E. B. Banning

Oasis or Mirage? Assessing the Role of Abrupt Climate Change in the Prehistory of the Southern Levant

Few prehistoric developments have received as much attention as the origins of agriculture and its associated societal implications in the Near East. A great deal of this research has focused on correlating the timing of various cultural transformations leading up to farming and village life with dramatic climatic events. Using rigorously selected radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites and palaeoenvironmental datasets, we test the predominate models for culture change from the early Epipalaeolithic to the Pottery Neolithic (c. 23,000–8000 cal. bp) to explore how well they actually fit with well-documented and dated palaeoclimatic events, such as the Bolling-Allerod, Younger Dryas, Preboreal and 8.2 ka event. Our results demonstrate that these correlations are not always as clear or as consistent as some authors suggest. Rather, any relationships between climate change and culture change are more complicated than existing models allow. The lack of fit between these sources of data highlight our need for further and more precise chronological data from archaeological sites, additional localized palaeoclimatic data sets, and more nuanced models for integrating palaeoenvironmental data and prehistoric peoples behaviours.

A unique human-fox burial from a pre-Natufian cemetery in the Levant (Jordan).

New human burials from northern Jordan provide important insights into the appearance of cemeteries and the nature of human-animal relationships within mortuary contexts during the Epipalaeolithic period (c. 23,000–11,600 cal BP) in the Levant, reinforcing a socio-ideological relationship that goes beyond predator-prey. Previous work suggests that archaeological features indicative of social complexity occur suddenly during the latest Epipalaeolithic phase, the Natufian (c. 14,500–11,600 cal BP). These features include sedentism, cemeteries, architecture, food production, including animal domestication, and burials with elaborate mortuary treatments. Our findings from the pre-Natufian (Middle Epipalaeolithic) cemetery of ‘Uyun al-Hammam demonstrate that joint human-animal mortuary practices appear earlier in the Epipalaeolithic. We describe the earliest human-fox burial in the Near East, where the remains of dogs have been found associated with human burials at a number of Natufian sites. This is the first time that a fox has been documented in association with human interments pre-dating the Natufian and with a particular suite of grave goods. Analysis of the human and animal bones and their associated artefacts provides critical data on the nature and timing of these newly-developing relationships between people and animals prior to the appearance of domesticated dogs in the Natufian.

So Fair a House

Archaeologists have proposed that quite a number of structures dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B in southwest Asia were nondomestic ritual buildings, sometimes described specifically as temples or shrines, and these figure large in some interpretations of social change in the Near Eastern Neolithic. Yet the evidence supporting the identification of cult buildings is often equivocal or depends on ethnocentric distinctions between sacred and profane spaces. This paper explores the case of Göbekli Tepe, a large Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Turkey that its excavator claims consisted only of temples, to illustrate weaknesses in some kinds of claims about Neolithic sacred spaces and to explore some of the problems of identifying prehistoric ritual. Consideration of the evidence suggests the alternative hypothesis that the buildings at Göbekli Tepe may actually be houses, albeit ones that are rich in symbolic content.

Detection Functions for Archaeological Survey

This paper presents the results of several experiments to investigate how the detection functions of surveyors vary for different artifact types on surfaces with differing visibility when visual surface inspection (“fieldwalking”) is the survey method. As prospecting theory predicts, successful detection declines exponentially with distance away from transects and detection as a function of search time displays diminishing returns. However, these functions vary by visibility, artifact type, and other factors. The incidence of false targets–incorrect identifications of artifacts–has somewhat more impact at greater range but has little or no relationship with search time. Our results provide a rationale for selection of transect intervals and distribution of survey effort, and also facilitate evaluation of survey results, allowing more realistic estimates of how much a survey missed.

