A zoomorphic sickle terminal from the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan

Excavations at the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan undertaken in 2014 led to the discovery of several new portable art pieces, including the representation of an ungulate mammal (RN 140226), probably intended as a gazelle, carved in the round from bone. The small object was extensively damaged by fire and had become separated at its neck from longer pieces of fragmented, burnt bone lying distally to it. This configuration and the style of the animal head leads us to interpret the piece as the decorated terminal of a bone sickle haft. The piece is unusual in that is it is one of the few figurative Natufian art pieces with incised geometric decoration added to its surface. Its finding extends the distribution of the ‘gazelle-headed’ sickle haft from Mount Carmel, where three well-known examples were unearthed in the early twentieth century, to the northern Jordan Valley. The piece adds to the limited repertoire of zoomorphically rendered Natufian artefacts associated with plant gathering and processing.     

Subsistence and mobility strategies in the Epipalaeolithic: a stable isotope analysis of human and faunal remains at 'Uyun al-Hammam,northern Jordan

This paper investigates evidence for subsistence and settlement activities in the Levantine Middle Epipalaeolithic through the application of stable isotope analysis to human and non-human remains from the site of 'Uyun al-Hammam, northern Jordan. In general, bone from the site suffers a high degree of diagenesis and collagen could not be extracted for analysis here. Carbon and oxygen isotopic values from human tooth enamel samples were variable, but within expected values for the Middle Epipalaeolithic, whereas animal carbon and oxygen isotopic values varied widely, most likely due to hydrological and climatological factors. Carbon and isotopic values for the human samples indicated a predominantly C₃ plant dietary input, while animal samples appeared to have varying amounts of C₄ inputs into their diet. This is the first isotopic analysis conducted on material from the Middle Epipalaeolithic of the southern Levant and, as such, even results constrained by temporal and climatological variants within the region contribute to the overall knowledge of settlement and subsistence strategies during this cultural period.     

Towards a typology of stone beads in the Neolithic Levant

Abstract

This study is an attempt to develop a comprehensive typology of the earliest stone bead assemblages in the southern Levant from Late Natufian and Neolithic sites. I propose this typology as a tool for studying stone beads almost a century after Horace Beck published his monumental bead typology. Beads are often neglected artifacts in archaeological excavations, but a bead typology can contribute to definitions of relative chronology and to a broader understanding of social and economic aspects of certain prehistoric societies.     

The origins of sedentism and farming communities in the Levant

Particular geographic features of the Mediterranean Levant underlie the subsistence patterns and social structures reconstructed from the archaeological remains of Epi-Paleolithic groups. The Kebaran, Geometric Kebaran, and Mushabian complexes are defined by technotypological features that reflect the distributions of social units. Radiocarbon dating and paleoclimatic data permit us to trace particular groups who, facing environmental fluctuations, made crucial changes in subsistence strategies, which, in the southern Levant, led to sedentism in base camps on the ecotone of the Mediterranean woodland-parkland and the Irano-Turanian steppe. The establishment of Early Natufian sedentary communities led to a regional change in settlement pattern. The relatively cold and dry climate of the eleventh millennium B.P. forced Negev groups into a special arid adpatation. The early Holocene onset of wetter and warmer conditions favored the earliest Neolithic (PPNA) development of village life based on the cultivation of barley and legumes, gathering of wild seeds and fruits and continued hunting.     

Gazelle bone marrow yields and Epipalaeolithic carcass exploitation strategies in the southern Levant

We measure the bone marrow yields of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) carcasses to reconstruct gazelle exploitation strategies during the Epipalaeolithic periods in the southern Levant. We present experimentally derived data on the bone marrow content of seven fresh gazelle carcasses, determine the range of marrow yields among individuals of different sexes and seasons of death, and compare the new data to gazelle skeletal element abundances from five Epipalaeolithic assemblages from Israel. We found extensive variation in marrow fat content among individual gazelles. Animals with the highest marrow yields were killed in the spring while animals killed in the early autumn had lower fat contents. Nevertheless, our results suggest that gazelle marrow provided a reliable, albeit small fat resource for prehistoric foragers in all seasons. Strong relationships between bone fragmentation and marrow content demonstrate that Epipalaeolithic people preferentially processed bones with high marrow yields.     

