Squaring the Circle. Social and Environmental Implications of Pre-Pottery Neolithic Building Technology at Tell Qarassa (South Syria)

Andrea L Balbo,Carla Lancelotti,Amaia Arranz,Eneko Iriarte,Lydia Zapata,Marco Madella,Luis Teira,Frank Braemer,Juan José Ibáñez,Miguel Jiménez,Dorian Q Fuller

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042109

Abstract

We present the results of the microstratigraphic, phytolith and wood charcoal study of the remains of a 10.5 ka roof. The roof is part of a building excavated at Tell Qarassa (South Syria), assigned to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (PPNB). The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period in the Levant coincides with the emergence of farming. This fundamental change in subsistence strategy implied the shift from mobile to settled aggregated life, and from tents and huts to hard buildings. As settled life spread across the Levant, a generalised transition from round to square buildings occurred, that is a trademark of the PPNB period. The study of these buildings is fundamental for the understanding of the ever-stronger reciprocal socio-ecological relationship humans developed with the local environment since the introduction of sedentism and domestication. Descriptions of buildings in PPN archaeological contexts are usually restricted to the macroscopic observation of wooden elements (posts and beams) and mineral components (daub, plaster and stone elements). Reconstructions of microscopic and organic components are frequently based on ethnographic analogy. The direct study of macroscopic and microscopic, organic and mineral, building components performed at Tell Qarassa provides new insights on building conception, maintenance, use and destruction. These elements reflect new emerging paradigms in the relationship between Neolithic societies and the environment. A square building was possibly covered here with a radial roof, providing a glance into a topologic shift in the conception and understanding of volumes, from round-based to square-based geometries. Macroscopic and microscopic roof components indicate buildings were conceived for year-round residence rather than seasonal mobility. This implied performing maintenance and restoration of partially damaged buildings, as well as their adaptation to seasonal variability.

Highlights

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period is crucial to the understanding of a major step in human history involving the emergence of farming and the shift to sedentism
Evidence is drawn from high-resolution direct observation of macroscopic and microscopic remains of mineral and organic building components from a PPNB building found at Tell Qarassa
Size and Disposition of Roof Elements A partial structural reconstruction of the roof is proposed based on the recording of position, width, length and orientation of the majority of the excavated burned beams (BB) (Fig. 3)

Summary

Introduction

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period is crucial to the understanding of a major step in human history involving the emergence of farming and the shift to sedentism. In the Levant, the process of animal and plant domestication crystallizes in the 9th millennium BC and is associated to the second phase of the PPN (PPNB). The study of PPN architecture has revealed key aspects of the social complexity that characterised early farming communities [2,3]. Our focus on early architecture technology aims at exploring the social and environmental implications of the transition from mobile to sedentary life. In this sense, information on building conception, construction, maintenance (rebuilding, reparation) and destruction, is interpreted as a proxy of human socio-ecological behaviour.

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion