Marion Benz

Growing reliance on animal and plant domestication in the Near East and beyond during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (the ninth to eighth millennium BC) has often been associated with a “revolutionary” social transformation from mobility toward more sedentary lifestyles. We are able to yield nuanced insights into the process of the Neolithization in the Near East based on a bioarchaeological approach integrating isotopic and archaeogenetic analyses on the bone remains recovered from Nevalı Çori, a site occupied from the early PPNB in Turkey where some of the earliest evidence of animal and plant domestication emerged, and from Ba'ja, a typical late PPNB site in Jordan. In addition, we present the archaeological sequence of Nevalı Çori together with newly generated radiocarbon dates. Our results are based on strontium ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr), carbon, and oxygen (δ 18 O and δ 13 C carb ) isotopic analyses conducted on 28 human and 29 animal individuals from the site of Nevalı Çori. 87...

Bei den Bauarbeiten für den Ausbau des Fernwärmenetzes in den Quartieren rund um den Wettsteinplatz kamen mehrere frühmittelalterliche Gräber, darunter ein reich ausgestattetes Mädchengrab, zum Vorschein. Das Grab enthielt ca. 380 Perlen, eine Schnalle – vermutlich für ein Täschchen – und eine goldtauschierte Gürtelschnalle. Ein solches Ensemble kannte man bisher nur aus sehr reichen Frauengräbern. Der Kantonsarchäologe Guido Lassau und die Grabungsleiterin Corinne Hodel sprechen mit der Wissenschaftsjournalistin Marion Benz über Herausforderungen und Potentiale der Grossgrabungen für die Fernwärmeleitung, über die vielfältigen Informationen, welche das reich geschmückte Mädchen für die archäologische Forschung liefert, und wie wichtig es ist, ihr Lebensumfeld genauer zu kennen, um ihre Rolle in der damaligen Gesellschaft zu verstehen.

Season’s Progress and Research Questions •Wall Damage Reports and Earthquake Evidence • Building Stone Manufacturing and Building in Ba`ja • Enigma Sounding 1 of Area A. Resumed Excavations • Sounding 1 of Area A. The Chipped Lithics • Test Unit 9a-c in Area G: Capturing the FPPNB/ PPNC Occupation • Continued Excavations in Area D • The Mural of Room DR26.2. Reappraising Extension and Preservation • Continued Excavations in Room CR28 • Rooms CR5 and CR6: Interfering Ritual and Domestic Evidence •The Hoard of Locus CR5:45. A Biography of Mixing Ritual and Domestic Contexts • Continued Excavation of Collective Burial Remains in Room CR17 • The Season’s Intramural Subadult Burials • Extraction of Jamila`s Grave C1:46 • Season’s Summary and Progressing Research Perspectives

