ofh
ousi
ng
for
open
air
Lat
eN
atu
fian
thro
ugh
Pot
tery
Neo
lith
icse
ttle
men
tslo
cate
din
the
Med
iter
ran
ean
vege
tati
vezo
ne
ofth
eso
uth
-cen
tral
Lev
ant.
90 IAN KUIJT
-
FIG
.7.
Pro
file
ofex
pos
edst
and
ing
wal
lof
two-
stor
yL
PP
NB
(c.8
200
B.P
.)bu
ildin
gin
Are
aB
,Bas
ta,J
ord
an(s
ecti
onA
–A9)
.Vie
wfr
omfi
rst-
floo
rce
ntr
alro
omlo
okin
gn
orth
east
,of
open
entr
ance
sto
stor
age
room
s(a
fter
Nis
sen
etal
.198
7:Fi
g.8b
).
91NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
-
92 IAN KUIJT
-
93NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
subdivision of buildings, and the huge in-crease in the total
area of LPPNB settle-ments, is likely to be linked to the
exis-tence of social crowding in thesecommunities or the
development of stor-age areas inside of residences. As
notedearlier, excavations at MPPNB Beidha un-covered evidence for a
lower buildingfoundation upon which the main residen-tial area was
constructed (Byrd 1994; Byrdand Banning 1988). This lower level
wasemployed for storage or perhaps even ascramped work areas. This
pattern clearlychanges with the LPPNB, with the con-struction of
two-story buildings at selectlarge settlements, such as Basta,
Es-Sifiya,‘Ain al-Jammam, and possibly Ghwair I(Najjar 1994). At
Basta, for example, thereis evidence for past existence of
two-storybuildings, with the first floor being orga-nized so as to
surround an enclosed cen-tral room, probably accessed from
above,with small (between 1 3 1 and 1.5 3 1.5 m)storage areas
(Figs. 7 and 8). In contrast,the second floor probably served as
themajor residential area and was supportedby a large wooden beam
placed on large1.5- to 2.0-m-high pillars of fitted rectan-gular
fieldstones.
The construction of multiple buildinglevels holds immense
implications for ex-ploration of demography, social crowdingand
population pressure, for this clearlyreflects a strategy to deal
with changingsocial conditions within these communi-ties. First,
the archaeological evidencesuggests that LPPNB community mem-bers
expanded space vertically to facilitatethe creation of specialized
activity areas,such as food storage downstairs and/orupstairs
residential areas, as well as toincrease control of access to
select areas.Second, a community’s expansion of us-
FIG. 8. Architectural reconstruction of two-stoJordan, based on
excavated architectural remcentral room and the open second floor
area, w
able space upward would have resulted inan increased density of
residential hous-ing, a higher capacity for housing people,and a
reduction in sanitation conditions.Finally, it is possible that
household mem-bers recognized the functional need forthe creation
of shaded, cool storage areasin settlements located along the
desertmargins. Whatever the ultimate reason(s),the existence of
multiple levels of rooms atlarge LPPNB settlements raises the
clearpossibility that a greater number of peo-ple lived within
these communities than isreflected by mean site areas and, just
asimportantly, that the density is evengreater than previously
recognized. It isalso clear that widespread adoption oftwo-story
buildings indicates a broad cul-tural choice, one that apparently
reflectsboth how people coped with increased so-cial crowding in
communities and the de-velopment of dedicated storage areas
sit-uated inside of buildings.
Admittedly, it is very difficult to substan-tiate through
material means the scale andinfluence of social crowding, let alone
socialcrowding within communities, whether inthe past or the
present. While the challengefor all archaeologists is to develop
inventivemeans of interpreting past societies throughmaterial
culture, the built environment, andthe residue of behaviors, we are
commonlyforced to rely upon qualitative and relativ-istic data
sources rather than quantitativematerials. For example, it is clear
that thegeneral increase in depth of cultural depos-its at PPNA,
MPPNB, and LPPNB agricul-tural villages occurs simultaneously with
anincrease in settlement area. The volume ofsediment produced by
cultural activities atLPPNB Basta, probably occupied for around200
years, is staggeringly different from the10001 years of Early and
Late Natufian oc-
LPPNB (c. 8200 B.P.) building at Area B, Basta,. Note storage
rooms surrounding first-floorh likely served as the residential
area.
