Natufian sickle blades (ca. 15,000–11,700 cal. BP) reveal cereal cultivation ca. 4.5 millennia before domestication

This study reveals a hitherto undocumented cereal procurement strategy employed during the Late Epipaleolithic Natufian culture of the Southern Levant, from ca. 4.5 to 1 millennia before systematic crop cultivation and domestication are identified in archaeological records. A comprehensive microscopic use-wear analysis of flint sickle blades from the sites of el-Wad Terrace and Salibiya I detected patterns generated by the harvest of semi-ripe and ripe cereals that are attributed to the shattering mechanism of cereals. Many sickle blades also featured traces of stripping, shown by our experiments to act as a threshing operation that removes the spikelets and extracts the grains. Based on observations of current wild cereal fields and experimental harvesting, we reconstruct a protracted harvest that begins in mid-spring, when cereals are semi-ripe, and continues to the very late spring, when unshattered specimens with yellow-dry stems are targeted. We argue that cereal harvesting was an intensive and well-organized enterprise. It was based on a deep and intimate understanding of the shattering mechanism of cereals, where mixed stands were harvested, similar to those prevalent in many places in the Levant today, with plants of various properties, including early or late shattering or non-shattering cereals. The Natufian groups were aware of this mixture, exploited it for planning their harvest strategy, and used it to replenish storages. This was a form of early cultivation where it was necessary to ensure minimal seed loss and stock seed reserves for sowing next year’s fields.