More than One, Less than Five Hundred

Comments on Campana and Crabtree, and Communal Hunting

Abstract

In proposing a model for the advent of agrarian societies, Campana and Crabtree (1990) courageously advance a species of social prime mover, and predict specific material correlates in support of it. They propose that the advent of community hunting of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) in the Natufian period of the Levant (c. 12,500-10,300 BP) allowed human capacities of group planning and social organization to emerge sufficient to render possible the advent of agriculture in the following millennia.