Benz, Marion; Gresky, Julia; Alarashi, Hala. "Similar but different. Displaying social roles of subadults in burials from the late Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Ba`ja, Southern Jordan". In: H. Alarashi and R.M. Dessì (eds.). The art of human appearance : from prehistory to the present day. Actes des 40es Rencontres Internationales d'Archéologie et d'Histoire. Nice: Éditions APDCA.[EN] Increasing social differentiation and the emergence of collective identities are considered to be fundamental changes brought about by Neolithisation. Commitment and loyalty – and therefore socialization within the group – became important elements in Neolithic agricultural communities. Henceforth, personal identities were probably mainly determined by the group and the ascription of social roles will have begun at quite an early age. Within the framework of the project Household and Death – Commodification and Identities in Ba`ja during the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB) of the Southern Levant, more than eighteen subadult interments in single, double and collective burials were discovered. On the one hand, these burials show striking similarities in their rituals, obviously adhering to distinct social rules, but on the other hand, there are many differences in the way the bodies are displayed and in the organization of the funerary space. Besides grave constructions of differing complexity, jewelry and so-called grave goods were used as diacritical means with which the community indicated social differences during burial rituals. The locations and associations of certain burials could be indicative of Neolithic concepts concerning social groups. We will compare the burial rituals, the appearance of the bodies and the objects within the graves to seek reasons for these differences, and thereby assess the social roles ascribed to subadults at the Neolithic site of Ba`ja.[FR] L’augmentation de différences sociales et l’émergence des identités collectives sont considérées comme des changements fondamentaux de la Néolithisation. L’engagement et la loyauté envers le groupe – et donc la socialisation – devinrent des critères décisifs pour les communautés néolithiques. Dès lors, l’identité personnelle était probablement profondément déterminée par le groupe et l’attribution des rôles sociaux commençait sans doute dès l’enfance. Dans le cadre du projet Household and Death – Commodification and Identities in Ba`ja during the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB) of the Southern Levant, plus de dixhuit squelettes d’enfants furent découverts dans des sépultures individuelles, doubles et collectives. D’une part, ces sépulcres montrent des similitudes frappantes dans leurs rites funéraires, reflet probable de conventions sociales bien définies. D’autre part, des différences considérables relatives à la disposition des corps et à l’organisation de l’espace funéraire sont observées. Parallèlement à la construction généralement complexe des tombes, la variabilité des parures corporelles et le mobilier funéraire suggèrent une mise en scène des différences sociales des individus enterrés. La localisation et l’association de certaines tombes peuvent indiquer un concept de « groupe social » au sein de cette société néolithique. Nos études intégrales des funéraires, de l’apparence du corps et des offrandes tentent d´expliquer ces différences sociales rendues visibles au sein des inhumations d’enfants du site néolithique de Ba`ja.Peer reviewe

<p>The former are plotted consecutively and show early and late mineralizing tooth pairs of individuals (highlighted with a tie-line) if applicable. Three individuals (14, 8/1, 39/2) plot clearly outside the ±2 SD local signal for Basta (shaded box: 0.70821±0.00008). Given the reported <sup>87</sup>Sr/<sup>86</sup>Sr variation between ∼0.7053 and 0.7094 in modern food webs in the region <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0065649#pone.0065649-Shewan1" target="_blank">[22]</a>, the observed overall variability for Basta is very small. In case of B39/2, only the first molar shows a non-local signature, which indicates that by the time of mineralization of the 2<sup>nd</sup> premolar (∼year 6), this individual had already moved to Basta. B5060/1 M1 is only marginally below the local Sr-isotope range, which is interpreted not to be significant, also because the Sr-isotope signal of its PM2 is consistent with Basta (even identifying B5060/1 as a non-local would not change any of the conclusions herein).</p

Rezension zu: Ian Gilligan, Climate, Clothing, and Agriculture in Prehistory. Linking Evidence, Causes, and Effects. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2019. ISBN 978-1-108-45519-0 (Paperback). ISBN 978-1-108-55588-3 (E-Book). doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555883. xx + 326 Seiten mit 101 Schwarz-Weiß-Abbildungen

The site of Körtiktepe in southeastern Turkey is one of few sites in the Upper Mesopotamia basin that attests continuous, permanent occupation across the boundary from end of the colder, drier Younger Dryas (YD) into the comparatively wetter and warmer Early Holocene (EH). This allows for the study of the degree of environmental change experienced on a local level over this boundary as well as for the study of the adaptations that the occupants of the site undertook in response to these changes. The mammal assemblage of Körtiktepe remains relatively stable across the YD – EH transition with the main contributors to diet being mouflon ( Ovis orientalis) and red deer ( Cervus elaphus) in approximately the same quantities, although the contribution of aurochs ( Bos primigenius) increases in the EH. The most significant changes can be seen in the shift in avifauna remains, with a sharp increase of waterbirds during the EH. It is proposed that these shifts reflect changes in the local en...

Feasting ist im angloamerikanischen Sprachraum kaum mehr aus dem Repertoire archäologischer Arbeiten zur Sozialgeschichte wegzudenken. Von der Urgeschichte über die Spätbronzezeit bis zu keltischen Festgelagen haben Untersuchungen zu Festen deren sozio-politische und ökonomische Bedeutung herausgestellt (Dietler / Hayden 2001; Bray 2003; Wright 2004). Brian Hayden wagt nun mit seinem Buch „The Power of Feasts“ eine großangelegte Synthese. Niemand, der sich mit Festen beschäftigen möchte, wird an diesem über 400 Seiten starken Lebenswerk vorbeikommen, und kaum jemand hätte besser all die bislang erschienenen Arbeiten zusammentragen können als Brian Hayden selbst.

