Pre-Pottery Research Articles

Neolithic Voyages to Cyprus: Wind Patterns, Routes, and Mechanisms

ABSTRACTRecent archaeological evidence from Cyprus shows that humans first arrived on the island at around 12,000 calibrated years BP. Visits to Cyprus intensified and resulted in settlement of the island during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A beginning around 11,000 cal BP. Later occupations of the Cypro Pre Pottery Neolithic B from around 10,500 to 9000 cal BP are more numerous and testify to intensive connections with the mainland. Cyprus as an island could have been reached only by seafaring. We examined the possible routes for sailing from the mainland to Cyprus and back to better understand the relationship between the island and the mainland during these periods. The factors that were examined were: sea level; options of available watercraft; sea conditions and currents; navigational skills; sailing routes; and prevailing seasonal and diurnal wind regimes. Because the present wind pattern is understood to generally resemble that of the Terminal Pleistocene pattern, it is suggested that the optimal sailing route and season from the mainland to Cyprus by Neolithic navigators was from southern Turkey between April and October. A passage westward or northwestward from the Levant coast to the southern coast of Cyprus cannot be ruled out. Their return trip was from the east or southeast of Cyprus to the Levant coast. This counter-clockwise Neolithic sailing pattern to Cyprus enabled permanent human settlement of the island and contacts with the mainland.

Early Holocene woodland vegetation and human impacts in the arid zone of the southern Levant

Palynological archives dating from the Pleistocene–Holocene transition are scarce in the arid zone of the southern Levant. Anthracological remains (the carbonized residues of wood fuel use found in archaeological habitation sites) provide an alternative source of information about past vegetation. This paper discusses new and previously available anthracological datasets retrieved from excavated habitation sites in the southern Levant dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period. The available evidence indicates the existence of distinct arboreal floras growing in different ecological niches, which occupied areas that today are either treeless or very sparsely wooded. The anthracological data provide independent confirmation of the hypothesis that early Holocene climate in the southern Levant was significantly moister than at present. Clear North–South and East–West precipitation and associated woodland composition gradients are evidenced. Far from deducing widespread anthropogenic degradation of the regional vegetation, it is suggested that woodland expansion in the semi-arid interiors of the Levant may be attributed to the intensive management of Pistacia woodlands for food, fuel and pasture.

Ancient DNA analysis of 8000 B.C. near eastern farmers supports an early neolithic pioneer maritime colonization of Mainland Europe through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands.

The genetic impact associated to the Neolithic spread in Europe has been widely debated over the last 20 years. Within this context, ancient DNA studies have provided a more reliable picture by directly analyzing the protagonist populations at different regions in Europe. However, the lack of available data from the original Near Eastern farmers has limited the achieved conclusions, preventing the formulation of continental models of Neolithic expansion. Here we address this issue by presenting mitochondrial DNA data of the original Near-Eastern Neolithic communities with the aim of providing the adequate background for the interpretation of Neolithic genetic data from European samples. Sixty-three skeletons from the Pre Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) sites of Tell Halula, Tell Ramad and Dja'de El Mughara dating between 8,700–6,600 cal. B.C. were analyzed, and 15 validated mitochondrial DNA profiles were recovered. In order to estimate the demographic contribution of the first farmers to both Central European and Western Mediterranean Neolithic cultures, haplotype and haplogroup diversities in the PPNB sample were compared using phylogeographic and population genetic analyses to available ancient DNA data from human remains belonging to the Linearbandkeramik-Alföldi Vonaldiszes Kerámia and Cardial/Epicardial cultures. We also searched for possible signatures of the original Neolithic expansion over the modern Near Eastern and South European genetic pools, and tried to infer possible routes of expansion by comparing the obtained results to a database of 60 modern populations from both regions. Comparisons performed among the 3 ancient datasets allowed us to identify K and N-derived mitochondrial DNA haplogroups as potential markers of the Neolithic expansion, whose genetic signature would have reached both the Iberian coasts and the Central European plain. Moreover, the observed genetic affinities between the PPNB samples and the modern populations of Cyprus and Crete seem to suggest that the Neolithic was first introduced into Europe through pioneer seafaring colonization.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Village of Yiftahel: The 1980s and 1990s Excavations, by Y. Garfinkel, D. Dag, M. Khalaily, O. Mader, I. Milevski, and A. Ronen. Berlin: ex oriente, 2012. xxxii + 310 pp., 235 figures, 25 color plates, 62 tables. Cloth. €92.00.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Village of Yiftahel: The 1980s and 1990s Excavations, by Y. Garfinkel, D. Dag, M. Khalaily, O. Mader, I. Milevski, and A. Ronen. Berlin: ex oriente, 2012. xxxii + 310 pp., 235 figures, 25 color plates, 62 tables. Cloth. €92.00.Alan H. SimmonsAlan H. SimmonsUniversity of Nevada, Las Vegas, [email protected] Search for more articles by this author University of Nevada, Las Vegas, [email protected] PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research Volume 370November 2013 A journal of the American Schools of Oriental Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5615/bullamerschoorie.370.0221 Views: 7Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in the Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research (1921-2021), which is continued by the Bulletin of the American Schools of Overseas Research (2022-present). Copyright 2013 American Schools of Oriental ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Activities at final Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNC) fishing village revealed through microwear analysis of bifacial flint tools from the submerged Atlit-Yam site, Israel

