Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c10.9

c10.9

In Palestine we have most interesting archaeological evidence of a tribe whose economy is changing from the hunting and food-collecting stage to that of food-production. These folk were still largely hunters, in the Mesolithic tradition, and they had (probably seasonal) camps at the mouths of caves, where they also buried their dead. Their flint blades, knives, and skin-scrapers of the ancient hunting manner were found; and bone spear-tips, barbed points, and gorges for fish-catching. But in addition there were found small flint blades set with gum into grooved shafts of bone, the blades finely notched and set in a line to make a continuous saw-edge, and the bone carved at one end into a convenient handle shaped as an animal's head. These composite tools are in fact sickles, or corn-cutting knives, and the silica in the grass or corn stalks has polished the edges of the flints into a bright lustre from constant use, a feature we know to be distinctive of any flint tools used for straw-cutting. And on the flat rock floor at the cave mouth were hollows made by pounding out the grain into flour, and other stone mortars were found for the same purpose. Whether these Natufians (named from one of their camp-sites in the Wadi-el-Natuf) grew grain themselves or were reaping wild seed is unknown, but the well-made sickles look as if agriculture was already developed.