Natufian Settlement in Wadi Al-Hammeh - article ; n°2 ; vol.14, pg 309-315

Edwards P.C.

Description

Paléorient - Année 1988 - Volume 14 - Numéro 2 - Pages 309-315
Wadi Hammeh 27 is an Early Natufian residential settlement, dated ca. 12,000 b.p., located on the eastern margins of the central Jordan Valley. The site has produced a wide variety of cultural and environmental data. This report briefly describes its settlement plan and architecture ; artefacts in basalt, limestone, bone and chert, incised and carved art pieces, and botanical, faunal and human skeletal remains.
Wadi Hammeh 27 est un établissement attribué au Natoufien ancien et daté ca. 12 000 b.p.; il est situé sur le flanc oriental de la moyenne vallée du Jourdain. Le site a produit une grande quantité de données culturelles ou ayant trait au paléoenvironnement. Ce rapport décrit brièvement le mode d'occupation et les types d'architecture, les objets en basalte, calcaire, os et silex, les pièces incisées et les blocs sculptés, les restes végétaux, animaux et humains.
7 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Informations

• Publié par: PALEORIENT
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1988
• Nombre de lectures: 31
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Phillip C. Edwards
Natufian Settlement in Wadi Al-Hammeh
In: Paléorient. 1988, Vol. 14 N°2. pp. 309-315.
Abstract
Wadi Hammeh 27 is an Early Natufian residential settlement, dated ca. 12,000 b.p., located on the eastern margins of the central
Jordan Valley. The site has produced a wide variety of cultural and environmental data. This report briefly describes its settlement
plan and architecture ; artefacts in basalt, limestone, bone and chert, incised and carved art pieces, and botanical, faunal and
human skeletal remains.
Résumé
Wadi Hammeh 27 est un établissement attribué au Natoufien ancien et daté ca. 12 000 b.p.; il est situé sur le flanc oriental de la
moyenne vallée du Jourdain. Le site a produit une grande quantité de données culturelles ou ayant trait au paléoenvironnement.
Ce rapport décrit brièvement le mode d'occupation et les types d'architecture, les objets en basalte, calcaire, os et silex, les
pièces incisées et les blocs sculptés, les restes végétaux, animaux et humains.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Edwards Phillip C. Natufian Settlement in Wadi Al-Hammeh. In: Paléorient. 1988, Vol. 14 N°2. pp. 309-315.
doi : 10.3406/paleo.1988.4477
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/paleo_0153-9345_1988_num_14_2_4477:
:
vol. 14/2-1988 PALÉORIENT,
NATUFIAN SETTLEMENT IN WADI AL-HAMMEH
Р. С EDWARDS
of ABSTRACT. the central Jordan — Wadi Valley. Hammeh The 27 site is has an Early produced Natufian a wide residential variety of settlement, cultural and dated environmental ca. 12,000 b.p., data. located This report on the briefly eastern describes margins
its settlement plan and architecture ; artefacts in basalt, limestone, bone and chert, incised and carved art pieces, and botanical,
faunal and human skeletal remains.
RÉSUMÉ. — Wadi Hammeh 27 est un établissement attribué au Natoufien ancien et daté ca. 12 000 b.p.; il est situé sur le flanc
oriental de la moyenne vallée du Jourdain. Le site a produit une grande quantité de données culturelles ou ayant trait au
paléoenvironnement. Ce rapport décrit brièvement le mode d'occupation et les types d'architecture, les objets en basalte, calcaire, os
et silex, les pièces incisées et les blocs sculptés, les restes végétaux, animaux et humains.
SITE LOCATION AND CONTEXT Numerous freshwater Melanopsis praemorsa
(Marsh Snail) shells, scattered at this level throu
ghout the Natufian deposits and final phases of
Wadi Hammeh 27 is located near the mouth of aggraded silts, indicate the former existence of
Wadi al-Hammeh, a westward-flowing tributary of extensive nearby springheads feeding through a
the Jordan River which enters the Rift opposite the flat-bottomed valley. The situation during the Nat
Marj ibn al-Amr Plain (map ref. 453 394 on Deir ufian occupation probably resembled the present
Abu Sa'id 1 :50,000 sheet 3154 IV). The deposits are Wadi Jirm springs and valley floor two kilometres
located at the northerly end of a remnant, flat- to the south at the site of ancient Pella, where
topped, interfluvial ridge known as the Plateau, Melanopsis praemorsa colonies still cluster around
carved out through deep incision by the perennial the freshwater outlets.
Wadi al-Hammeh and the parallel but ephemeral Following the abandonment of the Natufian site al-Himar. after 12,000 years ago, a massive drop in base level
occurred in Wadi al Hammeh, following the reces
sion of Lake Lisan, giving rise to the various rem
nant outcrops in the craggy modern landscape. GEOMORPHOLOGY AND
PALAEO-ENVIRONMENT
The Plateau is composed of some fifty metres of STRATIGRAPHY
superimposed fluviatile and paludal Late Pleisto
cene pebbly conglomerates, silty clays and traverti
Presently excavations are proceeding in the upnes, infilling a more ancient Upper Cretaceous-
permost occupation phase (Natufian Phase I, fig. 1), Tertiary valley (1). Both in situ sites and rolled stone
over an area of more than 340 square metres. The tools, dating from at least early Levantine Mouste-