Data from the submerged Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC) Atlit-Yam site and nearby Pottery Neolithic (PN) sites were used to develop a model of agro-pastoral-maritime economies at early Mediterranean-Levantine Fishing Villages (MFVs) on the coast of Israel ca. 9000–6500 cal BP. Several lithic workshops were also exposed within the 40,000 m2Atlit-Yam site among structures, ceremonial areas, and a deep well. A large number of Neolithic bifacial axes (n = 151) were recovered which could have been used to build water craft, but microwear on a sample of 18 bifaces revealed that chisels and adzes were probably used for that task, while the axes were used to fell trees. Microwear analysis of 206 Neolithic and Chalcolithic bifaces revealed that most PPNA tranchet flint axes and chisels were used for carpentry, rather than tree-felling, but by the Middle and Late PPNB, there were fewer carpentry tools, and polished flint axes were used to open the forests. Microwear on Atlit-Yam bifaces showed that this pattern continued during the PPNC until deforestation and landscape degradation reduced the need for heavy axes. During the PN, adzes replace axes and there are more carpentry tools than tree-felling bifaces. Interior PN agro-pastoralists dispersed from large PPN sites, but the manufacture, use, and repair of bifaces at Atlit-Yam supports the view that coastal groups who had formed self-sufficient MFVs and went to sea to fish, also cleared forests for their crops and grazing lands.

Ceramics in the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic B: evidence from Kfar HaHoresh, Israel

This paper summarises typological and technological research on a small assemblage of pottery containers recovered at Kfar HaHoresh (KHH), a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site in the Southern Levant. The majority of the sherds belong to a distinguishable fabric, composed of local marl matrix tempered with vegetal material originating from herbivore manure. Based on the scarcity and properties of the sherds, we propose that the pottery containers at KHH were rare vessels possibly produced for personal use or for use by distinctive individuals for very limited purposes.

Architecture as material culture: Building form and materiality in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Anatolia and Levant

Mudbrick technology and permanent architecture are Neolithic hallmarks but their origins are not well understood. By adopting a symmetrical approach to the examination of building materials, and contextualizing these materials within a cultural knowledge of resources and other concurrent social practices, this paper challenges environmentally determined approaches to explain the adoption of mudbrick technology during the PPNA in Anatolia, Upper Euphrates and the Levant. This research illustrates the weak correlation between architectural form and building material, suggesting that although nature provides resources, it is culture that dictates architectural form and material use. It is argued that the human-constructed environment became normalized throughout the PPNA and the social complexities of village life created a conceptual shift towards an artificial environment, supported by other changes in symbolic behavior. If building materials, such as mudbricks, were considered objects reflexive of human behavior, then we can access the complex and entangled relationship between people and things. Furthermore, the choice of building materials and their use in architecture can be considered codes of social practice and even ideology. As material culture, architecture becomes a metaphor for human engagement and symbolic communication.

