A prehistoric cosmic airburst preceded the advent of agriculture in the Levant

PhysOrg ^

[FarCenter]

Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth's atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival.

That's the assertion made by an international group of scientists in one of four related research papers, all appearing in the journal Science Open: Airbursts and Cratering Impacts. The papers are the latest results in the investigation of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis, the idea that an anomalous cooling of the Earth almost 13 millennia ago was the result of a cosmic impact.

"In this general region, there was a change from more humid conditions that were forested and with diverse sources of food for hunter-gatherers, to drier, cooler conditions when they could no longer subsist only as hunter-gatherers," said Earth scientist James Kennett, a professor emeritus of UC Santa Barbara . The settlement at Abu Hureyra is famous among archaeologists for its evidence of the earliest known transition from foraging to farming. "The villagers started to cultivate barley, wheat and legumes," he noted. "This is what the evidence clearly shows."

These days, Abu Hureyra and its rich archaeological record lie under Lake Assad, a reservoir created by construction of the Taqba Dam on the Euphrates River in the 1970s. But before this flood, archaeologists managed to extract loads of material to study. "The village occupants," the researchers state in the paper, "left an abundant and continuous record of seeds, legumes and other foods."

By studying these layers of remains, the scientists were able to discern the types of plants that were being collected in the warmer, humid days before the climate changed and in the cooler, drier days after the onset of what we know now as the Younger Dryas cool period.

Before the impact, the researchers found, the inhabitants' prehistoric diet involved wild legumes and wild-type grains, and "small but significant amounts of wild fruits and berries." In the layers corresponding to the time after cooling, fruits and berries disappeared and their diet shifted toward more domestic-type grains and lentils, as the people experimented with early cultivation methods.

By about 1,000 years later, all of the Neolithic "founder crops"—emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, rye, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas and flax—were being cultivated in what is now called the Fertile Crescent. Drought-resistant plants, both edible and inedible, become more prominent in the record as well, reflecting a drier climate that followed the sudden impact winter at the onset of the Younger Dryas.

The evidence also indicates a significant drop in the area's population, and changes in the settlement's architecture to reflect a more agrarian lifestyle, including the initial penning of livestock and other markers of animal domestication.

[gleeaikin]

Can you say what state that was in?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks glee', I just didn't get around to it.

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The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith

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[SunkenCiv]

That study about wild-to-domestic doesn’t indicate what you seem to think it means, although they already had the skills. The earliest known sample of multirow (domesticated) barley RC dated at 14K old.

Learning the consequences of seed-scattering requires fixed habitation for a matter of mere months — scattering after the maturation, and new germination at the beginning of the next growing season.

The need for water for human life must have been known for a long time, or the whole outfit would have gone under after three days without it.

Agriculture led to fixed domiciles. Raids by those who hadn’t figured it out yet led to concentration of settlements, collective defense, standing armies, political systems, accounting practices and recordkeeping (for maintaining property claims and water rights, as well as taxes), writing systems, ceramic arts, etc, not necessarily in that order.

Trade has probably always been around, and not just for the world’s oldest profession.

[nicollo]

Interesting, and thanks for clarification.

One thing this article gets right is the necessity of concentration of people into agricultural-conducive areas for the magic of domestication to reveal itself. Even if it happened earlier than the Younger Dryas, or around its onset, which your 14K date would indicate, there had to be a long time for its replication and spread, which I’ve always thought the YD forced.

[JimRed]

Levant = denial of Israel

[JimRed]

Levant = denial of Israel

[SunkenCiv]

The now-submerged settlements probably had fields and corrals and whatnot, but it's not likely any evidence thereto has survived. Same goes for Watson Brake.

[Political Junkie Too]

Thanks. I was going to post that, too.

-PJ