ryainshic
-
c
nities in the south-central Levant were
94 IAN KUIJT
cupation at ‘Ain Mallaha. ‘Ain Mallaha,which is among the
largest known Levan-tine Natufian open-air sites with
architec-ture, resulted in approximately 3,000 m3 ofultural
deposits (2,000-m2 area and 1.5-m
deep deposits). Conversely, the LPPNB oc-cupation at Basta
resulted in approximately420,000 m3 of cultural deposits
(140,000-m2
area and approximately 3-m deep deposits)over a much shorter
period of time. Even ifwe assume that later Neolithic
occupationscreated more archaeological debris per cap-ita due to
different architectural techniquesor that this pattern is the
result of differentsettlement processes and use of materialsfor
architecture, this trend reflects an in-crease in human activities
that is both intu-itively impressive and, at the same
time,frustratingly difficult to quantify. Returningback to our case
study once again, one canintuitively argue that increased volume
ofcultural materials in LPPNB settlements re-flects an even greater
population increasethan that presented by settlement areaalone. It
is, needless to say, very difficult toquantitatively assess the
magnitude of thisrelationship and, more importantly, for
ar-chaeologists to understand the causes andimplications of such
human behavior. Re-gardless of these difficulties, considerationof
the nature of long-term changes in com-munity size, the built
environment, andsome of the possible strategies that
villagersenacted to deal with reduced privacy, in-creased crowding,
and changes in access toresources help us to understand how
mate-rial culture and cultural practices were em-ployed in the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic to offsetchanging living conditions.
NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHICCHANGES, SOCIAL RELATIONS,AND THE
“ABANDONMENT” OF
LPPNB COMMUNITIES
It is important to note that many, if notmost, of the large
LPPNB village commu-
abandoned at some point between 8000and 7750 B.P., with new, and
usuallysmaller, hamlets founded at the beginningof the Pottery
Neolithic. In a few rarecases, such as Sha’ar ha Golan,
communi-ties may have covered upward of 1.5 ha,albeit with only
limited density of archi-tecture. The regional pattern of
sharplyreduced size of communities in the Pot-tery Neolithic
compared to the Pre-Pot-tery Neolithic has been noted across
thesouth-central Levant and has led manyresearchers to explore how
aspects of en-vironmental change and ecological degra-dation might
be interrelated (see Bar-Yo-sef and Belfer-Cohen 1991;
Köhler-Rollefson and Rollefson 1990; Rollefson1996 for further
discussion). I believe that,in combination with these factors, it
is im-portant for us to examine some of theways in which the
abandonment of thesevillages was linked to other social
condi-tions. Specifically, in this section I explorehow long-term
demographic changes andshort-term, daily, social relations
withincommunities were interrelated, and ulti-mately how these
might be linked to theabandonment of large regional communi-ties.
In addressing the first of these issues,let us return to the
question of what forcesmight have initially brought people
to-gether in these village communities. Inbrief, I believe that the
significant increasein the scale of certain LPPNB
communitiesreflects several interrelated processes, in-cluding the
development and mainte-nance of elaborate public mortuary
ritualsenacted by members of larger communi-ties, which attracted
members of house-holds living in adjacent settlements;
thesimultaneous reinforcement of the au-thority of select ritual
practitioners whoorganized and enacted these rituals; andthe
emergence of powerful lineages andHouses within larger communities
(Kuijt1995). Following Rollefson (1987) andRollefson and
Köhler-Rollefson (1989), I
-
95NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
suggest that in the south-central Levan-tine Pre-Pottery
Neolithic periods we findcompelling evidence for regional socialand
economic centers in the Near East. Asoutlined elsewhere (Kuijt
1995, 1996), thepublic nature of PPNB household andcommunity
mortuary and ritual practiceswithin these large settlements may
wellhave increasingly encouraged lineages tomerge with other
residential groups withwhom they shared some preexisting so-cial,
economic, or ritual bonds (such askinship). It is important to
note, however,that the emergence of more powerful lin-eages through
alliance did not result inthe expression of social differentiation
in-dicative of positions of leadership otherthan perhaps that of
representative lead-ership from multiple households. The ac-tual
and figurative consolidation of re-lated, although previously
separatelineages, would have also created newstressful conditions
at the community andlineage level. Increased social crowdingwithin
buildings and conflicts between in-dividual lineages over rights
and obliga-tions and possibly even with competingritual
organizations may have playedcompeting roles in shaping social
ar-rangements within PPNB Neolithic com-munities. With this
perspective we mustrecognize that people in Neolithic vil-lages, at
the household, lineage, and com-munity levels, dynamically crafted
socialrelationships in certain ways to respond tospecific
demographic dimensions.