excavations have been designed to investigate the rian to Natufian periods are scattered up through the
layout of the uppermost phase by broad horizontal Plateau sections. The Plateau and adjacent deposits
clearance, combined with investigations into the aggraded through this time in response to the
duration of occupation at the site by sondage. presence of the adjacent Lake Lisan in the Rift
Valley and a subsequently heightened water ta Three successive constructional phases have been
ble (2). The site of Wadi Hammeh 27 is embedded isolated in a limited sounding made in plot XX F.
in a dark humic silty clay, overlaying the travertine In each of the three phases a stone feature was
which caps the Plateau deposits (3). It lies at an rebuilt in approximately the same position, and a
altitude of — 83.5 metres. small section of curvilinear stone wall discovered in
the middle phase (Natufian Phase II) was rebuilt
along the same arc in the uppermost Phase I.
The XX F sondage shows stratigraphie confor(1) MACUMBER, 1981 ; MACUMBER, 1984 : 81-86. mity between the three occupation phases and shows (2) 1986 :156-157 ; MACUMBER, 1988
continuity in the spatial arrangement of built featu526-532.
(3) MACUMBER, 1981 ; 1986 156-157. res through successive phases.
309 Colloque Préhistoire Levant II Maison de l'Orient-Lyon
30 mai-4 juin 1988 Editions du CNRS, Paris, 1989 J д :
SETTLEMENT PLAN lunates are associated with Early Natufian sites, for
the frequency is 80 % in a sample of 350 lunates
from Natufian Phase I.
The Natufian Phase I occupation surfaces have
been cleared to their full extent in Plots XX D, E,
F and G ; and partially exposed in plots XX H and
ARTEFACT DISTRIBUTIONS J (fig. 1). A large horseshoe-shaped structure (the
'XX F structure') has been isolated in the northern
part of the excavations. It consists of a curvilinear
Even though post-occupational degradations wall (represented by wall 1, Plot XX F ; Feature 2
(mainly the burrowing efforts of rodents) have [F.2] in Plot XX G and F.10 in Plot XX E) mostly
disrupted a proportion of the deposits at Wadi dry-built of limestone rubble while clay packing was
Hammeh 27, there remain many good in situ associaincorporated in short stretches. To the south-west an
tions of artefacts. A basalt cache, located on the open margin was left (Plot XX E), demarcated only
perimeter of the XX F structure near F.17 in Plot by a dip in the ground surface along a curve
XX E, had apparently not moved at all since its extrapolated from Plot XX F's wall 1. This is also
original deposition. It consisted of a basalt pestle marked in several places by stone-ringed postholes
pair stacked near two mortars, with a further basalt (F.ll, F.12, F.13 & F.17 in Plot XX E).
pair carefully placed over the mouth of the larger A further extension of the outermost wall of the mortar. A metre away was a bunched cluster of concentric XX D complex (4) has been uncovered in tools, including a sickle haft carved from a caprid Plot XX H. Whether the entire structure is elliptical, horn core, inset with a double row of Helwan or an extremely large circle associated with the bladelets. This was surrounded by several other architectural elements in plot XX J awaits further items : a single platform bladelet core; 21 Helwan clearance. and inverse bladelets which appear to have been
A wide variety of stone features occur across the derived from the translucent, caramel core ; seven
site. Several stone features are positioned on the polished agates ; and five gazelle podial bones.
exterior of the XX F structure (eg. F.3 in Plot XX Other groups of this nature include chert picks, F ; and F.I and F.6 in Plot XX G). Smaller arcs (F.8 clusters of bone tools, dentalium shells and several in Plot XX F ; F.4 in Plot XX E) or enclosed circles articulated gazelle hoofs and piles of gazelle podials. (F.6 and F.9 in Plot XX F ; F. 15 in Plot XX E ; and Though analysis is incomplete, it is also already F.2 la in Plot XX D) are also found within the clear that a vast majority of flaked stone and other structures. In contrast to the excavated postholes in debris is deposited inside, rather than outside the Plot XX E, an irregular collection of stones in Plot two oval structures. XX J (F.I) surrounds a raised area of tamped earth.
Additionally, each of the two structures contains an
arrangement of stones. In Plot XX F this takes the
form of an oblong construction of limestone pieces GROUND AND INCISED STONE ARTEFACTS set into a slightly raised base of mud, with some of
the border stones set on edge (F.7). In Plot XX D
there is a looser arrangement of larger boulders Fine-grained basalt, limestone and siltstone were
(F.I 8), which may yet prove to be the focal point of pecked, ground, grooved, drilled and engraved at
the structure formed by walls 1 to 3. Wadi Hammeh 27 into a variety of vessels, milling
equipment, art mobilier and parietal art features. The
following brief descriptions proceed by frequency of
use of the various materials. DATING
Basalt artefacts Three AMS dates (5) were run on carbonized
seeds from debris on the uppermost (Phase I) The pestle is the most common type. The many Natufian occupation sur