Pre-Pottery Research Articles

Stone Bead Technologies and Early Craft Specialization: Insights from Two Neolithic Sites in Eastern Jordan

What social groups were involved in Neolithic craft production? What was the nature of early forms of craft specialization, long before urban economies evolved? One way to look at this is to investigate manufacture of Neolithic prestige goods. Seasonal camps in Wadi Jilat (eastern Jordan) revealed unusually detailed evidence for manufacture of stone beads: debris, blanks, finished beads, and tools for drilling, sawing and abrasion. The material is 'Dabba Marble', a metamorphic rock of which the major source is nearby. This article describes lapidary technology at Jilat 13 and Jilat 25, equivalent in age to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC). Mineral-chemical characterization data on Dabba Marble are presented. These sites raise issues about early craft specialization. These beadmakers seem to have been master craftsmen/women. We suggest that these sites illustrate a particular form of 'site specialization', namely sites located in remote territories and focused on special materials and intensive production of prestige goods. However, these craft activities were also embedded in hunting, herding and, perhaps, ritual, as suggested by figurines and pillars.

The transition to farming and the ceramic trajectories in Western Eurasia. From ceramic figurines to vessels

In Eurasia the invention of ceramic technology and production of fired-clay vessels has not necessarily been related to the dynamics of the transition to farming. The invention of ceramic technology in Europe was associated with female and animal figurine making in Gravettian technocomplex. The fired-clay vessels occurred first in hunter-gatherer contexts in Eastern Eurasia a millennia before the agriculture. The adoption of pottery making in Levant seems to correlate with the collapse of the ‘ritual economy’, social decentralisation and community fragmentation in the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic. In South-eastern Europe the adoption of pottery making was closely associated with social, symbolic and ritual hunter-gatherers’ practices.

Soils and soil sediments at Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey: A preliminary report

AbstractA pedological investigation at Göbekli Tepe, a Pre‐Pottery Neolithic (PPN) site in the northern Fertile Crescent (southeastern Turkey), was undertaken to gain a better understanding of its chronology and paleoenvironments. A catena at the southern slope of the central mound suggests that complex pedosedimentary processes took place at the surface of the mound after the abandonment of the site. Soil formation resulted in a markedly dark Ah horizon and a Bk horizon with secondary carbonate accumulations; both hold promise as sources of chronological and paleoecological information. Three fossil Ah horizons from the PPN period were found within the fill. One of them provided a 14C age of 8880 ± 60 yr B.P. (on humic acids) that may approximate the time of abandonment. 14C dating of the oldest microlamina of pedogenic carbonate gave two new dates: 7450 ± 80 yr B.P. for a PPNB context and 6405 ± 70 yr B.P. for a post‐PPNB context. These dates have to be considered as well‐estimated minimum ages of the contexts. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Prepottery Neolithic Sites in Eastern Syria

Abstract : This note presents the initial evidence of two small sites ofPPN A and later affinity near the Jaghjagh River on the Khabur Plain. Relations to industries from Mureybit, Qermez Dere, and Nemrik are discussed.

A Regional Biological Approach to the Spread of Farming in Europe

This article examines the potential contribution of archaeological human skeletal material, in particular craniometric data, to interpretations of the nature of the transition to farming in Europe. The material is discussed particularly in relation to recent debates about demographic variables and processes and modern genetic frequency patterns. It is suggested that biological morphometrics enables the comparison of ancient populations on a regional basis. Analysis of the material suggests that there was considerable morphological heterogeneity among the earliest farmers of the Levant belonging to the PrePottery Neolithic but that similar variability is generally not seen among the earliest mainland agriculturalists of southeastern Europe. We propose that this may be explained by the existence of a genetic bottleneck among Anatolian populations and that it supports models of the largely exogenous origin of many early Neolithic populations in this region. Regional comparisons further demonstrate a biologic...

The chickpea, summer cropping, and a new model for pulse domestication in the ancient near east.

