Levant (Other Keyword)
1-14 (14 Records)
Recent excavations of Manot Cave, in the Western Galilee, Israel, have revealed abundant Upper Paleolithic finds, including modern human fossils, in situ hearths, shell beads, bone and stone tools, and faunal remains. The two major Early Upper Paleolithic traditions of the Levant—the Ahmarian and the Levantine Aurignacian—are well represented at Manot Cave. The Ahmarian is thought to have developed from local Initial Upper Paleolithic traditions, while the Levantine Aurignacian may represent a...
Consumption Preferences at the Collapse of Empire: The Case of New Kingdom Jaffa (2017)
The site of Tel Yafo (modern Jaffa, Israel) provides unique insight into the tenure of the Egyptian New Kingdom empire in the Levant (ca. 16th - 11th centuries BCE). As attested to in both ancient documents and by the presence of Egyptian monumental architecture, Jaffa functioned as an important imperial center. As the empire waned, Jaffa persisted as one of the last Egyptian holdings in the region. Recent excavations by the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project (JCHP) have opened this final period to...
Early Holocene taphonomy of Nachcharini Cave, Lebanon (2017)
Nachcharini Cave represents evidence from the early Holocene Levant, spanning the transition from hunting to herding in this region. It is located in an alpine environment, rare for Levantine sites at 2100 metres above sea level. The archaeofauna shows a clear predominance of wild sheep remains over wild goat, presenting a possible source for early domesticates. Taphonomic analysis of remains from the Natufian, PPNA, and PPNB periods at Nachcharini show significant differences in formation...
Early Upper Palaeolithic Shell beads and shellfish from Manot Cave, Israel (2017)
The Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) cave site of Manot, western Galilee, Israel yielded remains of the Ahmarian and Levantine Aurignacian technocomplexes. The malacofauna assemblages from the two technocomplexes were analyzed (NISP=1180). Dozens of ornamental shells, mostly deriving from the Aurignacian assemblages, include perforated Nassarius gibbosulus, Columbella rustica and Antalis spp. as well as two cowrie beads found in association with human bones. The comparison of the Manot assemblage...
Emergent Spirituality: The Anthropomorphic and Zoomorphic Ossuaries of Peqi’in (Upper Galilee, Israel) (2015)
The creative and diverse mortuary practices of the Chalcolithic period in the Southern Levant demonstrated a profound departure from the single-person, intramural interments of the earlier Neolithic periods. During the Chalcolithic, formalized structures and subterranean chambers were constructed for corpse depositions that were more complex in nature. Of particular interest, many of these structures exhibit innovative tendencies that allude to portraiture. Iconographic motifs are not...
The Late Acheulean of the Azraq Basin, Jordan, and Its Implications for Hominin Dispersals into the Levant (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Azraq Basin is an important physiogeographic feature and hydrological catchment area in the eastern desert of Jordan. At its heart are the Azraq wetlands, an ecologically fragile oasis complex characterized by the spring-fed historic Druze Marsh and rehabilitated Shishan Marsh. Archaeological investigation over the past 70 years has discovered multiple...
Levantine foragers during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene (2015)
The Levant is geographically limited by the sea in the Mediterranean in the west, deserts in south and east with the only widened extension of wetter condition in the Euphrates and Tigris basins. Abrupt climatic changes allowed for the demographically growth of Terminal Pleistocene foragers in the Levant and led to increasing territoriality. Pressures were increased with the expansion of hunting-gathering groups from the Nile Valley into Sinai and the Negev. The social and economic impacts...
The Middle Paleolithic artifacts from Manot Cave (Western Galilee), Israel (2017)
Manot Cave in situated within the Levantine Mediterranean region. The site has an extensive Upper Paleolithic sequence, including both Aurignacian and Ahmarian traditions. Several of the artifacts found within these assemblages belong to the Levallois technology. A small number of the artifacts, found in association with Upper Paleolithic occupational surfaces, have a double patina, possibly due to reuse. The majority are fresh suggesting the presence of a Middle Paleolithic occupation at the...
A new look at camp organization in open-air Late Pleistocene sites in the southern Levant (2017)
A wealth of Late Pleistocene - Early Holocene open-air camp-sites is recorded around the world. However, in sites pre-dating the use of stone for construction, central features such as huts and their floors are rarely preserved. Thus, the documentation of site structure and the identification of past activity areas are limited to hearths (when preserved) and their environs, and to distribution patterns of cultural remains. The focus of this paper are selected sites from the Mediterranean Levant,...
Questioning Technological and Economic "Decline" in the Medieval Rural Levant (2015)
This paper argues against a common view of medieval Levantine villages as isolated from larger regional centers by examining a group of hand-made ceramics — commonly called Hand-Made Geometrically Painted Wares (HMGPW), and formerly "pseudo-prehistoric" wares — prevalent across the Levant from the 12th-17th centuries AD. They are generally seen as the products of non-specialist village potters and, as the older name suggests, an example of technological decline. That view, though, is based...
Terminal Pleistocene Foraging Societies in the Nile Valley (2015)
This paper is concerned with interpreting the terminal Pleistocene foragers of the Nile River basin, dating between ca. 22,000 to 11,000 years BP. From Wadi Halfa at the Second Cataract, downriver to Qena, at least twelve archaeological traditions occupied and/or utilized the Nile River ecosystem, with subsistence strategies organized around the Nile floods, and the migration of migrating birds. Some settlement patterns within the confines of the Valley shifted seasonally, while others...
Using Practice Theory to Infer Household Behaviors at Islamic Ashkelon (2016)
The contents of archaeological features targeted for the recovery of botanical remains, such as hearths, ovens, pits, and floor surfaces, are more often than not the cumulative residue of multiple episodes of cooking, cleaning, or other activities that deposit and preserve plant parts. The actions responsible for this deposition can be illuminated when the patterns within the assemblage are interpreted within the framework of practice theory, which is well-suited for such applications due to its...
Where’s the beef? The value of an interdisciplinary approach to PPN features (2015)
The anthropogenic landscape of a prehistoric site is made up of artifacts, structures, and features. However, the three do not receive equal attention. Features--by which we mean stationary but non-structural evidence of human activity--are usually the least analyzed. Inspired by Paul Goldberg’s work on Paleolithic hearths, we hope to bring a new, more inter-disciplinary look at some of these less-studied elements of the anthropogenic landscape. To do so, we will expand the study to a later...
Wine or Wax?: Organic Residue Analysis on pottery from the Early Bronze I at Nahal Tillah (2015)
Nahal Tillah is an Early Bronze I site in the Southern Levant with evidence for a strong Egyptian trade presence. Twenty-eight sherds from four different vessel types underwent absorbed pottery residue analysis to identify possible traded resources and to confirm vessel functions. Although wine and olive oil are believed to be the major trade resources in the region, wax was an unexpectedly important resource in the pottery sampled, particularly among the Southern Levantine styled jars. SAA...