| Summary: | Dental pathologies constitute an important topic for the discussion of subsistence and foodways, especially during periods of major shifts in dietary behaviour. On the eve of the Neolithization process in the Levant, the Natufian period (13000-9500 cal. BC) bears witnesses to a new way of procuring food associated with a decrease in group mobility. New foodstuffs appeared with plant production and husbandry throughout the Early Neolithic period (9500-6400 cal. BC). This article describes both specific and non-specific oral pathologies linked to diet (carious lesions, antemortem tooth loss, abscesses, alveolar resorption) and stress indicators such as Linear Enamel Hypoplasia among Natufian and Neolithic populations based on a huge corpus (over 8,600 teeth) of well contextualized samples that were recorded by the authors following the same procedures. Quantitative and qualitative information were analysed for 24 sites throughout the Levant, attributed to different periods and located in different ecosystems. The results demonstrate a clear increase in caries and associated diseases during the Neolithization process. This was first a gradual process that began as early as the Late/Final Natufian. The linear process was broken by the seventh millennium at which time new behaviours seem to have been introduced resulting in a new pathological pattern. The major changes at this time are observed in Mediterranean contexts where pottery is not yet attested. High biological stress, linked to socioeconomic level or infectious disease, is demonstrated in parallel. Over time, diet seems more and more gendered but less specifically associated with age groups. © BREPLOS.
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