The widely accepted models describing the emergence of domesticated grain crops from their wild type ancestors are mostly based upon selection (conscious or unconscious) of major features related either to seed dispersal (nonbrittle ear, indehiscent pod) or free germination (nondormant seeds, soft seed coat). Based on the breeding systems (self-pollination) and dominance relations between the allelomorphs of seed dispersal mode and seed dormancy, it was postulated that establishment of the domesticated forms and replacement of the wild ancestral populations occurred in the Near East within a relatively short time. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), however, appears as an exception among all other "founder crops" of Old World agriculture because of its ancient conversion into a summer crop. The chickpea is also exceptional because its major domestication trait appears to be vernalization insensitivity rather than pod indehiscence or free germination. Moreover, the genetic basis of vernalization response in wild chickpea (Cicer reticulatum Ladiz.) is polygenic, suggesting that a long domestication process was imperative due to the elusive phenotype of vernalization nonresponsiveness. There is also a gap in chickpea remains in the archaeological record between the Late Prepottery Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age. Contrary to the common view that Levantine summer cropping was introduced relatively late (Early Bronze Age), we argue for an earlier (Neolithic) Levantine origin of summer cropping because chickpea, when grown as a common winter crop, was vulnerable to the devastating pathogen Didymella rabiei, the causal agent of Ascochyta blight. The ancient (Neolithic) conversion of chickpea into a summer crop required seasonal differentiation of agronomic operation from the early phases of the Neolithic revolution. This topic is difficult to deal with, as direct data on seasonality in prehistoric Old World field crop husbandry are practically nonexistent. Consequently, this issue was hardly dealt with in the literature. Information on the seasonality of ancient (Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Early Bronze Age, calibrated 11,500 to 4,500 years before present) Near Eastern agriculture may improve our understanding of the proficiency of early farmers. This in turn may provide a better insight into Neolithic agrotechniques and scheduling. It is difficult to fully understand chickpea domestication without a Neolithic seasonal differentiation of agronomic practice because the rapid establishment of the successful Near Eastern crop package which included wheats, barley, pea, lentil, vetches, and flax, would have preempted the later domestication of this rare wild legume.

Dhra', Excavation Project, 2002 Interim Report

This is an interim report on the second season of fieldwork and post-excavation analysis on the Pottery Neolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Dhra', near the southern end of the Dead Sea in Jordan. Excavations to date have produced rich assemblages of pottery and lithics. In addition sets of features that can be attributed to each phase have been identified. Those from the PPNA are generally better preserved than those of the Pottery Neolithic period, which mainly survive as a series of negative features. Analysis of the environmental background to the site, and more detailed research on certain aspects, including micromorphology and microwear have begun. Preliminary results of this work are presented, indicating the significance of the site for each period.

Howard M. Hecker (1935-2002): An Appreciation

Hecker was a remarkable individual. Whenever I have talked to friends and colleagues about what might be included in this appreciation everyone has had the same reaction: shock and sadness at Howard's passing followed by a smile at recollections of time spent with him (inevitably followed by their favorite Howard story). He was one of those people whose larger-than-life personality and great personal kindness touched everyone. His background was as unusual as his scholarship was broad. was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1935, and never lost his distinctive Brooklyn humor or the love of baseball that stemmed from those days. He was a raconteur without equal and all those who worked with him at Tell el-Amarna (and no doubt every other project he was involved with) will well remember his fund of stories about his Brooklyn upbringing. He originally trained as a motor mechanic, and was presumably a rather gifted one. When the expedition bought its first four-wheel drive vehicle it was who helped check it over, and who identified the various vehicles from which it had been compiled. It was typical of him that he was not too proud to go back to his roots if he could help his colleagues by so doing. In the 1950s he went to Israel, where he remained for several years. During this time he became interested in archaeology and decided to pursue it on his return to the U.S.A. in 1962. This was a major departure from his original career and involved him studying at Hunter College, New York, at night. It is typical of that he never talked about just how hard he had had to work in order to achieve his archaeological qualifications. In 1966 he obtained his B.A. and in 1975 his Ph.D. from Columbia University with a thesis entitled The Faunal Analysis of the Primary Food Animals from PrePottery Neolithic Beidha (Jordan). l It was natural that his main interests were in the Middle East and he came to specialize in archaeozoology. It was in that capacity that I first met him, during his work as achaeozoologist for the Egypt Exploration Society expedition to Tell el-Amarna, which he joined in 1982. Here he was a popular figure, enormously helpful to those of us who were just beginning our careers and always ready to help in any social activity planned by the team. No one will forget his increasingly elaborate tea-ceremonies or his birthday surprises! His great sense of humor and his scholarly modesty sometimes masked the important work that he was involved with, and only when one starts to look at what we now know of stock-keeping in Egypt does it become apparent just how significant Howard's contribution was.

Foraging, farming, and social complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the southern Levant: A review and synthesis

The transition from foraging to farming of the Neolithic periods is one of, if not, the most important cultural processes in recent human prehistory. Integrating previously published archaeological materials with archaeological research conducted since 1980, the first half of this essay synthesizes our current understanding of archaeological data for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (ca. 11,700–ca. 8400 B.P.) of the southern Levant, generally defined as including southern Syria and Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Autonomous Authority, Jordan, and the Sinai peninsula of Egypt. The second half of the essay explores how these data inform archaeologists about the processes by which social differentiation emerged, the nature of regional and interregional connections, and the mechanisms and processes by which the transition from foraging to food production first occurred in the Neolithic.