In this light the relinquishing of LPPNBlifeways, particularly
the abandonment ofthese large aggregate villages between8000 and
7750 B.P., may well have beenrelated to changes within a broader
set ofritualistic and social beliefs, in combina-tion with regional
environmental changesand local environmental degradation.
Inparticular, I would emphasize four possi-ble interrelated social
processes ofchange, including (1) the inherent limita-tions of
LPPNB social organization to cope
with increasing population aggregation,conditions of social
crowding, and scalarstress (Johnson 1982); (2) the influence
ofscalar stress in diminishing the ability ofHouse, ritual, and
economic leaders to ef-fectively manage and organize all seg-ments
of the community; (3) the emer-gence of politically, economically,
andsocially more powerful Houses or lineagescharacterized by
greater access and con-trol of some resources and privileges;
and(4) the overall effect of the complex inter-play between these
factors in challengingthe fundamental rationale for the exis-tence
of this ritual system and the groupof people who controlled it.
Potentially, the increases in the scaleand density of these
LPPNB communitieswould have also challenged existing
socialstructures for organizing labor at certainperiods of the
year, as well as created agreater need for competing and
cooperat-ing hierarchical structures for sharing in-formation and
materials. As outlined ear-lier, available architectural and
settlementdata illustrate a progressive growth incrowding stress
within LPPNB NeolithicHouses, lineages, and communities, creat-ing
social congestion, perceived loss ofcontrol over one’s immediate
environ-ment, and an overall reduction in privacy,all of which
encourage people to segmenttheir physical space (Altman 1977;
Rap-poport 1975). If architectural segmentationwere only partially
linked to food storageand the construction of two-story build-ings,
then it is clearly possible that LPPNBcompartmentalization may have
alsoserved as a strategy to control/limit accessto certain areas.
People would have con-structed physical barriers to physicallyand
socially further define stages alongthe continuum of more public to
moreprivate space. The LPPNB compartmen-talization seen at Basta,
for example, re-flects on some level the decision by com-munity or
House members to createadditional residential space, more
physi-
-
96 IAN KUIJT
cal and social barriers, and a greater ca-pacity for storage. As
such, people’s andcommunity’s conceptualizations of pri-vacy and
access may have been funda-mentally redefined and, by extension,
thechanges in the built environment influ-enced and reshaped the
creation of social,economic, and political relationshipswithin and
between Houses, lineages, andMPPNB and LPPNB communities. If
weassume, like Banning and Byrd (1987,1989), that the segmentation
of MPPNBand LPPNB architecture reflects socialforces, such as
crowding and attempts forgreater privacy and to control access
tospace within Houses, then it must also berecognized that
ultimately this strategywas inherently limited as a long-term
so-lution. Specifically, there are clear physi-cal limitations as
to how close buildingscan be constructed and still maintainstreet
access and the degree to whichcompartmentalization can occur
withinresidences. Archaeological evidence indi-cates that
population growth in the LP-PNB expanded beyond this threshold,when
it was no longer possible for com-munity members to continue
segmentingspace in structures (Fig. 5).
Shifting patterns of mortuary activityand ritual in the LPPNB
may also reflectthese fundamental changes in socialstructures. I
believe that the emergence ofmore powerful lineages, as well as
in-creased social stresses related to crowdingand information
exchange, limited thepractical ability for the community to
par-ticipate in communal rituals. For instancethose rituals that
were practiced wouldhave had a reduced effect on the commu-nity due
to increases in scale and/or resis-tance to increasing social
segmentation.When ritual and mortuary ceremonies areconducted less
frequently and less effec-tively, the entire foundation for social
co-hesion may be weakened. Not only is therationale for community
practices weak-ened, or even worse dismantled, but so is
the physical means of reiterating theseideological and moral
messages on a reg-ular basis.
