Garrard, A. N., Baird, D., Colledge, S., Martin, L., & Wright, K. I. 1994. Prehistoric environment and settlement in the Azraq Basin: an interim report on the 1987 and 1988 excavation seasons. Levant, 26(1): 73-109. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Prior to the 1970s, most research on the Late Paleolithic and Neolithic of the l,evant was undertaken in a 100-km-wide corridor running adjacent to the eastem Mediterranean seaboard. with isolated exceptions, this was confined to regions presently lying in the moist steppe and woodland belt. More recently, researchers have become increasingly interested in the &ier steppe and subdesert regions to the south and east of the..Irvantine conidor.,,There have been three main attractions: 1) the relatively good preservation of open sites and prehistoric land surfaces, which results ftom the lack of recent vegetational or agricultural disturbance and urban development; 2) the desire for greater understanding of the divenity of environments and human behavioral systems in the f€vant dudng the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene; 3) the wish to shed further light on the major economic, demographic and social changes of this time periocl, particularly, the economic intensification that eventually led to agriculture and pastoralism, the increasing sedentism and population nucleation, and the social and ideological changes reflected in increased exchange of "exotics," mortuary practices and ritual paraphernalia.
Settlement and Economy in Wâdi Ziqlâb during the Late Neolithic
It is surprising how little we really know about settlement and economy of either the Early or Late Neolithic in Jordan. Despite the intensity of research, as indicated in other papers in this volume, it is likely that we have discovered only a fraction of the sites, plant preservation is often poor, and, although we can talk about some of the plants and animals that were domesticated, we do not really know how their economies worked. Unanswered questions include the following and many others. Did Neolithic communities use slash-and-burn agriculture, or simple irrigation, or crop rotation? How did they solve conflict between the demands of agriculture and pastoralism for land? What kind of social and political systems did they have? Were settlements all autonomous, or did groups of settlements form regional polities? We still cannot even be sure in most cases that Neolithic sites were occupied year-round, rather than seasonally.
Late Neolithic settlement in Wadi Ziqlab, Jordan: al-Basatîn (Kadowaki et al. 2008)
Research in Wadi Ziqlab, Northern Jordan, has focused on the discovery and excavation of Late Neolithic sites in an attempt to understand its regional settlement system in the sixth millennium cal. BC. Previous evidence suggested that small hamlets or farmsteads may have characterized this settlement system, as represented at Tabaqat al-Bûma. Recent excavations at a site downstream, al-Basatîn, have revealed evidence for a settlement that was partly contemporary with Tabaqat al-Bûma and shared much of its material culture, but seems to have been markedly different in character. Whether for seasonal or some other reasons, its architecture as currently understood consisted of stone platforms and possibly tents, rather than the substantial houses found at the other site. Toward the end of the sixth millennium, like Tabaqat al-Bûma, it was abandoned, not to be reoccupied until Early Bronze I. Résumé : Les recherches dans le Wadi Ziqlab (Jordanie) ont porté sur la découverte et la fouille de sites du Néolithique récent afi n de comprendre le système régional d'implantation des sites au sixième millénaire cal. av. J.-C. Si les recherches précédentes ont suggéré que de petits hameaux ou fermes caractérisaient ce système, ainsi que l'illustre l'exemple de Tabaqat al-Bûma, les fouilles récentes du site d'al-Basatîn, localisé en aval, ont mis en évidence une occupation partiellement contemporaine de Tabaqat al-Bûma. Malgré les fortes similitudes de la culture matérielle avec celle de ce dernier site, al-Basatîn semble d'un caractère différent. Que ce soit pour des raisons saisonnières ou autres, son architecture, telle qu'elle est actuellement comprise, était constituée de plateformes en pierre et probablement de tentes, plutôt que de maisons véritables, comme celles connues à Tabaqat al-Bûma. Vers la fi n du sixième millénaire, le site, à l'instar de Tabaqat al-Bûma, a été abandonné, puis réoccupé à partir du Bronze Ancien I.