Herders or homesteaders? A neolithic farm in Wadi Ziqlab, Jordan

Around 8000 BCE, the early farming villages of the Neolithic revolution disappeared. Explanations have been offered-from invasions, to socio-political dysfunction-but still the question remains: where did the villagers go? Through systematic sampling of steam terraces, the Wadi Ziqlab Project is exposing Late Neolithic campsites and other small sites that hold the promise of putting the heirs of the first villagers back on the map.

Interobserver bias in enumerated data from archaeological survey

Abstract In case studies of enumerated survey data from Cyprus and Egypt, it is possible to attribute interobserver variation in the detection of lithic findspots and recovery of lithics to sources of bias. The reliability of data on the presence and density of lithic scatters depends on careful evaluation, but straightforward evaluation depends on thoughtful research design. In well-designed strategies, testing for bias is straightforward but, when certain classes of data are not available, it may be impossible to determine whether variation in the apparent density of artifacts is simply a function of who collected where. We present alternatives for evaluation of survey results and presentation of survey data, including exhaustion maps and corrected density maps.

Hillslope Processes and Archaeology in Wadi Ziqlab, Jordan

Record levels of precipitation during February 1992 generated 290 earth flows and earth slumps in Wadi Ziqlab, Jordan. Geomorphologic and sedimentological characteristics of these landslides and older colluvial deposits were used to identify the dominant mass-wasting processes active in the wadi. Earth flows in 1992 left long linear scars on the steep hillsides and deposited thin, fine and coarse-grained, sheets on the well-developed colluvial slopes below. Older colluvial deposits exposed along the wadi bottom are crudely stratified, heavily bioturbated, and contain paleosols, suggesting colluviation was episodic and occurred through a slow accumulation of successive earth flows. Earth slumps in 1992 produced crescentic scarps, flat benches, and thick colluvial masses; similar features preserved on the wadi slopes were formed by the same process at an earlier time. Annual slope wash does not appear important on the steep, heavily landslide-scarred, slopes. The uneven distribution and episodic occurrence of earth flows and earth slumps in Wadi Ziqlab have resulted in highly variable burial depths of archaeological material, as illustrated in one locality where Roman artifacts are buried over deeper than a Neolithic site only away. The ability of 1 m 200 m earth flows to transport artifacts great distances has given rise to inverted stratigraphy on colluvial slopes and has produced large artifact scatters located beyond the margins of the colluvial slopes. These complex postoccupation disturbances and prehistoric land-use practices would have been difficult to interpret without a full understanding of the hillslope processes active in Wadi Ziqlab and the landscape features they have produced. q 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Quality Assurance in Archaeological Survey

To have confidence in the results of an archaeological survey, whether for heritage management or research objectives, we must have some assurance that the survey was carried out to a reasonably high standard. This paper discusses the use of Quality Assurance (QA) approaches and empirical methods for estimating surveys’ effectiveness at discovering archaeological artifacts as a means for ensuring quality standards. We illustrate with the example of two surveys in Cyprus and Jordan in which resurvey, measurement of surveyor “sweep widths,” and realistic estimates of survey coverage allow us to evaluate explicitly the probability that the survey missed pottery or lithics, as well as to decide when survey has been thorough enough to warrant moving to another survey unit.

Where the Wild Stones Have Been Gathered Aside: Pastoralist Campsites in Wadi Ziqlab, Jordan

How can archaeologists discover and excavate the camping sites of ancient pastoral nomads? Observations of modern tent-dwellers and test excavations of potential camping sites have begun to detect elusive traces of ancient pastoralists in Jordans Wadi Ziqlâb.

Novel survey methods shed light on prehistoric exploration in Cyprus

Evidence for the earliest occupation of Cyprus (c. 11000–8500 cal BC) has been elusive as it often consists of small, diffuse and unobtrusive scatters of debris from stone tool manufacture. Yet tracing these sites is crucial if we are to understand how humans first explored the island, learned to exploit its resources and introduced useful flora and fauna from elsewhere. Our approach to this problem is to employ new methods of pedestrian survey and predictive modelling so as to investigate a route that could have linked the coast and the interior.