Archaeology in the Archives (Unveiling the Natufian Culture of Mount Carmel)

Archival research has come to the fore in recent years as an invaluable source of information on the way Levantine prehistory developed. As she blows the dust from a vast array of archival documents, Mina Weinstein-Evron sets out to reconstruct the unveiling of the Natufian--a late Epipaleolithic Levantine culture on the threshold of the agricultural revolution. Able to rely on her own close involvement over the past 20 years in excavations of Natufian el-Wad, she skillfully retraces the steps of that supreme earlier excavator, Dorothy Garrod. By the same token, she rescues from historical oblivion the enigmatic figure of Charles Lambert and reveals the unique contribution he made to the study of el-Wad and Natufian culture. Combining new, unpublished archival documents with Dorothy Garrod's more familiar accounts, the author arrives at a coherent picture of el-Wad as a major long-term base camp and shows how it was situated in the cultural web of Natufian Mount Carmel, widely recognized today as one of the pivotal centers of this unique culture.