Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Research Articles

A “shaman” burial from the PPNA settlement of Çemka Höyük, Upper Tigris Basin, Turkiye

Knowledge of the burial customs of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) in the Near East is increasing. Particularly, lately a large number of burials and skeletal remains have been unearthed in the Upper Tigris Basin, thanks to a number of new excavation projects in recent years. The newly revealed findings indicate that PPNA burial customs varied considerably in the region from site to site. However, the 10th millennium BCE burial ÇH 2019/05 at Çemka Höyük shows as well that there are also different burial practices with in settlements. ÇH 2019/05 belongs to a female individual, accompanied by animal skeletal elements, who appears to may have been a shaman or at least had been buried by someone practicing ways associated with what we understand nowadays as animism or shamanism. Hence, the burial may represent one of the earliest known examples of its kind in an Anatolian Neolithic context.

Palaeogenomic insights into the origins of early settlers on the island of Cyprus

Archaeological evidence supports sporadic seafaring visits to the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus by Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherers over 12,000 years ago, followed by permanent settlements during the early Neolithic. The geographical origins of these early seafarers have so far remained elusive. By systematically analysing all available genomes from the late Pleistocene to early Holocene Near East (c. 14,000–7000 cal BCE), we provide a comprehensive overview of the genetic landscape of the early Neolithic Fertile Crescent and Anatolia and infer the likely origins of three recently published genomes from Kissonerga-Mylouthkia (Cypriot Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, c. 7600–6800 cal BCE). These appear to derive roughly 80% of their ancestry from Aceramic Neolithic Central Anatolians residing in or near the Konya plain, and the remainder from a genetically basal Levantine population. Based on genome-wide weighted ancestry covariance analysis, we infer that this admixture event took place roughly between 14,000 and 10,000 BCE, coinciding with the transition from the Cypriot late Epipaleolithic to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). Additionally, we identify strong genetic affinities between the examined Cypro-LPPNB individuals and later northwestern Anatolians and the earliest European Neolithic farmers. Our results inform archaeological evidence on prehistoric demographic processes in the Eastern Mediterranean, providing important insights into early seafaring, maritime connections, and insular settlement.

From seashore to Neolithic floor: origins and spatial distribution patterns of shell bead assemblages at WF16, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A settlement in Southern Jordan

Shells have been collected and used as body adornments by Homo sapiens for at least 140,000 years. Major increases in their use occurred during the Late Pleistocene and, with the gradual transition to the Neolithic, likely reflected new forms of social interaction associated with larger communities and less mobile lifestyles. We explore this development by considering the shell bead assemblage from WF16, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site in southern Jordan. This assemblage is one of the largest known from the early Neolithic and can be divided between two PPNA phases. We identify a changing preference for shell types between these phases, one that parallels a change in the wider region which may be associated with evolving social networks during the early Neolithic.

Innovations at the Margins: The Transmission of Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) Culture across the Levantine Interior

Abstract. The advent of the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) in the southern Levant is reviewed here in the light of data from recent excavations. Data from the western flank of the southern Levant continue to indicate that the EPPNB cultural horizon arrived in the region around 9,300 BP/8,612–8,491 cal. BCE. This body of evidence includes a bloc of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) sites in central western Jordan that terminate around the same time. On the eastern flank of the southern Levant, new excavations are returning progressively higher dates for the introduction of the EPPNB, with Harrat Juhayra 202 in the Jafr Basin being the earliest of them. The early dissemination of PPNB culture across the eastern flank of the Levant is explored in terms of the high mobility of hunter-gatherer communities living in marginal areas, and the porous boundaries of their home ranges. Since quite different adaptations appear to fall under the aegis of PPNB culture (both agrarian villages and mobile hunter-gatherers), this chapter revisits some basic notions and assumptions about the large, pan-Levantine PPNB cultural entity. It reassesses ideas about the construction of archaeological cultures, examines how culture elements disperse, and how inter-societal contacts may give rise to dynamic new cultural expressions.

Nascent craft specialization in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A? Bead making at Shubayqa 6 (northeast Jordan)

The emergence of craft specialisation is a key area of interest for archaeologists investigating the socio-economic history and development of past societies. In southwest Asia, as elsewhere, the origins of craft specialisation have been associated with the emergence of surplus food production, households and social stratification. We present evidence for nascent skilled production of green stone beads at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site Shubayqa 6, northeast Jordan. Thousands of pieces of debitage, roughouts and finished beads exhibit signs of standardised production that was probably geared towards exchange. This hints towards incipient skilled craft production that was likely part-time and seasonal. We therefore argue that the appearance of specialist artisans in this autonomous and non-hierarchical society has no correlation with surplus food production, households, or social stratification.

