Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
60
result(s) for
"Material culture Jordan."
Sort by:
Kataret es-Samra, Jordan : the 1985 excavation and survey
\"This volume presents the results of a brief program of survey and excavation conducted under the directorship of the author at the site of Kataret es-Samra, strategically located at the interface of the ghor and the zor of the Eastern Jordan Valley, to the north of the confluence of the Wadi Zarqa (Biblical Jabbok). It reports on the excavation of a Middle Bronze/Late Bronze Age tomb that contained eleven interments strengthening the argument, suggested by earlier salvage work at the site, that this is but part of an extensive MB-LB cemetery. Material recovered from both survey and soundings on neighboring 'Tell' Kataret es-Samra suggest that it was most probably the home of those who were buried in the tomb. Study of the pottery and other facets of material culture from both tomb and tell has been brought up-to-date and incorporated into the status of present scholarship through the contributions of Teresa Burge and Peter Fischer, emphasizing comparanda from Transjordanian (occupational) sites excavated since the Kataret es-Samra field work was completed in 1985. Study of the faunal remains (Priscilla Lange) suggest that the settlement at Kataret es-Samra was based primarily on a pastoral economy\"--Publisher description.
Book
Threads of memory: Reviving the ornament of a dead child at the Neolithic village of Ba`ja (Jordan)
In 2018, a well-constructed cist-type grave was discovered at Ba`ja, a Neolithic village (7,400–6,800 BCE) in Southern Jordan. Underneath multiple grave layers, an 8-year-old child was buried in a fetal position. Over 2,500 beads were found on the chest and neck, along with a double perforated stone pendant and a delicately engraved mother-of-pearl ring discovered among the concentration of beads. The first was found behind the neck, and the second on the chest. The meticulous documentation of the bead distribution indicated that the assemblage was a composite ornament that had gradually collapsed, partly due to the burying position. Our aim was to challenge time degradation and to reimagine the initial composition in order to best explore the significance of this symbolic category of material culture, not as mere group of beads, but as an ornamental creation with further aesthetic, artisanal and socioeconomic implications. The reconstruction results exceeded our expectations as it revealed an imposing multi-row necklace of complex structure and attractive design. Through multiple lines of evidence, we suggest that the necklace was created at Ba`ja, although significant parts of beads were made from exotic shells and stones, including fossil amber, an unprecedented material never attested before for this period. The retrieval of such an ornament from life and its attribution to a young dead child highlights the significant social status of this individual. Beyond the symbolic functions related to identity, the necklace is believed to have played a key role in performing the inhumation rituals, understood as a public event gathering families, relatives, and people from other villages. In this sense, the necklace is not seen as belonging completely to the realm of death but rather to the world of the living, materializing a collective memory and shared moments of emotions and social cohesion.
Journal Article
Digging up the Bible?
This is the account of a remarkable excavation. It started with a modest dig on an unremarkable tell in Jordan. The name of the tell does not occur in the Bible, and no ancient town of any importance was to be expected under the rubble. The excavator Henk Franken had not yet made a name for himself within the archaeological community. And yet, from 1960 onwards history was being (re)written at Tell Deir Alla. To discover the secrets of the tell, the expedition team defied cold, rain and stormy winds for months on end, sleeping in rattling tents and working long days on the tell and in the camp. And with success! A meticulous yet efficient excavation method was introduced, the already tenuous relationship between Bible and archaeology was further exacerbated, and the study of excavated pottery was given a scientific basis. The name Deir Alla became an international benchmark for modern scientific research, for prompt publication of the remarkable finds and for independent interpretation of the excavation results. The story of the excavations at Tell Deir Alla in the 1960s have never been told in any detail, and the excavation results have mostly been published in scholarly books and journals which are difficult to access. This book hopes to remedy that. It recounts the story of the first ten years of the project, from 1959 when funding for the project was sought, until 1969 when the first report was published. The first section describes the organization of the project before the expedition team went out into the field. The second part takes the reader to the actual field work and describes the occupation history of the tell. The story is illustrated by numerous photographs and plans, many of which are being published for the first time.
eBook
Ancient technology and punctuated change: Detecting the emergence of the Edomite Kingdom in the Southern Levant
While the punctuated equilibrium model has been employed in paleontological and archaeological research, it has rarely been applied for technological and social evolution in the Holocene. Using metallurgical technologies from the Wadi Arabah (Jordan/Israel) as a case study, we demonstrate a gradual technological development (13th-10th c. BCE) followed by a human agency-triggered punctuated \"leap\" (late-10th c. BCE) simultaneously across the entire region (an area of ~2000 km2). Here, we present an unparalleled, diachronic archaeometallurgical dataset focusing on elemental analysis of dozens of well-dated slag samples. Based on the results, we suggest punctuated equilibrium provides an innovative theoretical model for exploring ancient technological changes in relation to larger sociopolitical conditions-in the case at hand the emergence of biblical Edom-, exemplifying its potential for more general cross-cultural applications.
