Allan Bomhard and Colin Renfrew are in broad agreement with the earlier conclusions of Illich-Svitych and Dolgopolsky in seeking the Nostratic urheimat (original homeland) within the Mesolithic (or Epipaleolithic) Middle East, the stage which directly preceded the Neolithic and was transitional to it. Looking at the cultural assemblages of this period, two sequences in particular stand out as possible archeological correlates of the earliest Nostratians or their immediate precursors.

The first of these is focused on Palestine. The Kebaran culture of Palestine (18,000-10,500 BCE) not only introduced the microlithic assemblage into the region; it also has African affinity, specifically with the Ouchtata retouch technique associated with the microlithic Halfan culture of Egypt (24,000-17,000 BCE). The Kebarans in their turn were directly ancestral to the succeeding Natufian culture of Palestine and the Levant (10,500-8500 BCE), which has enormous significance for prehistorians as the clearest evidence of hunters and gatherers in actual transition to Neolithic food production. Both cultures extended their influence outside the region into southern Anatolia. For example, in Cilicia the Belbaşi culture (13,000-10,000 BCE) shows Kebaran influence, while the Beldibi culture (10,000-8500 BCE) shows clear Natufian influence.

The second possibility as a culture associated with the Nostratic family is the Zarzian (12,400-8500 BCE) culture of the Zagros mountains, stretching northwards into Kobistan in the Caucasus and eastwards into Iran. In western Iran, the MÕlefatian culture (10,500-9000 BCE) was ancestral to the assemblages of Ali Tappah (9000-5000 BCE) and Jeitun (6000-4000 BCE). Still further east, the Hissar culture has been seen as the Mesolithic precursor to the Keltiminar culture (5500-3500 BCE) of the Kyrgyz steppe.

To have spread so widely suggests some cultural advantages were possessed by these people. It has been proposed that the broad spectrum revolution of Kent Flannery,[citation needed] associated with microliths, the use of the bow and arrow and the domestication of the dog, all of which are associated with these cultures, may have been the cultural "motor" that led to their expansion. Certainly cultures which appeared at Franchthi cave in the Aegean and Lipinski Vir in the Balkans, and the Murzak-Koba (9100-8000 BCE) and Grebenki (8500-7000 BCE) cultures of the Ukrainian steppe, all displayed these adaptations. (Wikipedia discussion on Nostratic meta-grouping of language families)