THE PALEOGEOGRAPHY OF GAZELLA GAZELLA AND GAZELLA DORCAS DURING THE HOLOCENE OF THE SOUTHERN LEVANT

ABSTRACT An excavation of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) site from southern Sinai revealed a rich faunal assemblage containing, amongst other species, gazelle remains which were identified, by comparison with recent material, as Gazella gazella. It is suggested that Gazella gazella was the only species of gazelle existing in Israel until after the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. In the last glacial period the Gazella gazella range expanded southwards and reached southern Sinai Gazella dorcas is a relatively new post-Glacial invasion from North-East Africa into the arid zone of the Levant whence it replaced Gazella gazella by way of exclusion. The desert subspecies of G. gazella in the southern 'Arava Valley can be considered as a glacial isolate within the new domain of Gazella dorcas.

Performance and Participation: Multi-sensual analysis of Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic Non-Domestic Architecture

A series of non-domestic structures have been found at Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites across the Near East, but have not been comprehensively analysed to determine how they were used and perceived by inhabitants of the site. A multi-sensual embodied analysis of the non-domestic structures at Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori, and Jerf el-Ahmar show that these structures were very open and undifferentiated, and would have facilitated sharing of highly charged experiences rather than fostering and materializing hierarchical relationships. Analysis of the physical reality of inhabiting these spaces permits a contextual and nuanced model of the capacity of the structures to be constructed, elucidating the types of relationships that would be created and maintained within these spaces.

Form and Function of Early Neolithic Bifacial Stone Tools Reflects Changes in Land Use Practices during the Neolithization Process in the Levant

For many, climate change is no longer recognized as the primary cause of cultural changes in the Near East. Instead, human landscape degradation, population growth, socioeconomic adjustments, and conflict have been proposed as the mechanisms that shaped the Neolithic Revolution. However, as Bar-Yosef noted, even if there is chronological correlation between climate changes and cultural developments, what is important is to understand how Neolithic societies dealt with these improving or deteriorating environments. Changes in bifacial stone tools provide a framework for examining some of these interactions by focusing on changing land use practices during the Neolithization process. The results of microwear analysis of 40 bifacial artifacts from early Pre-Pottery Neolithic (EPPNB) levels at Motza in the Judean hills document changes during the PPNA–PPNB transition at the onset of the Levantine Moist Period (ca. 8000 cal B.C.) when conditions for agriculture improved. EPPNB villagers added heavy-duty axes to a toolkit they had used for carpentry and began to clear forests for fields and grazing lands. Sustainable forest management continued for the duration of the PPN until the cumulative effects of tree-felling and overgrazing seem to have led to landscape degradation at end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC), when a cold, dry climatic anomaly (6600–6000 cal B.C.) may have accelerated the reduction of woodlands. Early PPNB components at sites like Motza, with data from nearly five millennia of Neolithic occupations, show how complex hunter–gatherers and early food producers were able to establish sustainable resource management systems even as climate changed, population increased, and social relations were redefined.

An estimator for bidirectional (naviform) blade productivity in the Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

A method is presented for calculating the blade productivity of bidirectional (naviform) blade cores, a hallmark of Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) chipped stone tool assemblages. This approach involves estimating the volume of the core that furnished serial blades, together with the mean volume of a typical targeted blade blank. Simple computation of the volume of a wedge in both instances provides an estimate of the number of targeted blades that were produced in an average single reduction sequence. The method is checked against two replicated bidirectional blade reduction sequences, and a refitted bidirectional blade core from the site of Kfar HaHoresh, Israel. Finally, a case study from Kfar HaHoresh is presented in order to illustrate the application of the method, which may have ramifications concerning the evaluation of incipient craft specialization in the region.

