NATUF TOPLULUKLARINDA DİŞ ÇEKİMİ VE YEREL KİMLİK

Since the earliest stages of anthropological studies, researchers have suspected that the Natufian populations practiced tooth evulsion. A comprehensive study of the Epipalaeolithic Levantine dental collections does indeed show an abnormal rate of ante mortem loss of the central upper incisors, which supports this cultural inter­pretation. Tooth removal is found in roughly 20% of the adult and subadult populations (sometimes as early as adolescence), and seems to have been practiced equally on females and males. For all Natufian groups in which this practice has been found, the removal seems to be concentrated primarily on the right upper incisor. The left upper incisor may also be removed, but this appears to be a secondary option. Combining this infor­mation with contextual data provides insight into the meanings of this practice. First, the individuals concerned are sometimes buried next to each other, which reinforces the idea that they are of comparable social statuses. Second, the practice seems to spread into the Galilee's major sites only at the very end of the Natufian period, and thus acts as a testimony to the evolution of a regional identity overtime.