Tell Aswad and Jericho exemplify the refuge-oasis model as both depended on water issuing from large perennial springs fed by limestone aquifers. While Jericho is situated close to the outlet of a perennial spring, Tell Aswad is about 30 km to the east, where the Barada River, formed by the spring, flowed into a basin and created a lake. The lake existed during the Upper Pleistocene and covered a large area of the basin, where the city of Damascus now lies. Today, the area receives less than 200mmof rainfall per year. Excavations by H. de Contenson59 showed that the site was inhabited from 7800 to 6600 B.C.E. it consisted of small round huts made from mud bricks, with sunken floors.
Flint tools, clay figurines, and bone implements were found but no pottery.
Paleo-botanical examinations proved that crops were cultivated right from the establishment of the settlement and they were most probably irrigated.60
Detailed knowledge about Jericho’s Neolithic culture is owed to the British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated the site from 1952 to 1958.61 The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A culture (P.P.N.A) survived about a thousand years in Jericho. During this time, the inhabitants built a tower 10 meters in diameter and 8.5 meters high with a 22-step staircase – the world’s oldest evidence of monumental architecture. They also built a set of perimeter walls and a ditch.
Kenyon described these walls as fortifications, while Bar-Yosef suggests that they were built as protection against floods, whereas Ronen and Adler suggest a ritual purpose.62 Anyhow, construction of such monumental structures at- tests to a social organization capable of mobilizing the manpower needed to build the walls and the tower, which served either as a watchtower or as a cult site, and was perhaps a precursor to the ziggurats of the Mesopotamian plain.
The inhabitants of Jericho had commercial relations with the Mediterranean and the Red Sea from where they obtained malachite and ornamental seashells as well as with more distant places such as Anatolia where their obsidian had originated arriving here by a chain of exchange. The skulls and other osteolog- ical remains found at Jericho show that the people who lived there during the
59H. de Contenson, “Tel Aswad (Damascène)”Paléorient5:153–156 (1979).
60W. Van Zeist, and J.A.H. Bakker-Heeres, “Some Economic and Ecological Aspects of the Plant Husbandry of Tel Aswad”Paléorient5:161–169 (1979).
61K.M. Kenyon,Digging up Jericho, Benn, London (1957).
62O. Bar Yosef, “The Walls of Jericho: An Alternative Interpretation”Current Anthropology27/2:
157–162 (1986).
A. Ronen and D. Adler, “The walls of Jericho were magical”Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia2/6:97–103 (2001).
PPNA had the same features as those of the Natufian. Their flint tools were also of the Natufian type. Continuity seems to be seen in excavations at sites of the same age on the Euphrates, such as Nevali Cori and Jerf el-Ahmar where the ongoing French excavations exposed a site of ca. 1000 square meters containing 10 occupational layers all dated to the PPNA (Danielle Stordeur, directeur de recherche C.N.R.S.). The traditional Natufian-style circular mud house plan was changed over time into larger rectangular structures partially surrounding a round “piazza”, obviously for some public function. The change implied that the houses were build with wooden beams, plastered and on stone foundations.
The flint material for tools can be traced to Anatolia and continued Natufian work traditions. Some flat stones were incised with geometric scratchings of unknown purpose. The large amount of charred wild cereals (probably wild weat) and lentils as well as the bones of gazelles, hermiones (wild ass), aurochs, and birds, make it clear that the inhabitants were sedentary hunter-gatherers.
Sedentary village life, cultivating crops, and finally domestication of plants and animals once believed to have formed a “package deal” called Neolithic Revolution is now seen as a long and slow process where each element devel- oped at different places and at various periods without necessarily having been linked.
