Gazelles, Liminality, and Chalcolithic Ritual: A Case Study from Marj Rabba, Israel (original) (raw)
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Journal of Archaeological …, 2009
We studied the faunal remains from the Early and Middle PPNB site of Motza, Judean Mts., Israel, in order to gain insight into the economic basis prior to livestock husbandry, with a focus on gazelle hunting. Taphonomic analysis showed that bone preservation at the site was excellent. The subsistence economy in Motza was based on a broad spectrum of hunted species, with mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) as the dominant prey, similar to many Epipalaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the southern Levant. We studied gazelle exploitation patterns, in order to learn about the interaction of humans with this species prior to ungulate domestication. Analysis of the demography of the gazelle herd, which included aging and sexing, revealed no age preferences and no selective culling. Moreover, the PPNB gazelle population of Motza does not exhibit allometric changes in morphology, that are allegedly correlated to increased hunting pressure on gazelle populations prior to livestock domestication.
Levant, 2021
The use of animal bones to form figurative representations is well documented ethnographically and archaeologically. In this paper, we describe an intriguing group of bones from Shubayqa 6, a transitional Late Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in northeast Jordan, and consider the possibility that these bones are figurative representations. The assemblage is comprised of sets of articulating phalanges, from 21 limbs of wild sheep and gazelle, found as part of a group of artefacts. If this tentative interpretation for the Shubayqa 6 bones is correct, future discussions on the frequency of figurative representations by communities at the transition from hunting and foraging to agriculture in Southwest Asia may benefit from broader consideration of bones clusters.