title: Hunted gazelles evidence cooling, but not drying, during the Younger Dryas in the southern Levant.
abstract: The climatic downturn known globally as the Younger Dryas (YD; ∼12,900-11,500 BP) has frequently been cited as a prime mover of agricultural origins and has thus inspired enthusiastic debate over its local impact. This study presents seasonal climatic data from the southern Levant obtained from the sequential sampling of gazelle tooth carbonates from the Early and Late Natufian archaeological sites of Hayonim and Hilazon Tachtit Caves (western Galilee, Israel). Our results challenge the entrenched model that assumes that warm temperatures and high precipitation are synonymous with climatic amelioration and cold and wet conditions are combined in climatic downturns. Enamel carbon isotope values from teeth of human-hunted gazelle dating before and during the YD provide a proxy measure for water availability during plant growth. They reveal that although the YD was cooler, it was not drier than the preceding Bølling-Allerød. In addition, the magnitude of the seasonal curve constructed from oxygen isotopes is significantly dampened during the YD, indicating that cooling was most pronounced in the growing season. Cool temperatures likely affected the productivity of staple wild cereal resources. We hypothesize that human groups responded by shifting settlement strategies-increasing population mobility and perhaps moving to the warmer Jordan Valley where wild cereals were more productive and stable.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269; Center for Environmental Science and Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269; gideon.hartman@uconn.edu.
authors.forename: Gideon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hartman
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
authors.forename: Ofer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bar-Yosef
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269;
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brittingham
authors.affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel 91905.
authors.forename: Leore
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Grosman
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269;
authors.forename: Natalie D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Munro
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods*; D000818:Animals; D000866:Antelopes; D001106:Archaeology; D002247:Carbon Isotopes; D059552:Caves; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010103:Oxygen Isotopes; D013696:Temperature; D014070:Tooth / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D002247:Carbon Isotopes; D010103:Oxygen Isotopes
keywords: Natufian; paleoclimate; stable isotopes; δ13C; δ18O