Furthermore, if one accepts that someform of ritual/economic
elite oversawLPPNB ritual and mortuary practiceswhile also
adjudicating interfamily dis-putes, organizing communal labor,
andserving as the main community source forthe distribution of
information (see Kuijt1996), then it follows that the erosion
ofritual and mortuary practices were tied toa decrease of support
for this ritual elite,the very reasons for population aggrega-tion,
and the attractiveness of living inlarge ritual centers. In short,
the socialcohesive force holding LPPNB communi-ties together would
have dissolved, aswould the motivations for individualmembers,
Houses, and lineages to volun-tarily relinquish their various
rights andprivileges. With the weakening or re-moval of the overall
ideological structureupon which this culture of village life
wasbased, ritual systems no longer were ableto maintain group
solidarity as seen in theMPPNB. Moreover, the promotion or
rec-ognition of some individuals or familiesover others, thereby
providing them withgreater access to resources and privileges,would
have undermined the entire systemof egalitarian/communal values and
be-liefs seen as early as the MPPNB. Withoutvoluntary participation
and belief in theritual systems and worldview by all com-munity
members, and in the face of re-gional environmental changes and
degra-dation of conditions around settlements,there would have been
few, if any, factorsto attract individuals or families to
largeagricultural centers and little in the way ofsocial, economic,
or ritual reasons to keepdisgruntled community members fromleaving
the settlement for other areas.
In this light, the “collapse” of the LP-PNB lifeways can be
visualized as a dis-persal of people from a number of
largepopulation aggregation centers, such as
-
97NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
‘Ain Ghazal or Basta, to an increasingnumber of small hamlets or
villages scat-tered across the south-central Levant. Im-portant
dimensions in this settlement shiftprobably included degrading
environ-mental conditions and the overexploita-tion of local
resources (Rollefson 1996;Rollefson and Köhler-Rollefson 1989).
Ul-timately, however, the argument I offersuggests that the
cessation of LPPNB mor-tuary and ritual practices at around
8000B.P. proved to be an equally importantfactor: the system of
social beliefs that cre-ated these communities in the MPPNB/LPPNB
was unable to deal with the newrealities of village life requiring
greatersocial segmentation and people living inincreasingly
compressed physical condi-tions. In many ways, therefore, the
emer-gence of economic and social elites, andeventual consolidation
of power in thehands of a few individuals by the end ofthe LPPNB,
may have been major ele-ments in the process of fragmentation
ofthese large aggregate LPPNB communi-ties.
REFLECTIONS ON DEMOGRAPHICCHANGE, THE EMERGENCE OF
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION, ANDFOOD PRODUCTION
A number of recent studies by archae-ologists and
anthropologists devote in-creased attention to the social
dimensionsof the emergence of food production inparticular and the
Neolithic in general(Bar-Yosef and Meadow 1995; Byrd 1994;Hayden
1995; Watson 1995). These worksillustrate that only limited
attention hasbeen afforded to anthropological issues ofchanging
social complexity, the organiza-tion of labor in these communities,
thestrategies employed by community mem-bers in the face of
drastically changingeconomic conditions, and shifts in thecontrol
of resources and the built environ-ment. Ultimately it is through a
consider-
ation of how these issues, as well as betterunderstood topics,
are interwoven in pastsocial contexts that anthropologists
andarchaeologists are able to reflect upon thehuman dimensions of
the Neolithic, iden-tifying household and community con-cerns, and
how these might be linked tohow people coped with profoundly
signif-icant economic, environmental, and socialchanges.