Vegetation History and the Exploitation and Use of Plant Resources in Aceramic Neolithic Cyprus: an Assessment of Recent Archaeobotanical Research

Vegetation History and the Exploitation and Use of Plant Resources in Aceramic Neolithic Cyprus: an Assessment of Recent Archaeobotanical Research

A Review of Nemrik Culture Following Findings in the Southeast Area at Boncuklu Tarla during the 2020 Excavation Season

Boncuklu Tarla, located in the upper Tigris Valley, has been inhabited continuously from the Proto-Neolithic until the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. This uninterrupted sequence is not the result of a constant mounding process, but can be seen as the presence of a single occupation layer in large areas during different periods. One of these single-layered areas is located in the southeastern part of the settlement and is dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). The finds unearthed during excavations in this section, in particular the architecture and chipped stones, display similar characteristics to Nemrik Culture, which is thought to be unique to the East Jezirah. These similarities are visible in the architecture and in regular find assemblages. This study considers newly recovered data from southeastern Boncuklu Tarla in regard to their apparent rapport with Nemrik Culture, as well as to outline different cultural aspects of the upper Mesopotamian PPNA.

Cappadocian obsidian exchange networks in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A: a Southern Levantine perspective from el-Hemmeh (Jordan)

Anatolian obsidian is ubiquitous, but present in only scant amounts, in lithic assemblages recovered from Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) settlements of the southern Levant. These sparse quantities have long been interpreted to indicate down-the-line exchange of obsidian via larger regional exchange systems that underpinned information flow amongst early food- producing societies. Here, we explore these networks in the southern Levant through analyses of obsidian artifacts from the PPNA site of el-Hemmeh, Jordan. EDXRF spectroscopy indicates that the obsidian used at el-Hemmeh originated from East Göllü Dağ in central Anatolia, echoing a pattern observed at other southern Levantine sites. We combine obsidian sourcing data for other PPNA sites in southwest Asia with assemblage structure and techno-typological data, to draw out previously unrecognized regional differences in obsidian consumption patterns. This allows us to argue for the existence of distinct exchange networks connecting the inhabitants of the southern Levant and the Middle Euphrates to Anatolian obsidian sources. We conclude that southern Levantine communities accessed their East Göllü Dağ obsidian via a trans-Lebanon and/or maritime route rather than through contemporary communities in the Middle Euphrates.

Management of symbols: Weapons variability and the emergence of large tanged points in early pre-pottery neolithic context of Motza, Judean Hills, Israel

Large tanged points characteristic of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) in the Levant signify a prominent departure from the long-lasting use of small-size projectile implements. The reason for the emergence of these tools remains enigmatic, especially on the background of experimental evidence from elsewhere indicating greater efficiency of small-size counterparts in hunting as well as in warfare. Here we investigate this phenomenon based on the early PPNB (EPPNB) occupation of Motza, where large tanged Jericho points occur together with relatively small and side-notched Helwan points.Examination of projectile damage patterns and metric characteristics showing that both types constituted tips of complex/high velocity projectiles led to delineation of function-related requirements associated with large tanged points in particular. These insights together with recent studies linking pre-domestic management of ungulates with Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)–PPNB transition allowed formulation of a hypothesis that the emergence of large points reflected a changing perception of the kill of the animals in humans' care, namely introduction of proto sacrifice conducted in the form of ritual/ceremonial hunt. Our hypothesis, tested against the spatial distribution of Helwan and Jericho points in the EPPNB occupation of Motza with encouraging results, requires further examination involving analyses of functional and contextual aspects of large tanged points deriving from different phases of the period.

On One More Concept of “Neolithic” Based on the Postmodernism Approach

Valerii Manko and Guram Chkhatarashvili published their article in the “Arheologia”, No. 2, 2022. In the paper, they discussed the migration of bearers of four Neolithic flint industries from Southwest Asia through the Caucasus to the south of Eastern Europe from the final Pleistocene to the early Atlantic. According to the authors, stable connections between these remote areas led to the emergence of four “information networks”, which they called “Cultural-Historical Regions” (CHR). The authors believe that the first region of such type in human history was the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) in the Near East. Therefore, they call the “theoretical basis” of their study “the idea of understanding the Neolithic as an epoch of the formation of global information networks, within which innovations created in the Near and Middle East were disseminated.” V. Manko began to develop the described theoretical views in 2010 when he wrote that the reason for the emergence of the CHR is the ability to communicate, formed due to the mental changes of inhabitants of the PPNA large settlements. The statement about specific psyche and worldview as the basis of Neolithic has been expressed as an idea of Post-Processual archaeology long before V. Manko announced it. In particular, Trevor Watkins developed this concept in detail. However, V. Manko does not mention publications by any post-processualists in his articles. The statement about the formation of the ability to communicate only in the Neolithic is V. Manko’s novelty. He based it on one reference to a publication of Alexey N. Sorokin, who allegedly claimed that the bearers of different flint industries did not contact each other in the central part of European Russia in the Mesolithic. V. Manko misinterpreted this particular subjective observation and gave it the meaning of a global pattern. Thus, his definition of the Neolithic is controversial, because of using this erroneous premise. Generally, V. Manko’s theoretical reasoning is full of contradictions, logical errors, terminological chaos, and rhetoric in the postmodernism style. It is noteworthy that V. Manko himself does not fully adhere to his previous theoretical views in his later works.