Life in neolithic farming communities: social organization, identity, and differentiation

Part I: Introduction. 1. Social Configurations of the Near Eastern Neolithic: An Introduction I. Kuijt. Part II: Sedentism, Early Villages and Households in Transition. 2. Early Sedentism in the Near East - A Bumpy Ride to Village Life A. Belfer-Cohen, O. Bar-Yosef. 3. Hallan Cemi and Early Village Organization in Eastern Anatolia M. Rosenberg, R.W. Redding. 4. Households in Transition: Neolithic Social Organization within Southwest Asia B.F. Byrd. Part III: Organization of Social Relations: Mortuary Ritual, Social Differentiation, and Settlement Systems. 5. The Quick and the Dead: The Social Context of Aceramic Neolithic Mortuary Practices as Seen from Kfar Hahoresh N. Goring-Morris. 6. Keeping the Peace: Ritual, Skull Caching and Community Integration in the Levantine Neolithic I. Kuijt. 7. Ritual and Social Structure at Neolithic Ain Ghazal G.O. Rollefson. 8. Is Size Important? Function and Hierarchy in Neolithic Settlements F. Hole. 9. Villages on the Edge: Regional Settlement Change and the End of the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic A. Simmons. Part IV: Social Relations and Material Culture: Symbolism and Meaning. 10. The Symbolic Foundations of the Neolithic Revolution in the Near East J. Cauvin. 11. Catal Huyuk in Context Ritual at Early Neolithic Sites in Central and Eastern Turkey M.M. Voigt. 12. The Pottery Neolithic Period: Questions about Pottery Decoration, Symbolism and Meaning E. Orrelle, A. Gopher. Part V: Conclusion. 13. NearEastern Neolithic Research.

People and Space in Early Agricultural Villages: Exploring Daily Lives, Community Size, and Architecture in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic

Population growth, or, more specifically, pressure, is often viewed as being critical to the development of food production in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East. It is surprising, therefore, to recognize how little detailed archaeological research has explored the rates of population growth and how they might be related to social crowding in early village social environments. Combining archaeological and ethnographic perspectives, this article explores the possible links between demographic change, possible social crowding, and reasons for the “collapse” of large aggregate villages occupied between approximately 8500 to 8000 years before present. Reflection upon the timing, estimated magnitude, and rate of demographic change prompts the researcher to reconsider the perceived links between sedentism, food production, and the emergence of social inequality in the context of early agricultural villages of the south-central Levant.

Negotiating Equality through Ritual: A Consideration of Late Natufian and Prepottery Neolithic A Period Mortuary Practices

Mortuary rituals, specifically secondary mortuary practices with the socially sanctioned removal of all or some parts of the deceased, are a powerful means of social integration during periods of social, economic, or environmental change. Integrating ethnographic data on the social impact of secondary mortuary ceremonies with archaeological evidence from the Late Natufian and Prepottery Neolithic A periods of the south-central Levant, this study explores how the development and maintenance of intentional secondary mortuary rituals, such as with the removal and reburial of skulls, served as powerful communal acts that symbolically and physically linked communities and limited the perception or reality of social differentiation. Continuity within, and meanings behind, secondary mortuary practices during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene prompts the researcher to reevaluate previous interpretations of the relationship(s) among the appearance of formalized social inequality, food production, and the definition of personal relations within Levantine Neolithic communities.

Anthropology and ArchitectureAfrican Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place, and Gender. Labelle PrussinSemantic and Symbolic Architecture. Nold Egenter

Previous articleNext article No AccessReview ArticleAnthropology and Architecture African Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place, and Gender. Labelle Prussin Semantic and Symbolic Architecture. Nold Egenter Mete TuranMete Turan Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Anthropological Research Volume 52, Number 3Autumn, 1996 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/jar.52.3.3630089 Views: 61Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1996 The University of New MexicoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Sankha Priya Guha Architectural Anthropology in Urban Housing Complex: A Spatial Study on the Culture Construct of a Community Design Architecture, Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India 71, no.22 (Mar 2022): 167–184.https://doi.org/10.1177/2277436X221077340Serena Love Architecture as material culture: Building form and materiality in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Anatolia and Levant, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32, no.44 (Dec 2013): 746–758.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2013.05.002

Atlit-Yam: A Prehistoric Site on the Sea Floor off the Israeli Coast

Atlit- Yam, a settlement 400 m off the Israeli shore, is the largest (60,000 sq m) and most deeply submerged (8–12 m bsl) prehistoric settlement ever uncovered along the Mediterranean coast. The architecture of the dwellings, the lithic tool assemblages, and radiocarbon dating indicate habitation during the late Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period) ca. 8100–7500 B.P. Floral and faunal remains suggest that the village economy was complex, based on several different food resources acquired through hunting, incipient herding, fishing, and farming. These probably permitted year-round occupation. More importantly however, Atlit-Yam is among the earliest communities to reveal evidence of maritime activity. From this site, new insights into maritime pursuits and the domestication of animals and plants, as well as early evidence for exploitation of water tables, the construction of wells in prehistoric times, and sea level changes will be forthcoming. Further study of Atlit-Yam may also contribute to our understanding of the process of colonization of the Mediterranean islands.

