The causes underlying this phenomenon remain nonetheless poorly understood 18, 19.

According to those paleodemographers, this escalation is especially noticeable among infants, possible due to new health problems associated with sedentary life (infectious diseases) along with shorter periods of breastfeeding which likewise could have led to an upsurge of maternal fertility 16, 17. This significant shift, represented through the Neolithic Demographic Transition model (NDT) 17, is founded on a relative increase of the proportion of non-adult burials and the totals of the values of female fertility rate (evidenced by the reduction of the birth interval) and a rise in mortality rates.

Moreover, certain authors have advanced that the sedentarisation process also favoured substantial demographic growth yielding larger settlements 16. The hypothesis is based on the notion that population pressure and ecological deterioration promoted migrations. A hypothesis suggests that the emergence of Middle/Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic mega-sites in the Jordanian Highlands stemmed from migrations from the Mediterranean heartlands to the western edge of the Jordanian Rift Valley 15. Human migration and population aggregation could have played an important role in the development of these sedentary villages 13, 14. This later timeframe saw a consolidation of sedentarism characterised by vast permanent villages with populations in the hundreds 11, 12, 13. The main characteristic of this region is the change from sedentary or semi-sedentary settlements represented by hamlets in the Natufian Period to later extensive mega-sites that emerged in the Middle/Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B 9, 10 (Fig. The Southern Levant was central to this historical process as it offers early evidence of sedentarism and an intensification of the exploitation and control of wild plants and animals 6, 7, 8. The emergence of the Neolithic in the Near East was accompanied by economic, demographic, social and ideological changes which culminated in the development of new ways of life marked by a progressive intensification of food production 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The results underscore a decrease in human mobility and migration as farming became increasingly dominant among the subsistence strategies throughout the Neolithic transition of the Southern Levant. Interestingly, isotopic data suggest that two possible non-local individuals benefitted from particular burial practices. The current findings, in turn, offer evidence that most individuals dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic were local to their respective settlements despite certain evidence of non-locals. The isotope ratios point both to a significant level of human migration and/or mobility in the Final Natufian which is compatible with early sedentarism and seasonal mobility and with population aggregation in early sedentary hamlets. The study adopted a multi-approach resorting to strontium ( 87Sr/ 86Sr), oxygen (Оґ18O VSMOW) and carbon (Оґ 13C) isotope ratio analyses of tooth enamel of 67 human individuals from five sites in Jordan, Syria, and Israel. The aim of this study is to identify first-generation non-local individuals from Natufian to Pre-Pottery Neolithic C periods to explore the scope of human mobility and migration during the Neolithic transition in the Southern Levant, an area that is central to this historical process.

Few isotopic studies of human remains dating to this early complex transition offer direct evidence of mobility and migration. Human mobility and migration are thought to have played essential roles in the consolidation and expansion of sedentary villages, long-distance exchanges and transmission of ideas and practices during the Neolithic transition of the Near East.

Mount and blade north and south