Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2008

News

Equal prey in prehistoric times?

Ancient tool kit raises questions about gender roles

The entire contents of the tool kit, as found at the dig in Jordan.

Research into a 14,000 year old tool kit found in an excavation in Jordan — described as one of the most complete and well-preserved of its kind — has provided rare insights into the daily activities of prehistoric people.

The work, by senior lecturer in Archaeology Dr Phillip Edwards, was published in the latest issue of the prestigious international journal, Antiquity and featured on Discovery Channel.

The ancient tool kit, believed to have been a hide or wicker bag carried over the shoulder, contained items including a sickle, flint spearheads, core for making more spearheads, smooth stones possibly used as in a slingshot and gazelle toe bones used to make beads.

Dr Edwards' research explored questions such as whether the toolkit belonged to an individual or a group of foragers — and whether it was used for short trips or longer journeys to seasonal sites.

'Did an individual perform all the functions implied by the bag's contents, that is to say flint knapping, point shaping, retooling, hunting, reaping and bead production?

'And if so, were gathering activities — often attributed as a female role in hunter-gatherer societies — and those of hunting and tool-making — often ascribed to males — carried out by individuals of either gender?

While questions about gender roles, and individual versus group provisioning, remain elusive, Dr Edwards told Discovery News that the owner of the bag was well equipped for obtaining meat and edible plants in the wild, such as wild wheat or barley.

Dr Edwards attributes the tool bag to the Natufian culture, from an archaeological site called Wadi Hammeh 27, where he was working during December and January when news of the find circulated world-wide following the article in Antiquity.

The 'showpiece' sickle with its twin blades.

He told Discovery News from Jordan that such bags rarely had compartments. 'The owner probably protected valuable items by wrapping them in rolls of bark or leather before placing them at the bottom of the bag.'

The sickle, made from two carefully grooved horn pieces, was fitted with colormatched tan and grey bladelets. 'It would have been a marvel of form and function for its day — and is the only tool of its kind ever linked to the Natufian people,' he said. The rest of the items were designed to immobilise and then kill game such as aurochs, red deer, hares, storks, partridges, owls, tortoises and the major source of meat, gazelles.

'A lone hunter or a group of hunters might wait for gazelles to cross their path while waiting behind a low hide made of twigs and brush,' Edwards explained.

'They might have worked on making bone beads to wile away the time. Then a hunter could get off a shot while the animals were off their guard. A first shot might wound, but not kill, and then a hunter or a group of them will track the wounded animal.'

Dr Edwards added: 'We don't know if Natufian hunters had the bow and arrow, or just spears.'

Dr Edwards surveys the site of the former homelands of the Natufian people

Mountain gazelles targeted by the Near Eastern hunters probably weighed between 39 and 55 pounds, so a strong adult 'could carry an entire carcass over his shoulders without much trouble.'

But the bag's owner wasn't necessarily a man. Dr Edwards said women were thought to have been in charge of plant gathering. The tools, therefore, either belonged to a woman hunter-gatherer, or work activities during prehistoric times were more 'gender-blind' than we thought, Dr Edwards theorised.

The Director of the French Research Center in Jerusalem, Dr Francois Valla, told Discovery News that similar ancient clusters of tools had been excavated, but that this was 'the most spectacular of them all'.

'The clustering of these items is due to a decision made by some Natufian individual,' Dr Valla said. 'As such, it is a rare testimony of the behaviour of a person 14,000 years ago.'

The showpiece item of the toolkit — a replica of the double-bladed sickle — is now on display at the Australian Institute of Archaeology, on the main Melbourne campus at Bundoora (Mont Park Estate). The Institute, a resource for the study of the Ancient Near East, was opened in February.