ARCHEOLOGICAL PERIODS IN
THE LEVANT: THE STONE AGE
1.5 Million Years B.P. to 3300 BCE
Paleolithic
• Lower Paleolithic. 1.5 million—250,000 yrs BP. Evidenced in Jordan rift
and Carmel regions.
• Controlled use of fire
• Implements of stone and bone
• Domestication of dogs
• Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 – 50,000 yrs BP
• Shared Mousterian culture and continuous biological evolution from
Neanderthal to Homo sapiens. Sites: Kebara, Amud, and Carmel
• Amud and Carmel in virtual reality
• Upper Paleolithic and the Natufian transition (50,000–10,000 yrs BP)
Neolithic and Chalcolithic
• Neolithic (PPNA, PPNB, and PN)
• Begins with further development of Natufian technologies in cultivating grains
and using animals.
• Comparison among ‘Ain Abu Nukhayla, Basta, and Beida (see VWP)
• Chalcolithic (copper/stone)
• Rasm Harbush, ’En Gedi (temple)
• Megaliths
Pre-pottery Neolithic A period
(PPNA)
• 11,600 – 10,200 years B.P., a transition between Natufian period
hunting and gathering society to sedentary agricultural life.
• Characterized by the development of sedentary settlement, thus the
emergence of domestic buildings (houses) and special purpose
structures, likely replacing huts of sticks, brush, and mud-plastered
straw. Roofed, or just sticks stacked together?
• The relationship between social and economic developments; e.g.,
cultivation of wild cereals contribute to cooperation, long-term
settlement, etc., which in turn drive other economic developments.
Pre-pottery Neolithic A period
(PPNA)
Characterized by random-
sized, semi-subterranean
circular structures that
were constructed by
digging pits, packing the
walls (pisé), and mud-
plaster floors. Entrance/exit
was appears to have been
through the roof.
W16 (southwestern Jordan)
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/20
/8183
Pre-pottery Neolithic A period
(PPNA)
Example of PPNA site plan:
W16, a PPNA site located in
southern Jordan.
Pre-pottery Neolithic A period
(PPNA)
• Non-domestic-type buildings appear to have been used for grain
storage, with some scant evidence for possible ritual use, such as
auroch bones encased in clay “burnt down and buried,” as well as
broken ceramic bowls in pits (ritual feasting perhaps?) and anthropoid
figurines.
• The basic social unit appears to be the household, with facilities for
communal work and economic distribution.
• The transition to the PPNB period is primarily characterized by a shift
in architecture from the circular, scalloped layout to squared and
rectangular-shaped structures.
Pre-pottery Neolithic B period
(PPNB)
• Squared contours permitting shared walls (later developing into a
defense strategy), greater size, complexity, and the need for more
extensive supports for roofs.
• Roofs were flat, supported by wooden posts and beams and covered
with mud-plastered brush and branches.
• A later period, designated Pre-pottery Neolithic C (PPNC), has been
identified at the site of ‘Ain Ghazal (Jordan), dated 8200-7900 years
BP.
Pre-pottery Neolithic B period
(PPNB)
Artist’s reconstruction of
the LPPNB settlement at
Ba’ja, Jordan (Kinzel 2011).
Megaliths of the Levant
Terminology
• Megalith (Greek: “Large stone”); used here in
reference to large stone structures erected
between the late Chalcolithic to early Middle
Bronze periods (ca. 4000-2000 BCE)
• Earliest megalithic structure: Rosh Zin (Negev) ,
Natufian habitation (ca. 11,000--9500 BCE)
• Orthostat, monolith (Greek: “upright stone”)
• Dolmen (Breton: taol maen, “Stone table”)
• Menhir (Breton: maen hir, “Long stone”)
Megaliths of the Levant
Occurrence
• Found throughout Europe, with densest concentration in northeast
France
• Also found throughout the Near East and all of Asia
• Especially dense concentration along both side of the Jordan rift
• Earliest modern reference: C. Irby and J. Mangles, Travels in Nubia,
Syria, and the Holy Land (1844), explicit mention of Dahmiyah and
Mureighat fields
• Several European surveys (esp. Conder & Schumacher, 18th C) and
Israeli (esp. E. Anati and C. Epstein, 20th C)
Megaliths of the Levant
Occurrence
• A path east and south from the Caucasus, where dolmens are
dated to ca. 3300 BCE? Some gaps.
• Southern path resumes in Lebanon and south of Damascus,
coming together in the Golan and the Hauran regions
• Particularly dense in northwest Jordan, made of basalt (Rift),
limestone (northern plateau), or sandstone (southern hills)
• Two phases, corresponding to shifts in settlement patterns?
Megaliths of the Levant
Function
• Associated material remains are scarce and inconsistent
• Associated with burials, but of what sort?
• How might these burial structures have been experienced by the
people who built or encountered them?
• Standing stones: commemorative, funerary, boundary marker,
witness to treaty or vow, representing deity (Avner)
Megaliths of the Levant
Rujm al-Hiri, Golan
Megaliths of the Levant
Rujm al-Hiri, Golan
158
m
•built ca. 3000-2700 BCE
•42,000 basalt stones,
weighing up to 5
tons each
•preserved to 2.4 m
•central tumulus
Some Common Types
1) Two stones standing face to face and capped by a third stone (trilithion
type, most common >90%)
2) Four or more upright stones, also capped.
3) Resting stones stacked in tiers and capped.
4) Three vertical stones capped with one long stone, forming two parallel
vertical chambers.
5) Two vertical stones capped and spanned midway up by a stone shelf.
6) A carved-out boulder covered with a stone cap, a “pseudo dolmen.”
Megaliths of the Levant
Associated features
• Cup holes
• Alignments
• Rows
• Circles
• Cairns
• Cysts
• Rock-cut tombs
Megaliths of the Levant
Dolmens in the Hebrew Bible?
• Not mentioned as such, but may have etiological implications for
such stories as the giants of Gilead, Ammon, and Moab
• Stone table of Gad? (Is 65.11)
• “Altars in heaps within the furrows of the field” (Hos 12.11)
• Jacob’s preoccupation with standing stones, Beth El
• masseboth. Functions: memorial, commemorative, legal, and cultic
Megaliths of the Levant
Damiyeh, Jordan Al-Mureighat, Jordan
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Dahmiyah
Megaliths of the Levant
Rasm Harbush (Golan)
Photo by Alexandra Untu
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Hajar al-Mansub,
Mureighat, Jordan
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Cultic center,
Mureighat, Jordan
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Cultic center,
Mureighat,
Jordan
Megaliths of the Levant
al-Mureighat
Cultic center,
Mureighat,
Jordan
Sources
• Finlayson, B.; S. J. Mithen; M. Najjar; S. Smith; D. Maričević; N.
Pankhurst; and L. Yeomans, “Architecture, sedentism, and social
complexity at Pre-Pottery Neolithic A WF16 (Jordan), PNAS May 17,
2011 108 (20) 8183-8188; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1017642108.
• Kinzel, Moritz. “Some Notes on the Reconstruction of PPNB
Architecture.” Neo-Lithics, 2004: 18-22.
• Simkins, Ron, and Nicolae Roddy, “The Virtual World Project,” available
at http://www.virtualworldproject.org.
