From foraging to farming in the Southern Levant: A 'ground stone tools' perspective

Starting with the end of the Pleistocene, human societies all over the world have experienced one of the most important changes in their history: the development of farming. When this change occurred and which specific trajectory was followed varied depending on the context, but, overall, seems to have been closely related to fundamental transformations in mobility, settlement patterns and social organization. Understanding why and how societies transitioned into farming remains today a central question in archaeology. Research in Southwest Asia, one of the earliest agricultural centers, has largely contributed to a better understanding of the nature of this transition. Here I will review the data derived from ground stone tools, a category of stone implements commonly found in sites from Southwest Asia. Focusing more specifically on the Southern Levant, I will examine what these tools can tell us about changes in the subsistence and symbolic practices that accompanied the rise of agricultural communities in the study region. In addition, I will examine how ground stone tools can be used to explore various hypotheses proposed to explain the origins of farming.

Laure Dubreuil is an Assistant Professor at Trent University in Canada. She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the University of Aix-Marseille, and her DEA, Ph.D. in Prehistory at the University of Bordeaux. Her geographic focus of archaeological research is Southwest Asia and Europe. She is particularly interested in material culture analysis, especially ground stone tool technology of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods. Her work also focused on use-wear studies, and experimental archaeology. She is currently involved in several research projects in Israel (SSHRC), Jordania, Greece, Portugal and Italy.

Date
Wed April 24th 2019, 12:00 - 1:00pm
Location
Archaeology Center
Event Sponsor
Archaeology Center
Contact Phone Number
Speaker
Laure Dubreuil