Settlement Pattern and Periodization of the Jordanian Badia Early PPNB: A Fresh Approach to the PPNA/PPNB Transition Issue in the Southern Levant

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Abstract. The recent excavations at Harrat Juhayra 202 and Mushash 163 in southern Jordan produced lithic assemblages marked by the predominance of Helwan-type points and the increasing use of naviform blades, which can be dated to the first half of the 9th millennium cal. BCE on the basis of a few dozen 14C dates. The upper limit dates of the two key sites are not only several centuries earlier than those of Early PPNB (hereafter EPPNB) sites in the southern Levantine Corridor but also contemporary with, or even slightly earlier than, those of EPPNB sites in the northern Levantine Corridor. Similar assemblages have been attested at Jilat 7, Abu Hudhud, Jabal `Ainab 1, and Jebel Queisa, suggesting that another EPPNB cultural entity existed in the drylands to the east of the Levantine Corridor. If so, the question is the relationship among the three EPPNB cultural entities, which is expected to shed new light on the dynamics of the PPNA/PPNB transition, a long-standing issue of the southern Levantine Neolithic archaeology. This paper approaches it from the viewpoint of the settlement pattern and periodization of the newly defined Jordanian Badia EPPNB. Research evidence suggests that the transition took place twice over, each time in a different context: first, the appearance of the Badia EPPNB (probably in a local context) at the very beginning of the 9th millennium cal. BCE and, second, the formation of the southern Levantine Corridor EPPNB (through the westward retreat of the Badia EPPNB and the southward diffusion of the northern Levantine Corridor EPPNB) in the middle of the same millennium.