Rezension zu: Richard J. Chacon / Rubén G. Mendoza (Hrsg.), Feast, Famine or Fighting? Multiple Pathways to Social Complexity. Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation Band 8. Springer, New York 2017. ISBN 978-3-319-48401-3. (Hardcover). ISBN 978-3-319-48402-0. (E-Book). 490 Seiten, 41 s/w-Abbildungen, 108 Farbabbildungen

Embedded within the research history of Greater Petra Area’s Early Neolithic (since 1981, cf. Gebel et al. 2017), the 12 season of the Ba`ja Neolithic Project took place from June 23 – July 20, 2018. The season represents the second of fi eld work for the DFG-Project Household and Death in Ba`ja, hosted by the Institute for Near Eastern Archaeology at Free University of Berlin and co-directed by Hans Georg K. Gebel, Marion Benz and Christoph Purschwitz. Ba`ja is located in a secluded setting of the rugged sandstone mountains (Fig. 1; cf. Gebel et al. 2017 for more general site and project information) north of Beidha village near Wadi Musa. The site is best accessible by climbing through the narrow siq al-Ba`ja; therefore, any excavation requires a lot of logistical investment, physical strength by the team, and the acceptance of technical and conservational limits. This season’s main aims were to further enlarge the corpus of fi ndings and data for the Household and Death subject, ...

Recent archaeological discoveries, refinements in genetic analyses and the archaeobotanical data require a reconsideration of the nature of the emergence of sedentary farming communities in Southeastern Turkey. In the rescue excavations prompted by the Batman and Ilisu dam projects several Early Holocene sites were discovered. For the first time, new data from Kortik Tepe now provide detailed evidence of a local Epipalaeolithic origin for these permanent settlements. In this article we summarize the results and analyses of the 2010-2012 excavations as well as palaeopedological and archaeobotanical data of the Younger Dryas layers at Kortik Tepe. Human isotope studies and the archaeological data suggest a permanent occupation of the site and might point to a local primordial adoption of a sedentary lifestyle in this region as early as the 11th millennium BC.

One of the greatest challenges of contemporary archaeology is to synthesize the large amount of radiocarbon and archaeological data into a useful dialogue. For the late Epipaleolithic and the Early Neolithic of the Near East, many 14C ages have been published without precise stratigraphic documentation. Consequently, for archaeological age models we often must use some more elementary approaches, such as probabilistic summation of calibrated ages. The stratigraphy of Körtik Tepe allows us for the first time to study an extended series of 14C ages of the earliest Holocene. In particular, we are able to analyze the data according to stratigraphic position within a well-documented profile. However, because of a plateau in the 14C age calibration curve at the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Early Holocene, dates of this period can be interpreted only if an extended sequence of dates is available. Due to problems remaining in the calibration procedure, the best way to achieve an...

... J. MuČ ller's article discusses the exceptions to the norm in the burial customs of the Bell Beaker Culture in the Bohemian-Moravian group with ... article comple-ments that of MuČller and analyses the same theme in the funerary ritual of the Corded Ware Culture in Bohemia. ...

L'uniformité et la large répartition du gobelet campaniforme sont à l'origine de toute une série de modèles interprétatifs différents et parfois contradictoires. Il est donc nédessaire de classifier l'ensemble de la documentation en se basant sur une définition précise et de ...

ABSTRACT The Epipalaeolithic occupation at Körtik Tepe (radiocarbon dated to 10400-9700 cal BC) supports a repeated and possibly continuous commitment to the site from the Younger Dryas to the early Holocene and suggests a permanent living on the site if not for all, then at least for a substantial part of the community. Despite the pronounced changes in ecology at the tran- sition from the Younger Dryas to the early Holocene, the inhabitants of Körtik Tepe stayed at that location and their settlement flourished during the early Holo - cene before they abandoned it forever.