hierarchy, order, and inequality—beginnings of what we
would recognize as extractive institutions—a long time
before they became farmers. One compelling piece of
evidence for such hierarchy and inequality comes from
Natufian graves. Some people were buried with large
amounts of obsidian and dentalium shells, which came
from the Mediterranean coast near Mount Carmel. Other
types of ornamentation include necklaces, garters, and
bracelets, which were made out of canine teeth and deer
phalanges as well as shells. Other people were buried
without any of these things. Shells and also obsidian were
traded, and control of this trade was quite likely a source of
power accumulation and inequality. Further evidence of
economic and political inequality comes from the Natufian
site of Ain Mallaha, just north of the Sea of Galilee. Amid a
group of about fifty round huts and many pits, clearly used
for storage, there is a large, intensively plastered building
close to a cleared central place. This building was almost
certainly the house of a chief. Among the burials at the site,
some are much more elaborate, and there is also evidence
of a skull cult, possibly indicating ancestor worship. Such
cults are widespread in Natufian sites, particularly Jericho.
The preponderance of evidence from Natufian sites
suggests that these were probably already societies with
elaborate institutions determining inheritance of elite status.
They engaged in trade with distant places and had nascent
forms of religion and political hierarchies.
The emergence of political elites most likely created the
transition first to sedentary life and then to farming. As the
Natufian sites show, sedentary life did not necessarily
mean farming and herding. People could settle down but
still make their living by hunting and gathering. After all, the
Long Summer made wild crops more bountiful, and hunting
and gathering was likely to have been more attractive. Most
people may have been quite satisfied with a subsistence
life based on hunting and gathering that did not require a lot
of effort. Even technological innovation doesn’t necessarily
lead to increased agricultural production. In fact, it is known
that a major technological innovation, the introduction of the
steel axe among the group of Australian Aboriginal peoples
known as Yir Yoront, led not to more intense production but
to more sleeping, because it allowed subsistence