Jens Notroff

The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey

Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of modern times, pushing back the origins of monumentality beyond the emergence of agriculture. We are pleased to present a summary of work in progress by the excavators of this remarkable site and their latest thoughts about its role and meaning. At the dawn of the Neolithic, hunter-gatherers congregating at Göbekli Tepe created social and ideological cohesion through the carving of decorated pillars, dancing, feasting—and, almost certainly, the drinking of beer made from fermented wild crops.

Reconstructing networks, linking spaces—the view from the Aqaba region (Jordan)

Abstract The southern Levant has to be regarded as an important centre of early metallurgy; in this region, the rise of this technological innovation appears closely connected to intensified exchange networks of increasing significance. Recent fieldwork and research undertaken by the University of Jordan and the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute in the southern Wadi Araba near Aqaba (Jordan) has revealed new insights into the structure and progress of Late Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age economic processes in the southern Levant. The sites of Tell Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan and Tell al-Magass produced a rich material culture that attests to the existence of an important centre of early copper metallurgy in the region, thus proving that technological and social innovations in the late 5th, early 4th millennia bc were not limited to north-western regions of the southern Levant. Material culture analogies from contemporaneous sites in the wider region, going beyond metallurgical activities and lithic industries, emphasize a common workshop tradition in these areas and indicate that the Aqaba region was actively participating in far-reaching communication and exchange networks at this time.

Feasting, Social Complexity, and the Emergence of the Early Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia: A View from Göbekli Tepe

Early Neolithic social complexity is a topic much discussed but still under-researched. The present contribution explores the possible role of feasting in the emergence of social complexity , hierarchical societies and the shift to the Neolithic way of life in Upper Mesopotamia . This region has long been placed at the periphery of the area relevant for crucial steps in Neolithization. With the hill sanctuary of Gobekli Tepe , however, it has produced a site that challenges this traditional assumption. There, large circle-like enclosures made up of often richly decorated T-shaped pillars of up to 5.5 m height have been erected during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (10th millennium BC), followed by smaller rectangular pillar-buildings throughout the early and middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (9th millennium BC). Vast evidence for feasting at the site seems to hint at work feasts to accomplish the common, religiously motivated task of constructing these enclosures. Given the significant amount of time, labor, and skilled craftsmanship invested, and as elements of Gobekli Tepe’s material culture can be found around it in a radius of roughly 200 km all over Upper Mesopotamia , it is likely that the site was the cultic center of transegalitarian groups. Access to and command of knowledge crucial to the society’s identity and well-being may have served as a social barrier hindering individuals to step outside of the given limits, while being the basis for power over the workforce of others for a restricted group of people. Social hierachization seems to emerge already in the PPN A of Upper Mesopotamia , earlier than hitherto thought, and maybe also earlier than in the Southern Levant, a region long thought to be the cradle of the new, Neolithic way of life.