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

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.

Modelling the Neolithic Transition in the Near East and Europe

AbstractFor the Neolithic transition in the Near East and Europe, this paper compares the isochrones predicted by computational models to those obtained by interpolating the archaeological data. This comparison reveals that there is a major inconsistency between the predictions of the models and the archaeological data: according to the models, the Neolithic front would have arrived to Greece in less than half the time interval implied by the data. Our main new results are as follows, (a) This inconsistency can be solved by including only Pre Pottery Neolithic B/C (PPNB/C) sites in the Near East; (b) the model that yields the lowest mean error per site in the arrival time of the Neolithic across the Near East and Europe is obtained by allowing for sea travels up to distances of 150 km; and (c) Mountain barriers have a negligible effect on the spread rate of the Neolithic front at the continental scale.

A Household Perspective towards the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to Late Neolithic Cultural Transformation in the Southern Levant

Besides the economic transition from foraging to agriculture, researchers of the southern Levantine Neolithic have investigated the issue of cultural transformation from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) to Late Neolithic (LN) period. This archaeological phenomenon, formerly explained as hiatus palestinien, is currently understood as a structured cultural change involving reorganizations in settlement systems, subsistence activities, tool-production technology, social organization, and ritual practices. Causes for these changes have been sought in several factors, including climatic shift, environmental deterioration, increasing reliance of farming, population increase, social crowding, and the decline of communal rituals. This paper proposes a household perspective on this issue to effectively interlink ecological and social factors. To this end, the paper first reviews current understanding of PPNB households and then examines archaeological records indicative of household size, household activities, and the social relationship among households. In this discussion, archaeological data are interpreted by drawing on the anthropologically expected relationship between household size and the degree of economic interdependence among households, i.e., communal or autonomous performance of production and consumption activities. zAs a result, I suggest that the increase in household size during the Late PPNB and LN, as indicated by multicellular, two-story houses and courtyard buildings, was caused by the increasing autonomy of households in the performance of production and consumption activities since the Middle PPNB. The latter process is explicable as a response to the reduced opportunities for forming communal works due to diversified subsistence activities and conflicting labour scheduling among households. These transformations of households can be considered as a significant aspect in the reorganization of settlement systems and related cultural changes at the transition from the PPNB to LN.

Textiles from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Site of Tell Halula (Euphrates Valley, Syria)

A team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, led by Miquel Molist, has been working on the Tell Halula prepottery Neolithic site on the right bank of the Euphrates since 1991. The excavation has allowed the discovery of remains of textiles, basketry and mats that are of special interest due to their antiquity. This article describes these textiles, most of which are connected with funeral rituals. The bodies were placed in small wells dug into the compacted clay floors inside the dwellings. Studying the spinning and weaving processes that gave rise to these items is extremely difficult because of the lack of instrumenta textilia that might throw light on the technology employed, which can only be postulated on the basis of the few samples of organic matter that have been preserved.

Crop introduction and accelerated island evolution: archaeobotanical evidence from ‘Ais Yiorkis and Pre-Pottery Neolithic Cyprus

Charred plant remains from the Cypriot Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Krittou Marottou ‘Ais Yiorkis, situated in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains and dated to ca. 7500 cal. b.c., demonstrate the early introduction of two-grained einkorn (Triticum monococcum sensu lato). Grain measurements of two-grained einkorn from ‘Ais Yiorkis are compared to those from Aceramic and early Neolithic sites elsewhere in Cyprus, in northern Syria and central Europe. The grains appear to be larger than domestic grains of a later date from the Levantine mainland. Recent work by Purugganan and Fuller (Evolution 65:171–183, 2011) demonstrates a slow evolutionary rate in increasing grain size relative to the rates of evolution in wild species subject to natural selection. When the measurements of two-grained einkorn wheat from ‘Ais Yiorkis are compared with these same allochronic data the results indicate an accelerated rate in attaining larger grain size on Cyprus than on the mainland. The possibility of a domestication ‘event’ or rapid fixation of larger grain size characteristic of domesticated cereal crops in the context of an initially small island population is suggested by the colonisation by farmers of Cyprus in the Cypro-Pre-Pottery Neolithic.