Kaizer Hill (Modi'in), a pre-pottery neolithic a quarry site - the terraced slopes.

The research of the Kaizer Hill site (the Hilltop and its Terraces), recognized as a Pre Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) quarry site, involved studies of the rock damage associated with the quarrying activities as well as of the recovered material remains, mostly chipped stone artifacts. We present here the results of our on-site explorations (excavations, surveys and surface-collections), focusing on the findings deriving from the Terraces. Diverse rock damage patterns were identified and described, portraying systematic rock mass-exploitation through quarrying fronts, natural rock joints and fissures enlargement, drilling and chiseling. There are multiple indications that the local bedrock (Bi’na Formation, Turonian) comprising flint and limestone was quarried under a systematic quality evaluation, leaving residual flint unsuitable for exploitation. Of interest to note that nearly all of the flint artifacts excavated and collected on the Terraces were made on raw material transported from the Hilltop (Mishash Formation, Campanian), knapped in-situ, on the quarried rock surfaces of the slopes. The flint tools bear witness to intensive use involving mainly boring and drilling. The dominant tool type is the flint axe for which a variety of waste products related to its production were found in-situ, enabling the reconstruction of axe reduction sequence. Similar axes and waste products were found in many PPN sites indicating that there was a common, widely-used scheme of making flint axes during the PPN. Interestingly, besides the flint waste, there were also limestone waste products typical of the last shaping and thinning stages of axe production, indicating that limestone axes were shaped technologically similar to the flint ones, contrary to what has been assumed before. Rare findings, such as obsidian pieces, originating from much further a-field indicate ties with other PPN communities, near and/or far. Overall, this study provides unique and novel insights on Levantine PPN lifeways.

New insights into the spatial organization, stratigraphy and human occupations of the Aceramic Neolithic at Ganj Dareh, Iran.

The Aceramic Neolithic site of Ganj Dareh (Kermanshah, Iran) is arguably one of the most significant sites for enhancing our understanding of goat domestication and the onset of sedentism. Despite its central importance, it has proven difficult to obtain contextually reliable data from it and integrate the site in regional syntheses because it was never published in full after excavations ceased in 1974. This paper presents the Ganj Dareh archive at Université de Montréal and shows how the documentation and artifacts it comprises still offer a great deal of useful information about the site. In particular, we 1) present the first stratigraphic profile for the site, which reveals a more complex depositional history than Smith's five-level sequence; 2) reveal the presence of two possible pre-agricultural levels (H-01 and P-01); 3) explore the spatial organization of different levels; 4) explain possible discrepancies in the radiocarbon dates from the site; 5) show some differences in lithic technological organization in levels H-01 and P-01 suggestive of higher degrees of residential mobility than subsequent phases of occupation at the site; and 6) reanalyze the burial data to broaden our understanding of Aceramic Neolithic mortuary practices in the Zagros. These data help refine our understanding of Ganj Dareh's depositional and occupational history and recenter it as a key site to improve our understanding the Neolithization process in the Middle East.

Herded and hunted goat genomes from the dawn of domestication in the Zagros Mountains

The Aceramic Neolithic (∼9600 to 7000 cal BC) period in the Zagros Mountains, western Iran, provides some of the earliest archaeological evidence of goat (Capra hircus) management and husbandry by circa 8200 cal BC, with detectable morphological change appearing ∼1,000 y later. To examine the genomic imprint of initial management and its implications for the goat domestication process, we analyzed 14 novel nuclear genomes (mean coverage 1.13X) and 32 mitochondrial (mtDNA) genomes (mean coverage 143X) from two such sites, Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein. These genomes show two distinct clusters: those with domestic affinity and a minority group with stronger wild affinity, indicating that managed goats were genetically distinct from wild goats at this early horizon. This genetic duality, the presence of long runs of homozygosity, shared ancestry with later Neolithic populations, a sex bias in archaeozoological remains, and demographic profiles from across all layers of Ganj Dareh support management of genetically domestic goat by circa 8200 cal BC, and represent the oldest to-this-date reported livestock genomes. In these sites a combination of high autosomal and mtDNA diversity, contrasting limited Y chromosomal lineage diversity, an absence of reported selection signatures for pigmentation, and the wild morphology of bone remains illustrates domestication as an extended process lacking a strong initial bottleneck, beginning with spatial control, demographic manipulation via biased male culling, captive breeding, and subsequently phenotypic and genomic selection.