“Measure for measure”: a taphonomic reconsideration of the Kebaran site of Ein Gev I,Israel

We present the results of a detailed taphonomic study of the faunal remains from Ein Gev I, a Kebaran open-air site near the Sea of Galilee, Israel. In an earlier study faunal remains were assigned to bone element and species using a rapid method technique based on the identification of teeth and epiphyses only (Davis, 1974). In this study we identified the maximum number of skeletal elements, including fragments of long bone shafts. We also employed a series of taphonomic analyses to reconstruct the depositional history of the bone assemblage and to investigate subsistence, meat procurement and bone processing strategies. We compared the results obtained by a complete bone sampling method with those derived using a rapid method. The bone assemblage is dominated by mountain gazelle (Gazella gazelle), Mesopotamian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) and bezoar goat (Capra aegagrus). The assemblage is characterized by significant density-mediated biases, caused by both human bone processing behaviours and in situ post-burial bone attrition. Our attempts to compare species abundance derived from the two different identification protocols revealed no significant difference between the two sampling methods, both in terms of species diversity (richness and evenness) and skeletal element abundance (SEA). These comparisons contrast previous studies that expected to find ubiquitous head-and-foot dominated SEA profiles in zooarchaeological studies that were based on the incomplete identification of faunal remains.     

Foraging,Farming, and Social Complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant: A Review and Synthesis

The transition from foraging to farming of the Neolithic periods is one of, if not, the most important cultural processes in recent human prehistory. Integrating previously published archaeological materials with archaeological research conducted since 1980, the first half of this essay synthesizes our current understanding of archaeological data for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (ca. 11,700–ca. 8400 B.P.) of the southern Levant, generally defined as including southern Syria and Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Autonomous Authority, Jordan, and the Sinai peninsula of Egypt. The second half of the essay explores how these data inform archaeologists about the processes by which social differentiation emerged, the nature of regional and interregional connections, and the mechanisms and processes by which the transition from foraging to food production first occurred in the Neolithic.     

Cultures of the eighth and seventh millennia BP in the southern Levant: A review for the 1990s

The Pottery Neolithic of the southern Levant (the eighth and seventh millennia BP) was a crucial period in which the foundations were laid for the development of complex societies and urban civilization. This article summarizes the current state of research in this area during this period. Past and present research in Israel and Jordan is reviewed, and methodological problems in fieldwork and analysis are discussed. We attempt a systematic definition of the archaeological entities. For each such entity, we present the available data on chronostratigraphy, characteristics of the material culture (including lithics, ceramics and architecture), burial customs, figurines and images, economy, and site-distribution. While the Yarmukian and Jericho IX occupied territories of similar size and seem to represent entities on the scale of a culture, the later Wadi Raba entity extended over a larger area and was of longer duration. A chronostratigraphic summary is presented, and the major entities are compared in terms of site-types, economy, burials, and geographical distribution.     

SHIFTING SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE SOUTHERN JORDAN VALLEY AND DESERT FRINGES OF SAMARIA DURING THE EARLY BRONZE AGE I PERIOD

Abstract

This study deals with the unprecedented settlement activity during the Early Bronze Age I that has been recently recorded in the Jordan Valley and the desert fringes of Samaria. The increase in the number of sites primarily characterises the latter part of the period (Early Bronze Age IB), and is accompanied by two other important phenomena: population inroads into new regions, and the first appearance of fortified sites. A profound crisis at the end of the period resulted in the almost complete abandonment of the valley sites and the concentration of settlement along the eastern foothills of Samaria.     

Luminescence dating of anthropogenic deposits from Tall Zarʿa in the Jordan Valley

This study uses quartz-based optically stimulated luminescence dating to determine when a massive fortification wall (W11186) was constructed in the archaeological site of Tall Zarʿa in the Jordan Valley. A total of 11 samples of sediments were taken from a trench on the north side of the wall (extramuros). The extracted quartz grains had good luminescence characteristics and were identified as well bleached by comparison with feldspar infrared-stimulated luminescence (IRSL) ages. The optical ages showed that the deposition against the wall occurred in two different periods. The first was around 3.20 ± 0.07 ka ago (Iron Age), and the second was around 2.28 ± 0.08 ka (Hellenistic period). Human activity was evident because of the intermixing of cultural material with the presumed naturally deposited units.