The PPNA culture at Jericho ended abruptly sometime in the first quarter of the eighth millennium B.C.E. While there are no signs of destruction by earthquake, foe or fire, there are signs of flooding on top of the layers from this period. The proxy data show an abrupt decrease in 18O around 10,000 years ago as well as a simultaneous increase in the 13C compositions. The most likely interpretation suggests a strengthened westerlies storm pattern, which resulted in a colder climate stretching the rainy season into the summer, enabling grasses and legumes (C3 and C4 type vegetation) to survive most of the year. In any case, the isotopic evidence clearly shows a climatic change that most likely involved flooding of Wadi el-Kelt – a seasonal stream that drains a vast area of the highlands to the west and enters the plain nearby. Kenyon also maintains that this was a period of floods and subsequent erosion.
The new people who settled in Jericho around 9000 years ago were seemingly of a different stock with longer skull features63 and brought a new cultural tradition which Kenyon designated Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPN.B). Their flint tool set was different from those of the PPNA, which had evolved from the Natufian, and included a higher percentage of heavy-duty core tools, such as polished axes for working the ground and cutting trees. Their houses were constructed with a type of brick different from and superior to that used by the PPNA people. Similarities with northern cultures suggest another early instance of migration from the north during a colder period as the northern highlands became less hospitable whereas the southern areas became greener and attractive.
The PPNB layers comprise over 20 building levels covering a time span of about a thousand years. In a niche of a particular building stood an elongated
63P. Smith, “People of the Holy Land from Prehistory to the Recent Past” in: T.E. Levy op. cit. pp. 58–74 (1998).
stone that might have been used as an idol. Similar stones, known asstelae orbethyloi(bethels) and referred to in the Bible asmatseba, are found from now on in many archaeological sites and in different periods throughout the Near East. Other cult objects were found in these layers, including plastered and painted skulls and three life-size figures.
Horowitz studied the pollen spectrum in the sediments of the PPNB of Sde Divshon in the Negev. He suggests that this region, which today receives about 80mmof rainfall per year, was humid during the PPNB and suitable for agriculture. He correlates this period with the Boreal of Europe.64 Liphschitz and Waisel identified charred pieces of pistachio and olive trees in the same region, which also indicate a more humid climate.65Bar Yosef maintains that the PPNB economy in fertile areas was based on cultivation of legumes and cereal, together with hunting and herding. The economy in drier areas, where the inhabitants probably lived during winter, autumn and spring, was based on hunting and gathering.66The finding in Jericho of obsidian from Çatal Hüyük in the central Anatolian plateau established an exchange system between these two regions. One can assume that while obsidian traveled one way along the route, information and seeds may have traveled the other. In addition, a bone belt-hook found at Nahal Hemar (the “Bitumen Valley” in Hebrew) near the Dead Sea has identical counterparts in Çatal Höyük and other contemporary Anatolian sites, which could support the idea that the cold climate brought a migration of people from the high plateaus of Anatolia as well as trade. From Nahal Hemar we have a skull decorated with what looks like a bitumen hair net, and masks carved out of limestone, as well as some of the earliest textiles, displaying nearly all types of weaving known today.
Agricultural products supplied most of the needs of the people of Jericho.
They domesticated the goat and no longer needed to depend solely on hunting.
Goat meat became the main protein component of the diet. The desert plains of the area, which dry up during the summer but still provided sufficient dry pasture for the undemanding goat, could be used for grazing. In the future when the climate deteriorated the goat, well adapted to desert conditions, enabled Near East societies to survive during periods of desiccation by switching over to herding and pastoralism.
In the northern part of the Jordan Valley, on the shores of the shallow lake and swamps of Hula gazelle meat and wild pig remained the main protein component of the ancient dwellers’ diet.67
Like Jericho, ‘Ain Ghazzal in Wadi Zarqa in Jordan is situated near a perennial spring. In the Middle PPNB period (9250 to 8500 years ago), the houses were plastered and painted with ochre. The people harvested crops such as wheat, barley, peas, lentils, etc. Half of the animal bones found were domesticated goat, the other half, wild game. A variety of small clay figurines – animal as well as human – were found. Most of the latter were “decapitated,” that is, the heads
64A. Horowitz, op. cit. (1980).