Searching for the origins of arable weeds in the Near East

This short note adds to earlier attempts at identifying arable weeds on late Pleistocene/early Holocene sites in the Near East. Nineteen potential arable weed taxa that have no known use were selected. The occurrence of these taxa at sites with morphologically wild cereals was compared to sites with morphologically domestic cereals. The presumed arable weed taxa were as common on three PPNA (Pre Pottery Neolithic A) sites without domestication as they were on Middle PPNB (Pre Pottery Neolithic B) sites with domestication, which lends support to arguments for pre-domestic cultivation at the former sites. Arable weed taxa were less common at Natufian sites but their presence raises the question of whether they originated in cultivated fields or were the ancestors of weeds gathered accidentally alongside wild cereals in their natural habitat.

7th to 5th millennium Eastern Mediterranean: An Introduction to the Identification of Interactions between Cyprus and the North Levant after Pre-Pottery Neolithic Times

Cet article se propose d ’ analyser et d ’ expliciter les multiples formes d ’ interaction entre sociétés de l ’ Est du bassin méditerranéen . Il est généralement accepté que l ’ île de Chypre a fait l ’ objet d ’ une vague de migration d ’ agriculteurs venant du continent (vraisemblablement du Sud-Est de l ’ Anatolie et du Levant Nord ) dans la seconde moitié du 9 e millénaire avant J . -C . Ce processus a eu un impact considérable sur le développement humain et social de l ’ île . Étant donné ces interactions précoces , il convient d ’ étudier s ’ il y a eu des contacts entre Chypre et le continent durant les millénaires suivants – de la moitié du 8 e jusqu ’ à la fin du 5 e . Si l ’ existence de tels contacts pouvait être établie , il serait possible d ’ identifier plusieurs types de données : les données tangibles , telles que les produits d ’ échanges et de commerce , ainsi que des idées , les techniques pour fabriquer la poterie , les objets lithiques ou pour construire les bâtiments , l ’ organisation de la maison et de l ’ espace du village . L ’ étude de la nature et du degré de ces interactions nous permettra de voir si les sociétés insulaires et continentales sont restées en contact.

Göbekli Tepe – the Stone Age Sanctuaries. New results of ongoing excavations with a special focus on sculptures and high reliefs

The transition from non-food producing to farming societies first took place during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) of the Near East. It happened immediately after the end of the Pleistocene, between the 10th to the 8th millennium BC. One of the main questions that have exercised the minds of generations of archaeologists is why people first gave up a hunting and gathering way of life and start to domesticate plants and animals. In other words, why did the Neolithic Revolution take place? The new discoveries at Göbekli Tepe have turned up evidence for explanations that differ from the generally accepted wisdom on this issue.

Original Synthetic Report: Study of Neolithic human graves from Tell Qaramel in North Syria

Abstract - In this report we present the study of human skeletons and the mortuary practice in Tell Qaramel site in northern Syria during the period of the Pre Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). The samples came from 12 graves which present both individual and collective burials and contain altogether 20 skeletons. All burials discovered are of adult individuals who were buried without cranium, or cranium alone, and in few cases buried with the entire skeleton. Analysis of these skeletal remains provides the most obvious proof of the cut head process and the circumstance according to which it is done. In some cases many cut marks on the second cervical vertebra are be noted indicating very likely that the separation of the head was made by a flint tool directly after the death. While in other cases the body seems buried until the flesh was decayed and then the burial is opened and only the skull is taken. Our results are compared with those of previous studies relating to Neolithic in northern and southern Syrian sites and in other sites in other regions of Middle Orient and North Africa in the aim to show the general evolution of the mortuary practice during the different periods of Neolithic and to show the religious and social beliefs governing burial rites at these periods. Key words: Tell Qaramel site, Syria, PPNA, PPNB, cut marks, mortuary practice.