In B or not in B: a reappraisal of the Natufian burials at Shukbah Cave, Judaea, Palestine

Dorothy Garrod's classic excavation of Shukbah Cave revealed a sequence of burials from the middle Palaeolithic into a period transitional between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic which she named the Natufian after the wadi in which the cave is located. Using the original field notebooks, the author re-examines the stratigraphy (Layers A–D) and proposes most of the human bone is Natufian (from Layer B) except a group burial which may in fact belong to a later layer. This research implies a redefinition of burial-types belonging to the Natufian.