Atlit-Yam: A Prehistoric Site on the Sea Floor off the Israeli Coast

AbstractAtlit- Yam, a settlement 400 m off the Israeli shore, is the largest (60,000 sq m) and most deeply submerged (8–12 m bsl) prehistoric settlement ever uncovered along the Mediterranean coast. The architecture of the dwellings, the lithic tool assemblages, and radiocarbon dating indicate habitation during the late Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period) ca. 8100–7500 B.P. Floral and faunal remains suggest that the village economy was complex, based on several different food resources acquired through hunting, incipient herding, fishing, and farming. These probably permitted year-round occupation. More importantly however, Atlit-Yam is among the earliest communities to reveal evidence of maritime activity. From this site, new insights into maritime pursuits and the domestication of animals and plants, as well as early evidence for exploitation of water tables, the construction of wells in prehistoric times, and sea level changes will be forthcoming. Further study of Atlit-Yam may also contribute to our u...

A Prepottery Neolithic Site in the Hisma Basin, Southern Jordan

Présentation de matériel trouvé récemment dans le bassin du Hisma au sud de la Jordanie. Associée à des structures de cercles en pierre, se trouvait une industrie lithique à débitage laminaire. Ce site s'apparente à des sites PPN d'autres régions arides telles que le Sinaï et le Negev.

Holocene sea-level changes based on submerged archaeological sites off the northern Carmel coast in Israel

A series of submerged archaeological sites found on the continental shelf between Haifa and Atlit indicate a continuous marine transgression between 8000 and 1500 yr B.P. The sites are embedded in the upper part of a marshy clay that fills the trough between the coastal aeolianite (kurkar) ridge and a ridge now submerged some 1000 to 1500 m to the west. The submerged prehistoric sites belong to two main chronological units: Prepottery Neolithic B (8000 yr B.P.) and late Neolithic (ca. 6500 yr B.P.); these were found at depths of 12 to 8 m and 5 to 0 m, respectively. Bronze Age and Byzantine anchors were found at depths of 5 to 3 m and 4 to 1.8 m, respectively. As the archaeological materials are firmly dated, we can reconstruct the rate of marine transgression from 8000 yr B.P. to the present and the eastward movement of settlements through time as related to the transgression.

The Walls of Jericho: An Alternative Interpretation

Historique des expeditions decidees a trouver les murs detruits par Josue. Reexamen des conclusions de K. Kenyon, grâce a la derniere publication de T. A. Holland. Expose des sequences chronologiques depuis le Natoufien (de I a XI) et leur datation C14. Afin de reconsiderer les interpretations de K. Kenyon, l'A. explore l'evolution generale des cultures prehistoriques du Proche-Orient, la position speciale de Jericho, les processus geomorphologiques qui influencerent son histoire. Il semble que les murs du PPNA aient ete construits a un moment ou les habitants songeaient surtout a proteger leurs installations des caprices de la nature

カイト・サイトレヴァント地方先土器新石器文化の一側面

The research on the Levantine Neolithic has long focused on the districts more or less favored by the Mediterranean climate, such as coastal regions, Jordan valley, or upper Euphrates basin. In this decade, however, the informations on the prehistory of inland Levant have increased at an accelerating tempo owing to some area studies carried out in Azraq basin, Palmyra basin, Transjordan Black Desert, and so on, which present some new, important problems. That is the case of the so-called “kite site” or “burin site”. In this paper the author introduces some new data and makes a short discussion on the former type of interesting site.“Kite site”, hunting trap in desert, consists of two main parts: an enclosure and two (or more) long guiding walls converging to it. It shows very wide distribution from inland Syria, Black Desert, to Sinai or northern Saudi Arabia. According to the flint remains such as Amuq or Byblos type points collected inside or just around the enclsure, it is quite possible that some of kites are dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, as is in the case of “burin site”.In contrast to the rather limited perspectives so far described on the neolitization of the Levant, it is now more and more clear that the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, the later stage in particular, consists of the following three versions interacting with one another; firstly, more or less sedendary farmer communities in fertile regions penetrated from the northern Syria and eastern Anatolia, secondarily, temporary harvester/hunter groups around the oases in the intermediate areas, and lastly, migrating, but, flourishing hunters of gazelle and other steppic games in inland step who seem to have been influenced from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic farmer communities in the western regions, but basically originated in the preceeding Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A gazelle hunters.

Observation on the article : "Five Plastered Skulls from Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. Jericho", by Eugen Strouhal in Paléorient, 1/2, 1973.

Observation on the article : "Five Plastered Skulls from Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. Jericho", by Eugen Strouhal in Paléorient, 1/2, 1973.