I've just read an abstract from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which has some bearing on the beginnings of agriculture and sedentary lives among the Natufians. These people lived in Israel from 15,000 till 11,500 before present. A cave was found as a grave site for a shaman there (at Hilazon Tachtit), about 12,000 bp, with some interesting grave goods buried with her (50 complete tortoise shells, an eagle, a leopard, a cow, a human foot, two martens, and some parts of a wild boar. This shaman was a small, elderly, disabled woman, which sort of parallels the prehistoric society in Asia Minor, where women did an equal share of the work, but men gave them an added share of respect for the apparent bit of magic they showed during childbirth. Not that all the leaders were female in either of those places, but many more seemed to be than in today's society. I read the abstract for this article onlline before the magazine was printed. If any of you want to read the article, it is "A 12,000-year-old Shaman Burial From the Southern Levant (Israel)" by Leore Grosman, Natalie D. Munro, and Anna Belfer-Cohen.