65Liphschitz and Waisel, op. cit. (1977).
66O. Bar Yosef, op. cit. (1986).
67J. Perrot, “La Préhistoire Palestinienne”Dictionnaire de la Bible8 (supplément) pp. 416–438 (1968).
and bodies were found separately. Enigmatic finds are small geometric clay objects, interpreted by the excavators as counting tokens – perhaps forerunners of a counting or ‘writing’ system. The most imposing finds, however, were human statues of nearly a meter high, made of painted plaster over frames of reeds. There is scant evidence for some crudely made, low-fired pottery at the end of the period, a phase termed PPNC at ‘Ain Ghazzal. Together with Syrian “White Ware,” Rollefson and Simmons suggest these artifacts represent a “glide” of the Pre-Pottery into the Pottery Neolithic Period.68
Tell Ramad near Damascus and Beidha near Petra also date from this period.
Bar Yosef and Avner suggested that during the PPNB, around 9700/9500 to 8000 years ago., the climate favored hunters and gatherers, attracting them to now drier desert-like areas such as the Negev, northern Sinai and the edge of the Syrian desert.69
The climate pattern of the Near East extends eastward to the Zagros Moun- tains and the Iranian plateau. One would expect that a more humid climate had enabled a connection between these two regions, as the Syrian Desert would have become more hospitable. Moreover, a colder and more humid climate would bring more precipitation to the Iranian mountains and enhance the springs flowing out from the foothills of the mountains.70Thus, with the im- proved climate during the PPNB extending to the foothills and intermountain valleys of the Zagros Mountains of Iran, sites such as Zawi Chemi, Shanidar and Karim Shahir developed parallel to those in the Levant. Outstanding ar- chitecture ofterre pise(packed mud) and some of the earliest pottery of the Near East was found in western Iranian sites in Ganjdareh and Asiab in the Kermanshah province.71
The transition from Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to B can also be traced in the Syrian sites of Mureibet and el-Kowm near Palmyra. The smooth transition here supports our suggestion that the carriers of the PPNB culture had migrated south around 7000 B.C.E.
The best example of PPNB is the southeastern Anatolian site of Çayönü with its elaborate stone and clay brick buildings, baked clay figurines, attempts at pottery and, above all, use of native copper hammered into the shape of stone tools. The continuance of complex and monumental carved rock art at Gobekli and Nevali Cori into the mature phases of the Neolithic period opens entirely new aspects into the spiritual life of this time.
68G.O. Rollefson and A.H. Simmons, “The Early Neolithic Village of ’Ain Ghazal, Jordan: Preliminary Report of the 1983 Season” in:Preliminary Reports of ASOR Sponsored Excavations 1981–83, BASOR Supplement23:43–44 and Fig.7, W.E. Rast (ed.). Eisenbrauns for American Schools of Oriental Research, Winona Lake, Ind. (1985).
69O. Bar Yosef, “The Land of Israel during the Neolithic Period” in:The History of the Land of Israel, vol. 1, ed. Y. Ripel, Tel Aviv, Israeli Defense Ministry Publishing, pp. 27–46 (1986, Hebrew).
U. Avner, “Settlement, Agriculture and Palaeoclimate in Uvda Valley, Southern Negev Desert, 6th–
3rd Millennia B.C.” in Issar and Brown op. cit. pp. 147–202 (1998).
70A. Issar, “The Groundwater Provinces of Iran”Bulletin of the International Association of Scientific Hydrology14/1:87–99 (1969).
71J. Mellaart,The Neolithic of the Near East. Thames and Hudson, London (1975).
