Raqefet Cave is a Late Natufian archaeological site located in Mount Carmel in the north of Israel.
Raqefet Cave entrance
Human remains
Rock mortars used to prepare malt for beer manufacture
Raqefet Cave rock mortars.
Natufian culture is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Neolithic prehistoric Levant in Western Asia, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. The world's oldest known evidence of the production of bread-like foodstuff has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,400-year-old site in Jordan's northeastern desert, 4,000 years before the emergence of agriculture in Southwest Asia. In addition, the oldest known evidence of possible beer-brewing, dating to approximately 13,000 BP, was found in Raqefet Cave on Mount Carmel, although the beer-related residues may simply be a result of a spontaneous fermentation.
Dorothy Garrod (centre) discovered the Natufian culture in 1928
The Natufian appeared at the time of the Bølling–Allerød warming, before temperatures dropped drastically again during the Younger Dryas. Temperatures would rise again at the end of the Younger Dryas, and with the onset of the Holocene and the Neolithic Revolution. Climate and Post-Glacial expansion in the Near East, based on the analysis of Greenland ice cores.
Mortars from Natufian Culture, grinding stones from Neolithic pre-pottery phase (Dagon Museum)
Epipalaeolithic Near East temporary tents (Şanlıurfa Museum)