Neolithic Cultures at 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan
1992
Jordan have sampled only a small area of the huge settlement, but the amounts of information recovered from the site have required that the Neolithic sequence in the southern Levant be reassessed. Clear changes in the size of the settlement, architecture, lithic typology and technology, ceramic manufacture, subsistence economy, and ritual and symbolic behavior are documented for 'Ain Ghazal's four occupational phases (Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, Pre-Pottery Neolithic C, and Yarmoukian Pottery Neolithic). These phases span an unbroken occupation period from ca. 7250 to 5000 b.c. Earlier hypotheses that climatic deterioration caused a dramatic abandonment of the southern Levant by 6000 b.c. are unwarranted. Instead, we conclude that not all the area was abandoned, and that severe changes in settlement patterns in Palestine and the Jordan Valley were primarily due to cultural degradation of the fragile ecological system. (FIG. 1). 'Ain Ghazal was occupied for over 2000 years (TABLE i), and the unbroken sequence of habitation provides the first opportunity to examine a permanent farming settlement during the enigmatic 6th millennium b.c., a time when no known agricultural villages existed west of the Jordan Valley. Not unexpectedly, perhaps, several important cultural changes occurred during this poorly known millennium, including the transition from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC), and another in situ transition from the aceramic PPNC to the Yarmoukian phase of the Pottery Neolithic. Until the 'Ain Ghazal investigations, the PPNC had not been previously documented. A review of the results of the excavations at 'Ain Ghazal since 1982 follows. More detailed accounts can be found in preliminary reports from each of the field seasons (e.g., Rollefson 1984, 1985; Rollefson and Simmons 1985, 1986, 1987; Rollefson, Kafafi, and Simmons 1990, in press; Simmons and Rollefson 1984; Simmons et al. 1988). Results of the survey are reported in Simmons and Kafafi (1988). Research Objectives and Methodology 'Ain Ghazal was initially discovered during construction of the Amman-Zarqa highway in the 1970s. Systematic archaeological investigations were not initiated until 1982, however, when one of us (Rollefson) started emergency excavations at the site. Given the location of 'Ain Ghazal in a rapidly-developing commercial area of Amman, most of our studies have been oriented towards rescuing immediately-endangered portions of the site. With each season, however, specific research objectives also helped structure data recovery. Major objectives that have been This content downloaded from 199.89.174.138 on Sat, 29 Aug 2015 10:34:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 444 Neolithic 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan/Rollefson, Simmons, and Kafafi MEDITERRANEAN SEA Ramad Beisamoun 'Ain Ghazal Sericho. Wadi Shu'eib Beidha . Basta 100 km Neolithic Sites Figure 1. Principal Neolithic sites of the southern Levant.
Jawafat Shaban and the Late Neolithic in Wâdî al-Bîr, Northern Jordan
Paléorient, 2018
During August 2014, a team from University of Toronto conducted test excavations at three locations in the drainage basin of Wadi Qusayba, west of Irbid, Jordan. One of these was a ‘ candidate site’ that the Wadi Quseiba Survey had discovered in Wâdî al-Bîr, one of Wadi Qusayba’s main tributaries, in its 2013 field season. This turned out to show good evidence for occupation during the Late Neolithic (or Early Chalcolithic), including abundant pottery and lithics, some ground stone, and associated surfaces, pits, and possible traces of architecture. The finds are consistent with a date in the second half of the 6th millennium cal. BC, contemporary with Tabaqat al-Bûma in Wadi Ziqlab to its south and sites in Northern Israel that archaeologists assign to the ‘ Wadi Rabah culture.’ The finds at this site, in conjunction with the unorthodox methods used to discover it, have broader implications for our understanding of the extensiveness of Neolithic settlement in the Southern Levant during the 6th millennium BC and the nature of Neolithic social landscapes.Au cours du mois d’août 2014, une équipe de l’université de Toronto a effectué des sondages en trois points du bassin de Wadi Quseiba, à l’ouest d’Irbid, en Jordanie. L’un d’eux était un «site candidat » mis au jour lors de la prospection du Wadi Quseiba à Wadi al-Bir, l’un des principaux affluents de Wadi Quseiba, au cours de la saison 2013. Il révéla des traces certaines d’occupation pendant le Néolithique récent (ou Chalcolithique ancien), qui comprennent de la poterie et de l’outillage lithique en grand nombre, et du mobilier en pierre, ainsi que des couches associées, des fosses et des traces d’architecture. Les découvertes suggèrent une datation dans la seconde moitié du 6e millénaire avant J.-C., contemporaine de Tabaqat al-Bûma à Wadi Ziqlab, au sud, et des sites dans le Nord d’Israël, que les archéologues attribuent à la « culture Wadi Rabah » . Ce site, conjointement avec les nouvelles méthodes utilisées pour le découvrir, a des répercussions plus larges pour notre compréhension de l’étendue de l’occupation néolithique dans le Sud du Levant au cours du 6e millénaire avant J.-C. et la nature des paysages sociaux du Néolithique.Banning Edward B., Abu Jayyab Khaled, Hitchings Philip, Ullah Isaac, Rhodes Stephen, Yasui Emma, Gibbon Elizabeth, Handziuk Natalia, Glasser Arno. Jawafat Shaban and the Late Neolithic in Wâdî al-Bîr, Northern Jordan. In: Paléorient, 2018, vol. 44, n°1. pp. 57-74
A Permanent Late Neolithic Residential Structure in the Eastern Desert of Jordan
Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 30 April – 4 May, 2012, University of Warsaw. Vol 2., 2014
A season of excavation in the summer of 2011 at Wisad Pools, in Jordan's Black Desert, has revealed how inadequate regional paleoclimatic models based on proxies from the western Levant are when it comes to understanding changes in the exploitation potentials at distances far removed from the Mediterranean coastal regimes. The exposure of a Late Neolithic (in this case, c. 6,000 calBC)
1993
In section 1 a need to achieve a systematic understanding of the significance of developments in the Neolithic in the arid zone in the southern Levant is identified because of the implications for south Levant wide developments. In order to achieve these aims we must understand the nature of the relationships between arid and moistcr zone communities. Chipped stone provides one of the most significant media through which to investigate relationships and developments. In section 3 the constraints of arid zone environments are discussed and evidence for environmental change assessed. The question of the appearance of pastoralism is raised. It is concluded that herded caprines have appeared in the steppe/deserts of the south Levant by the Early Late Neolithic. The question as to whether caprines were herded in the Late PPNB remains problematic. It is suggested that the evidence for caprine domestication in moister areas is questionable before the end of the PPNB. In section 4 chronolog...