An agricultural settlement was established at Çatal Hüyük in the Konya plain on the Anatolian plateau around 6200 B.C.E.,72 contemporary with the late PPNB at Jericho. Whether the crops were rain-fed, irrigated, or both, has yet to be ascertained, but a greater variety of cereals was grown at Çatal Höyük than at Jericho. Wheat was the main cereal and wild cattle were the main source of animal protein. Obsidian from Hasan Dag near Çatal Höyük was found all over the Near East down to Egypt. Some time later the people at Çatal Höyük built shrines featuring bull heads plastered with clay and painted and a fertility goddess with leopard heads plastered too, which is similar to the plastered skulls found at Jericho and Tell Ramad. What material or spiritual exchange may have existed between the peoples of Çatal Höyük and those of Jericho is, for now, a matter of speculation.
It appears that seafaring also took great strides at this time, a fact largely neglected because of a lack of hard evidence. The first Mediterranean island to be discovered and settled was Cyprus. The ceramic Khirokitia culture is contemporary with the last phase of the Levantine PPNB, dated tentatively around the first half of the sixth millennium B.C.E. It is from here that the Neolithic revolution seems to have advanced throughout the Mediterranean world.73
Scientists at the German Nautical Institute at Kiel have for several years stud- ied ancient petroglyphs of primitive boats from all over the world, some dating back to the epi-Palaeolithic/Mesolithic and Neolithic period. After experiment- ing with vessels of a variety of materials, they concluded that a large-sized reed boat was the most likely candidate for ocean travel during the Neolithic period.
The vessel consisted of two enormous sausage-shaped structures made of reed and small pieces of wood, their ends tied together and bent upward to form the prow and stern. In the summer of 1999, Zohar witnessed the launching of such a contraption at the port of Alghero in Sardinia where the modern-day
“Neolithic” sailors assured him that the boat is very flexible, adjusts itself to the shape of the waves, is practically unsinkable even in moderately strong storms, and can carry voluminous cargoes. The already mentioned Neolithic textiles found in Nahal Hemar near the Dead Sea support the possibility that sails could have been used. A short trip around the bay of Alghero demonstrated how Neolithic people, along with their animals and sufficient provisions of grain and other seeds supplemented by abundant fish, were able to cross with ease the relatively short distances between the Mediterranean headlands and islands.
The PPNB period represents the high watermark of Neolithic evolution and ends abruptly in the southern Levant around 6000 B.C.E. or a little thereafter.
Again, the demise seems not to have been caused by earthquake or war. Rather, signs of erosion by water flow can be seen on the buildings of PPNB Jericho.
The isotope data from Soreq Cave and Lake Van may corroborate a period of high precipitation and thus renewed floods. This cannot be stated definitely,
72J. Mellaart,Çatal Höyük – A Neolithic Town in Anatolia, Thames and Hudson, London (1967).
73J. Zilhão, “The Spread of Agro-pastoral Economies Across Mediterranean Europe: a View from the Far West”Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology6, 5–63 (1993).
however, because of a problem with calibrating dates at Jericho during this period. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, the inhabitants abandoned their oasis as the more humid climate most probably caused the groundwater table below the town to rise and floods from the nearby valleys to cover the fields and destroy their houses.74It appears that the entire Jordan Valley had become a well watered and fertile land where farm could be built in a loose pattern without the need to congregate around springs.
In conclusion, since its earliest beginnings, the destiny of the human race was shaped by the changes of climate and their impact on the environment.
These changes were also at the root of the exodus from the African Garden of Eden. The same changes opened the northeastern gates of the garden to enable the departure and closed them when the climate changed again. The primeval
“flaming sword which turned every way” operated by turning the southern Levant into a parched desert which happened more than once. Aridization brought our ancestors to seek refuge in the mini-gardens of Eden, the oases dotting the desert. There, putting to work their intelligence which, according to the Biblical metaphor, was acquired by eating from the “Tree of Knowledge”
they developed skills in farming and irrigated agriculture which enabled them to feed themselves, to multiply and fill up the land.
74J. Perrot op. cit. 1968 observed a reduction in the amount of tree pollen in core samples taken from Lake Huleh. He concluded that the climate became drier, which is probably mistaken, and the opposite may be more likely when the forest was cut down and grain fields took their place.