Preservation of seasonally abundant waterfowl? Analysis of faunal remains from middens at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic a site of Shubayqa 6 in northeast Jordan

There is extensive evidence for extraction of grease and fat from bones of ungulates at Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites in the Southern Levant. Excavations at Shubayqa 6 identified an area where extensive processing of carcasses took place during the transition between the Late Natufian to Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). Large quantities of fire-cracked basalt, highly fragmented faunal remains and burnt bones indicate that grease and fat were extracted on a large scale. Spatial analysis demonstrates that bird remains were discarded in the same location where this fat rendering took place. Waterfowl dominate the assemblage and would have been present mainly in the winter. Body-part representation of the bird remains suggests that this abundance of avifauna resulted in people selectively processing the carcasses of the wetland birds they hunted. Gazelles would have been in peak condition at this time of year with higher concentrations of fat stored in their bodies. This seasonal glut of resources contrasts with the summer, especially late summer, when most of the commonly hunted bird species were absent and the gazelle in relatively poor condition. People, aware of seasonal cycles in resource abundance, may have preserved foods when available. Storing fat conserves resources for leaner times. Compared to the Natufian site of Shubayqa 1, fewer young gazelle in the faunal remains at Shubayqa 6 is an indication that hunting either targeted mature animals or was more intense in the winter when fewer young animals are present. Carcasses from juvenile animals are comprised of less fat and the association of the adult gazelle carcasses with the bird remains suggests that the two resources were processed alongside one another. Preservation of foodstuffs for leaner months of the year may have been one potential outcome of this activity.

Reassessing Initial Village Period Settlements in the Upper Khuzestan Plain

Reassessing Initial Village Period Settlements in the Upper Khuzestan Plain

Tatlısu-Çiftlikdüzü/Akanthou-Arkosykos Cypro-PPNB Orak Bıçakları

Kıbrıs’ın kuzey kıyısında, doğuya doğru uzanan Karpaz yarımadasında yer alan Tatlısu-Çiftlikdüzü/Akanthou-Arkosykos yerleşmesi 2000-2005 ve 2010-2015 yılları arasında kazılmıştır. Çalışmalara verilen aranın ardından 2016 yılında tekrar kazılmaya ve araştırılmaya başlanmıştır. Yontmataş grubunu oluşturan obsidiyenler Anadolu bağlantılı olarak çalışılırken, yerel hammaddelerin elde edilmesi ve işlenmesi de önemli araştırma konularından biri olmuştur. Yerel hammaddeler olan çakmaktaşı ve çörtten üretilmiş orak bıçakları alet grupları içerisinde iyi tanımlanmış bir grubu oluşturur. Orak bıçaklarının üzerinde bulunan silika parlaklığı orak bıçaklarının tahıllar ve saz gibi bitkilerin kesimi için kullanıldığına işaret eder. Fonksiyonunun yanı sıra teknolojik analizler bu aletlerin nasıl üretildiklerini de ortaya koymaktadır. Bu çalışma, Tatlısu topluluğunun hammadde kullanımı, aletlerini nasıl ürettikleri ve bu aletlerin bitki hasadında kullanımı ile ilgili veri oluşturmayı hedeflemektedir.

Geochemical characterisation of carnelian beads from Aceramic Neolithic Cyprus using portable X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (pXRF)

This paper presents the results of the compositional analysis conducted on carnelian beads from Aceramic Neolithic sites on the island of Cyprus. Carnelian is a rare raw material with alleged geological sources in the broader eastern Mediterranean–western Asia region. Most of these sources remain little explored and no detailed data concerning their geochemical signatures and elemental composition are available. Carnelian, albeit an exogenous material, is found in small quantities in lithic assemblages from Cypriot sites dating to 8500–5200 Cal BCE. The paper discusses these occurrences and uses non-destructive pXRF technology to (a) attempt to identify distinct geochemical groups (i.e. exploited sources) within these assemblages, and (b) use this information to infer the role of Cyprus within the broader eastern Mediterranean social landscape and exchange networks of the Early Holocene. Our analyses suggest multiple origins for the carnelian raw material and, more significantly, demonstrate that occasionally other materials, visually indistinguishable from carnelian, were used in bead manufacture. We consider the symbolic role of these raw material choices and propose that these early island communities engaged in a system of linked values with their mainland counterparts dependent on the materials exchanged objects were made of.

