THE INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS of the Natufians, though they did most likely underpin the Neolithic Revolution, did not leave a simple legacy in world history and did not lead inexorably to the long-run prosperity of their homelands in modern Israel, Palestine, and Syria. Syria and Palestine are relatively poor parts of the modern world, and the prosperity of Israel was largely imported by the settlement of Jewish people after the Second World War and their high levels of education and easy access to advanced technologies. The early growth of the Natufians did not become sustained for the same
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