As noted earlier, one conclusion thatcan be drawn from
examination ofchanges in the largest Natufian and Pre-Pottery
Neolithic settlements is that PPNBcommunities reflect both regional
popula-tion growth as well as community levelpopulation aggregation
for ritual and eco-nomic reasons. Often anthropologists
andarchaeologists have envisioned popula-tion
aggregation/growth/pressure as lead-ing to the development of new
social ar-rangements along hierarchical lines,largely for economic
reasons (e.g., Earle1987; Johnson and Earle 1982). From
thisperspective we would anticipate that thesouth-central Levantine
LPPNB, with evi-dence for a dramatic increase in the size
ofindividual settlements, centralization incertain large regional
settlements, and in-creased crowding stress, would providematerial
evidence for enormous increasesin social segmentation, perhaps
throughthe development of a clear, and firmlyentrenched,
hierarchical division of au-thority and power. On the basis of
analo-gies from other cultures, representative ofdifferent periods
of time and geographicalareas, one can argue that the combinationof
dramatic economic changes associatedwith food production and
population ag-gregation in regional centers in the LP-PNB would
have created a social contextin which certain individuals
consolidatedpower and authority within the Neolithiccommunities and
perhaps even in the de-velopment of hereditary authority.
Para-doxically, the material evidence suggests avery different
story. If anything, available
-
98 IAN KUIJT
archaeological data for approximately 500years of the MPPNB and
LPPNB indicatethat in the face of increased populationexpansion and
social stress at the lineageand community level, Neolithic
commu-nity members (1) continued to limit dis-plays of social
differentiation in mortuarypractices and residential architecture
(seeKuijt 1996) and (2) abandoned their largesettlements at c. 8000
B.P., disrupting thesocial and economic foundation of the LP-PNB
social structure and the lifeways tomove to small hamlets, which
exhibit verylittle evidence supporting social differen-tiation or
hierarchical structures.
This paradox between expectations ofanthropological models and
archaeolog-ical data leaves us with several thornyquestions. Most
importantly, if theselarge LPPNB villages emerged throughpopulation
aggregation due to the needfor increased centralization of
labor,the development of powerful Housesthrough kin and economic
units, and thedevelopment of regional economic andritual centers,
then why do we not seethe emergence of some form of central-ized
leadership? This is a difficult ques-tion, the answer to which
probably re-flects how power and authority mayhave been shared in
LPPNB communi-ties. Specifically, if LPPNB aggregate vil-lage
communities were organized alonglineage lines, then any system of
sharedpower and authority between Houseswould have been highly
competitive andprohibited the consolidation of authorityby a single
lineage, let alone individuals.Thus, it may well be that the social
rulesfor limiting the authority and power ofindividuals and Houses
in these LPPNBaggregate villages were stronger, appar-ently much
stronger, than the ability ofindividuals and Houses to
consolidatepower and authority in the hands of thefew over the
many. Simply put, it ap-pears that communities at the end of
thePre-Pottery Neolithic period were un-
able to develop new means of organizingpositions of leadership
in the face ofrapid changes in economic systems, en-vironmental
conditions, and the almost-exponential aggregation of people
intoLPPNB communities. From this perspec-tive, then, the
abandonment of LPPNBaggregate village communities along
theJordanian Highlands can be seen as afailed experiment in
balancing anti-quated systems of shared social powerwith the need
for developing new meansof organizing and directing
increasinglylarge urban communities with compet-ing House
leaders.