Socio-political organization in the Aceramic Neolithic of southwestern Asia: The complex evolution of socio-political complexity

Attempts to address the socio-political organization of the early Neolithic mega-sites in southwestern Asia have generally been hampered by expectations derived from a view of socio-political evolution rooted in a binary opposition of egalitarianism and hierarchy. We propose that the egalitarianism-hierarchy dichotomy can be unpacked with reference to the distinction between ideology and practice. Both social relations can coexist, with egalitarian ideologies constraining hierarchical practices, producing seemingly egalitarian leadership despite hierarchical practices. We also propose that there were ceremonial sodalities in these early Neolithic societies and that sodalities can be effective agents of social control, exemplifying this interaction of ideology and practice. We argue that the existence of sodalities in any given society is independent of any political hierarchy as may or may not also exist and that the political role of sodalities is independent of the influence-authority distinction underlying step-wise socio-political evolutionary stages, invalidating such stages. Instead, we propose that there exist (reversible) threshold social conditions, only some contingently sequential, which falsely convey a sense of categorical evolutionary stages based solely on the presence of some threshold condition. The early Neolithic mega-sites illustrate the far broader spectrum and multidimensional range of possible sociopolitical organization produced by cultural evolution.

The Obsidian Evidence for Trans-maritime Interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean

This study presents an overview of obsidian use from archaeological sites located on the island of Cyprus and spanning the period broadly defined as the Aceramic Neolithic (ca. 8900-5200 Cal bc). Diachronic changes in the use of this exotic raw material are investigated through the study of the quantities, general typo-technological characteristics and context reflected in the obsidian assemblages. Traditionally, Cyprus has been regarded as a marginal and isolated region within the eastern Mediterranean until the appearance of copper metallurgy. However, the presence of artefacts made of obsidian from multiple sources located at least a few hundred kilometres distant suggests that the island's inhabitants during the Early Holocene engaged in an active social landscape both on the island and between the island and its neighbouring mainland. By using obsidian as a proxy for social communication, this study discusses the movement of obsidian objects between people, places and groups in the early prehistory of the eastern Mediterranean, and the social mechanisms of interaction between islands and mainlands at a time of change for the wider Mediterranean world.

Time out of joint: A re-assessment of the Cypriot Aceramic Neolithic site of Kalavasos-Tenta and its regional implications

This article proposes that the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) hunter-forager-cultivator introductions to Cyprus from the northern Levant had a much more enduring impact on the Cypriot Aceramic Neolithic than subsequent agricultural introductions associated with the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). The presence at Ayios Tychonas-Klimonas of imported wild emmer wheat, a chipped stone assemblage bearing strong similarities to Mureybet IIIA and a circular communal building with close parallels in the northern Levantine PPNA (Vigne et al. 2012: 8446–47), confirm that by the beginning of the 9th millennium cal BC communities on Cyprus had adopted technologies, behaviours and perhaps the ideology of the mainland PPNA. Many PPNA-derived practices survived, or were deliberately maintained, after the introduction of agriculture to the island in the mid 9th millennium cal BC. On the basis of a critical re-evaluation of the important Cypriot Aceramic Neolithic site of Kalavasos-Tenta, the significance of this assertion is explored. The possibility is discussed that cultural archaism, observed in many aspects of the Cypriot Neolithic, was the result of deliberate choice, constituted within an ideology that rejected the shift towards the more structured, corporate way of living which was gathering pace on the mainland by the 8th millennium cal BC (Benz et al. 2017). Instead, mainland PPNB technologies and materiel were differentially adopted, or disregarded, under unique conditions that enabled Cyprus to maintain a predominantly hunting economy long after agriculture had been introduced to the island. A re-analysis of three impressive circular communal buildings at Tenta and their relationship with the surrounding, much smaller pillar buildings lead us to argue that Tenta was occupied virtually continuously from at least the mid 9th to the mid 7th millennia cal BC, that its extraordinary longevity and archaism can be attributed to its socio-ideological significance; and, that the top-of-site communal buildings may have been the successors to the early 9th millennium cal BC examples epitomised by Building 10 at Klimonas. In addition, the smaller circular pillar buildings surrounding them are interpreted here in the context of a new influx of people with links to Upper Mesopotamia at around 7500 cal BC, who may have been seeking refuge from the rapidly intensifying and changing world of the mainland PPNB.