PALEORIENT, vol. 17/1 - 1991
THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF GROUND STONE ASSEMBLAGES IN LATE PLEISTOCENE SOUTHWEST ASIA
K. WRIGHT
Introduction
Ground stone artifacts such as mortars, pestles and milling stones have long been recognized as a central feature in the development of early farming societies in the Near East. Many statements have been made concerning the significance of ground stone technology in the evolution of plant-food production (1). These statements generally emphasize the relationship between grinding tools and cereals and specifically refer to the technology as an essential precondition to cereal domestication. Yet these statements are based on only general impressions of
GARROD 1957 218 WENDORF 1968 944 FLANNE- RY 1969 78 SO ECKI R.L. 1969 992 KRAYBILL 1977 514 HOLE 1984 52 KISLEV 1984 62f. MOORE 1983 96 1985 13 GORING-MORRIS 1987 439 BYRD 1989a 178 HENRY 1989 37
ground stone assemblage variations and the role of grinding and pounding in plant food exploitation.
In the Levant, true ground stone tools (in which abrasion plays a large role in lithic reduction) begin to appear in small numbers in sites of the Upper Paleolithic (45,000-22,000 b.p.), Kebaran (22,000- 14,500 b.p.) and Geometric Kebaran (14,500-12,500 b.p.) time ranges. They become especially numerous in the period between 12,000 and 10,500 b.p., in sites of the Natufian. This era forms the background to plant domestication, direct evidence for which is so far first documented only in "Pre-Pottery Neolithic A" times (10,500 to 9,500 b.p.) at sites located in the greater Jordan Rift Valley and the Damascus Basin (2).
HOPE 1969 356 1983 VAN ZEIST and BAKKER- HEERES 1979 164 KISLEV et al. 1986 198 LEGGE 1986 HOPE and BAR-YOSEF 1987 117 BAR-YOSEF and KISLEV 1989 636 HILLMAN 1989 213 HILLMAN et al. 1989 265
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