Radiocarbon dates of 12500-10200 BP place this culture just before the end of the Pleistocene.
A sedentary life may have been made possible by abundant resources due to a favourable climate at the time, with a culture living from hunting, fishing and gathering, including the use of wild cereals. Tools were available for making use of cereals: flint-bladed sickles for harvesting, and mortars, grinding stones, and storage pits. Settlements have been estimated to house 100-150 people.
According to one theory (described in [4]), it was a sudden change in climate, the Younger Dryas event, that inspired the development of agriculture. The Younger Dryas was a 1000-year-long interruption in the higher temperatures prevailing since the last Ice Age, which produced a sudden drought in the Levant. This would have endangered the wild cereals, which could no longer compete with dryland scrub, but upon which the population had become dependent to sustain a relatively large sedentary population. By artificially clearing scrub and planting seeds obtained from elsewhere, they began to practice agriculture.
Some burials have been found, including a few men buried with shell headdresses and carved bone pendants.
Natufian sites include: Tell Abu Hureyra, Ain Mallaha (Eynan), Beidha, Ein Gev, Hayonim, Jericho, Mureybat, Nahal Oren, and Shuqba.
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