When geomorphological toolkits point at pre-sedentism occupation intensity– The case of Tahunat es-Sukkar A new Epipaleolithic sequence in Bet Shean Valley, Israel

Fundamental changes in the lifeways of hunter-gatherers occurred in tandem with rapid climatic changes spanning 13,000 years of the Epipaleolithic period (25-12 ka, EP hereafter), until the onset of the Holocene. Local hunter-gatherers groups showed reduced mobility causing a cascade effect manifested in demography, social organization, economy, subsistence strategies, and material culture. The transformation of western Asian mobile hunter-gatherers into a sedentary way of life is mostly investigated from the last stage of this process: the Late Epipaleolithic sedentary 'Natufian' (ca. 15-12 cal ky). Sedentarization was a long-term process that spanned the Epipaleolithic period, caused by social, economic, and demographic mechanisms. Yet, in the archeological record sedentism seems to appear abruptly in the Late Epipaleolithic (Natufian culture). However, the preceding Middle Epipaleolithic period, represented in the Mediterranean region by the mobile 'Geometric Kebaran' culture (ca. 18-15 cal ky), is still not well understood. Some pivotal issues such as precise chronology, site organization, nature of occupation, human-environment interaction and subsistence, all require additional investigation. Specifically, site occupation intensity as a proxy for the process of sedentism is lacking in the current discourse. This information is crucial for evaluating the nature and tempo of the cultural processes leading to the appearance of sedentary societies either as a rapid punctuated event or a gradual process.

Recent excavations at the site of Tahunat es-Sukkar (TeS), located in the Bet Shean Valley on the flanks of the Dead Sea Transform in Israel, provide a unique opportunity to test these archeological questions utliziling geomorphological toolkits. The site is embedded within an active spring system that deposited a massive tufa complex stretching more than 9 km from north to south, and covering a surface area of 7 km² and 30-50 meters thick that accumulated over the last 300,000 years. Geometric Kebaran findss are distributed within a 2 m thick sequence marked by stratigraphic boundaries of spring deposits over an area of ca. 100 sq. Ongoing detailed sedimentological, micromorphological and isotopic analysis together with high-resolution U-Series dating, provide a refined context for the Middle Epipaleolithic occupation within this dynamic marshy environment. Initial results provide promising prospects for the preservation of a long-term behavioral record building a bridge between geomorphology and archeological questions.