Viewed from a broader perspective, thisreconstruction of the
nature and timing ofdemographic change in the
south-centralLevantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic provides uswith some
important insights into severalcurrent
anthropological/archaeological de-bates. First, data on changing
settlementsize as well as the overall pattern of com-munity growth
indicates that regional pop-ulation growth and aggregation in
selectcommunities occurs at least 500 years afterthe domestication
of many, if not most,plants and animals (see Bar-Yosef andMeadow
1995). While this is hardly unex-pected, it does suggest that
archaeologistsshould reexamine the degree to which thedevelopment
of food production and thedomestication of plants and animals
shouldbe viewed as causally linked to populationgrowth within the
context of early agricul-tural village life. Second, this and
otherstudies indicate that while new community-shared forms of
leadership and social dif-ferentiation developed in the MPPNB
andLPPNB (probably House based and focusedon the maintenance and
administration ofritual practices and community labor), earlyforms
of food production and populationgrowth facilitated the emergence
of individ-ual powerful rulers who continued to ac-crue power and
authority over others. Asnoted elsewhere (Kuijt 1995, 1996),
consid-erable archaeological evidence suggests
-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
99NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
that PPNB communities intentionally lim-ited the accumulation of
differential author-ity by individuals through the prohibition
ofthe inclusion of grave goods or the use ofdifferential
residential architecture, both ofwhich can reflect mechanisms to
expressdifferences in status through material cul-ture. It appears
that while some differentialpower and authority was accumulated
byritual or economic elites within MPPNBcommunities, available
mortuary and archi-tectural evidence indicates that it is only
inthe late LPPNB (c. 8300–8000 B.P.), some 500years after almost
all domesticated plantsappeared, that we see extensive
mortuarygoods and differential treatment of thedead. Just as
importantly, the abandonmentof PPNB lifeways around 8000 B.P. and
thetransition to small Pottery Neolithic hamletscontaining fewer
than a hundred people,reflects a process of decentralization
andsocial fragmentation rather than successfulcentralization of
power and authority by in-dividuals. Thus, when powerful
individualleaders did emerge in the LPPNB they wereunable to
consolidate authority within thesecommunities and perhaps were
instrumen-tal in the social fragmentation that occurredwithin
prehistory’s earliest known agricul-tural villages. This suggests
that, at least inthe case of the Near Eastern Pre-PotteryNeolithic,
communities dealt with the newchallenges of emerging systems of
food pro-duction, food surpluses, labor needs, andincreased social
crowding and populationaggregation by continuing existing, and
de-veloping new, social mechanisms for main-taining communities
through the reiterationof social-leveling mechanisms.
Collectivelyunderstanding how communities, Houses,and individuals,
both intentionally and un-intentionally, reacted to changing
demo-graphic conditions provides new insightsinto the Neolithic and
helps anthropologistsand archaeologists better understand thesocial
side to this critical social, evolution-ary, and subsistence
transition.
This study has been directly and indirectly sup-ported by a host
of individuals at, as well as fundingfrom, the Social Sciences and
Humanities ResearchCouncil of Canada (Grants No. 753-91-0218 and
No.756-95-0073); the National Science Foundation(Grant No.
91-12725); the Department of Anthropol-ogy, Harvard University; the
Peabody Museum, Har-vard University; the Mellon Foundation; the
Depart-ment of Anthropology, University of California atBerkeley;
lots of friendly folks at the ArchaeologicalResearch Facility at
UCB; the American Schools ofOriental Research; the British
Institute in Amman forArchaeology and History; a Frederick Sheldon
Fel-lowship from Harvard University; and most recentlythe
Department of Anthropology, Brandeis Univer-sity, and the
Department of Anthropology and Soci-ology, Tufts University; the
Department of Geogra-phy at the University of Lethbridge. This
articledraws heavily upon data and ideas presented in mydoctoral
research. I thank Ofer Bar-Yosef, RosemaryJoyce, Bob Preucel, and
C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky fortheir comments on this original work, as
well asthose of Gil Stein, Gary Rollefson, Glenn Schwartz,John
O’Shea, several anonymous reviewers, and es-pecially Meredith
Chesson for comments on ver-sions of this work. While not agreeing
with all of theopinions expressed in this work, their commentshave
been very helpful in crafting the tone, content,and direction of
the arguments presented here, al-though they should not be held
accountable in anyway for the resulting article. This article is
dedicatedto my father, Job Kuijt. As a highly motivated bota-nist,
backpacker, historian, and researcher, Job hasalternatively served
as a professional role model,academic and social foil, and friend
over many years.He has had a lasting impact upon all of his
offspring,“parasites” as he likes to call us, in ways that some
ofus are only now starting to recognize.
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ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSIGHTS INTO POPULATION AGGREGATION AND
CROWDING STRESSPRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGETABLE 1FIG.
1FIG. 2FIG. 3TABLE 2FIG. 4
LPPNB COMMUNITIES: SOCIAL CROWDING AND RELATIONSTABLE 3FIG.
5FIG. 6FIG. 7FIG. 8
NEOLITHIC DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES, SOCIAL RELATIONS, AND THE
“ABANDONMENT” OF LPPNB COMMUNITIESREFLECTIONS ON DEMOGRAPHIC
CHANGE, THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION, AND FOOD
PRODUCTIONACKNOWLEDGMENTSREFERENCES