Israeli researchers discover evidence of feast dating back
12,000 years Burial site of female shaman found close to Sakhnin
includes funeral fetish objects. An archaeological site near
Sakhnin has turned up evidence of a ritual meal going back some
12,000 years, far earlier than researchers had previously
thought such events took place. Over the years archaeologists
have found considerable evidence of large-scale funeral feasts
from the Neolithic (New Stone Age ) era onward. That period was
characterized by the rise of agriculture, which spurred
mankind's transition from a nomadic to a sedentary way of life.
That revolutionary change, roughly 9,500 years before the common
era, was attended by the development of collective rites and
rituals, which helped ease the transition from a foraging
existence to a farming one. The burial pit uncovered this year
in a cave in the Lower Galilee suggests such collective rites
were being practiced as early as the Upper Paleolithic (Late
Stone Age ), more than 12,000 years ag