Ochre, Ground Stone, and Wrapping the Dead in the Late Epipalaeolithic (Natufian) Levant: Revealing the Funerary Practices at Shubayqa 1, Jordan

ABSTRACT

The appearance of rich and diverse funerary practices is one of the hallmarks of the Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant. Numerous burials at a number of sites excavated mostly in the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant have fed into the interpretation of the Natufian as a sedentary society of complex hunter-gatherers. Here, we report on the human remains recovered from Shubayqa 1, a well-dated early to late Natufian site in northeast Jordan. The majority of the minimum of 23 individuals that are represented are perinates and infants, which represents an atypical population profile. Ground stone artifacts and traces of colorants are associated with some of these individuals, providing a rare insight into funerary treatment of subadults in Natufian contexts. We interpret the Shubayqa 1 evidence in the light of current and ongoing debates concerning Natufian burial practices and the issue of social complexity.

KEYWORDS:

• Natufian
• Epipalaeolithic
• mortuary practices
• ochre
• wrapping
• fragmentation
• Jordan
• southwest Asia

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Department of Antiquities of Jordan for granting permission to excavate at Shubayqa 1. We would also like to thank the local community in Safawi for their hospitality and support over the many years that we have worked at Shubayqa. We are grateful to Scott Haddow and Brian Boyd for comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Joe Roe for preparing the map in Figure 1. All mistakes, errors, and omissions are our own.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on Contributors

Tobias Richter (Ph.D. 2009, University College London) is an Associate Professor in Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Copenhagen. His research interests include the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in southwest Asia, stone tool analysis, the relationship between cultural and climatic change, prehistoric foodways, and the emergence of social inequalities.

Emmy Bocaege (Ph.D. 2015, University College London) is currently a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Kent. Her research interests include modern human skeletal and dental variability, biocultural interactions during the transition to agriculture, and 3D imaging and histological techniques applied to dental anthropology.

Peter Ilsøe (M.Sc. 2011) is a geologist based at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. His research interests include geochemistry, climate change, sedimentary analysis, and sourcing studies using XRF analysis.

Anthony Ruter (Ph.D. 2011, University of Copenhagen) is an archaeologist and geologist based at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. He investigates sedimentary archives to study palaeoenvironmental and cultural change, as well as site formation processes, ancient DNA, pollen, and phytolith analysis.

Alexis Pantos (M.Sc. 2017, University of Glasgow) is an archaeologist and photographer who studies the use of visualisation practices in archaeology, including the use of 3D models for site recording and post-excavation analysis.

Patrick Pedersen (M.A. 2017, University of Copenhagen) is currently a PhD student at the University of Copenhagen. He specialises in ground stone tool analysis in the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic of southwest Asia.

Lisa Yeomans (Ph.D. 2006, University College London) is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen who specialises in mammalian, avifaunal and marina fauna, principally, but not exclusively, from sites in southwest Asia.

ORCID

Tobias Richter http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9902-8852

Emmy Bocaege http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9988-3530

Lisa Yeomans http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5180-8902

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

Excavations at Shubayqa 1 were supported by a Danish Council for Independent Research Culture and Communication postdoctoral grant (#11-116136) and by a Danish Council for Independent Research Sapere Aude: DFF-Research Leader award (DFF-4001-00068B). Additional financial support was received from the Danish Institute in Damascus and the H.P. Hjerl Mindefondet for Dansk Palæstinaforskning. Emmy Bocaege’s work was supported by an Initiative d’Excellence (IDEX) postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Bordeaux and a British Academy Fellowship at the University of Kent.