Home Economics at Pre-pottery Neolithic B Al-Khayran? Reconstructing Residential Unit Economic Behavior through Knapped Stone Analysis at a Small Site in West-Central Jordan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The shift from primarily foraging to predominantly farming economies that occurs during the early Neolithic of southwest Asia is commonly seen as a transition not merely in subsistence practices but economic relations as well. Many researchers argue that new forms of households emerge by the end of this time period, which serve as both residential and economic units. In this presentation, I look at residential and economic behavior at Middle Pre-pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB) al-Khayran in the west-central Jordanian Highlands to see if and how these dynamics are manifested at the site. I analyze the knapped stone assemblage from al-Khayran in order to understand the range of economic behaviors enacted at the site and how they contrast with the behaviors attested to in residential contexts at other sites of the southern Levantine MPPNB. Results show that al-Khayran was likely occupied by a single residential unit comparable to typical village-based households of the time period, which enacted both household maintenance activities and intensive cereal production. These results reinforce the argument that newly emergent households functioned as economic units during the early Neolithic, while also expanding our understanding of MPPNB residential practices and their relationships to subsistence systems.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37568.0