Jawa, Tell Um Hammad and the EB I/Late Chalcolithic Landscape

Abstract

Jawa and Tell Urn Hammad are two very different sites in very different sub-regions of the Near East (Fig. I : Ig,2 I). One is an apparently isolated, large nucleated fortified settlement (10 hectares) in what today is a marginal sub-steppic zone; the other a sprawling open village next to a large perennial river with several contemporary villages within 5 kilometres (Fig. 2). It is reasonably established that paleo-climates remained stable and, but for some minor fluctuations (Horowitz Ig74), much as they are today over the last 6,000 years (see most recently Danin Ig85)' The proposed date in the fourth millennium for the fortified settlement at Jawa and its extensive run-off based water harvesting systems fall within these parameters. However, when the range of radiocarbon derived dates of the typologically comparable assemblages are re-calibrated (ca. 5800-6200 B.P.), there arises the possibility that the J awa systems were designed and built close to an important climate change from wetter conditions before c. 6000 B.P. (Danin et at. Ig82). Such changes, if they are relevant, would not have been as significant in the Jordan Valley. The relative marginality of the outer zones of the greater region (Syria/Palestine/Trans jordan : Fig. I) can be shown very simply by plotting the modern 200 mm. isohyets, for wet and dry years. Their optimum extent into the surrounding sub-steppic/desertic areas marks the boundary of settled communities from the Neolithic period onward, but for military outposts or caravan cities at water holes such as Qasr Burqu' (Fig. I :18) and large oases such as Palmyra and el-Azraq (Fig. I: 9,23). It is within this zone that settle'ment strategies were most, obviously affected by changes in climate. The· southern zone has been studied most intensively: northern Negev (Levy and Alon Ig83 among others) and the area south of Ras en-Naqb (Henry Ig82) for the relevant periods between the Chalcolithic and EB II. Jebel Druze-in the easternsector of the zone remains essentially unknown, but for the excavations at Jawa (Helms Ig81) and surveys (Betts ms., 1984; Garrard and Stanley Price 1975). The same applies to the sub-step pic areas of eastern Syria. Jebel Druze .is a speci(l,l sU,b-z~ne! Regardless of