The Restudy Of Natufian Culture

Hodder has stated that"...material culture is constituted within frameworks ofconceptual meaning.""Material culture is a subjective way of viewing socialrelations."When we constitute every part of the material culture, although scattered, wecan know the development of social structure and ideology(how to view the relationbetween humans、human and space、human and nature) clearly.This article will analysis and summary the characteristics from early and lateNatufian, and clarificate the changing process of social structure and ideology.Formation of community in early Natufian, reflected the changing of relationshipbetween individuals. Unprecedented community make the Natufian face two questions:contradiction and cooperation. For needing high investment to constructed largebuildings and large ground stones, cooperation occured. Since most of individuals inthe community have no genetic connection in common, if there have no a uniformorientation of goals, it’s hard for community that developed to a high grade.Ritualstructure remittance this problem. A large number of grave goods, most of which werebody ornamentations, indicated more intense symbol express between individuals,which developed into grade consciousness.The big community disintegrated into small groups in the Late Natufian, extendedfamilies divided into nuclear families, they came back to a more mobile lifestyle.People changed their diet and subsistence strategy, which be regarded as a response tothe Younger Dryas. Although this seems to be a step backwards, we cannot say thatlate Natufian back to the old lifestyle.For mobile Natufian group will back to the cemetery for burying the deadregularly and religious rites, cemetery has become an important occasions for maintainrelationships within community. There occurred new burial customs, indicated thatdespite the crisis, community still developed in another form, and it’s the bury that was the main factor that maintain the “hidden” community relationship, which can beconsidered to be religious.Natufian culture is a transitional culture in the sequence of prehistory culture inthe Near East, has its uniqueness. The cognition of this culture reminds us that wecan’t view and explain the sequence from pre-to post-Natufian culture, for which willaffect our correct understanding of a culture.