Journal Article
Twenty Thousand-Year-Old Huts at a Hunter-Gatherer Settlement in Eastern Jordan
Ten thousand years before Neolithic farmers settled in permanent villages, hunter-gatherer groups of the Epipalaeolithic period (c. 22-11,600 cal BP) inhabited much of southwest Asia. The latest Epipalaeolithic phase (Natufian) is well-known for the appearance of stone-built houses, complex site organization, a sedentary lifestyle and social complexity--precursors for a Neolithic way of life. In contrast, pre-Natufian sites are much less well known and generally considered as campsites for small groups of seasonally-mobile hunter-gatherers. Work at the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic aggregation site of Kharaneh IV in eastern Jordan highlights that some of these earlier sites were large aggregation base camps not unlike those of the Natufian and contributes to ongoing debates on their duration of occupation. Here we discuss the excavation of two 20,000-year-old hut structures at Kharaneh IV that pre-date the renowned stone houses of the Natufian. Exceptionally dense and extensive occupational deposits exhibit repeated habitation over prolonged periods, and contain structural remains associated with exotic and potentially symbolic caches of objects (shell, red ochre, and burnt horn cores) that indicate substantial settlement of the site pre-dating the Natufian and outside of the Natufian homeland as currently understood.
Journal Article
Culture and cognition in the Acheulian industry: a case study from Gesher Benot Yaʿaqov
The Acheulian presence in the Dead Sea Rift and its environs is characterized by the discontinuity of its cultural manifestations. Nevertheless, the long stratigraphic sequences of the Acheulian Technocomplex provide a unique opportunity for synergetic examination along a temporal trajectory. Hominin cognitive and cultural behaviour are studied at Gesher Benot Yaʿaqov through analyses of lithic, palaeontological and palaeobotanical assemblages, as well as the Early–Middle Pleistocene environment, ecology and climate. The study attempts to reconstruct reduction sequences of some major artefact groups at the site, which include raw material acquisition, production, technology, typology, usage and discard. Experimental archaeology illustrates artefact mobility on the palaeo-landscape. Strategies of biomass-exploitation are studied in detail, with other aspects yielding additional information on hominin subsistence and adaptive responses to their environment. The cultural marker of fire and the spatial association of selected categories of finds are integrated in the general synthesis, allowing reconstruction of the cultural and cognitive realm of Acheulian hominins. The synthesis attempts to reassess the abilities, social structure, subsistence and adaptability to the changing environment of hominins in the Levantine Corridor.
Journal Article
A Unique Human-Fox Burial from a Pre-Natufian Cemetery in the Levant (Jordan)
New human burials from northern Jordan provide important insights into the appearance of cemeteries and the nature of human-animal relationships within mortuary contexts during the Epipalaeolithic period (c. 23,000-11,600 cal BP) in the Levant, reinforcing a socio-ideological relationship that goes beyond predator-prey. Previous work suggests that archaeological features indicative of social complexity occur suddenly during the latest Epipalaeolithic phase, the Natufian (c. 14,500-11,600 cal BP). These features include sedentism, cemeteries, architecture, food production, including animal domestication, and burials with elaborate mortuary treatments. Our findings from the pre-Natufian (Middle Epipalaeolithic) cemetery of 'Uyun al-Hammam demonstrate that joint human-animal mortuary practices appear earlier in the Epipalaeolithic. We describe the earliest human-fox burial in the Near East, where the remains of dogs have been found associated with human burials at a number of Natufian sites. This is the first time that a fox has been documented in association with human interments pre-dating the Natufian and with a particular suite of grave goods. Analysis of the human and animal bones and their associated artefacts provides critical data on the nature and timing of these newly-developing relationships between people and animals prior to the appearance of domesticated dogs in the Natufian.
Journal Article
Daily life, materiality, and complexity in early urban communities of the southern Levant : papers in honor of Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub
No detailed description available for \"Daily Life, Materiality, and Complexity in Early Urban Communities of the Southern Levant\".
eBook
Industrial apiculture in the Jordan valley during Biblical times with Anatolian honeybees
Although texts and wall paintings suggest that bees were kept in the Ancient Near East for the production of precious wax and honey, archaeological evidence for beekeeping has never been found. The Biblical term \"honey\" commonly was interpreted as the sweet product of fruits, such as dates and figs. The recent discovery of unfired clay cylinders similar to traditional hives still used in the Near East at the site of Tel Rehov in the Jordan valley in northern Israel suggests that a large-scale apiary was located inside the town, dating to the 10th—early 9th centuries B.C.E. This paper reports the discovery of remains of honeybee workers, drones, pupae, and larvae inside these hives. The exceptional preservation of these remains provides unequivocal identification of the clay cylinders as the most ancient beehives yet found. Morphometric analyses indicate that these bees differ from the local subspecies Apis mellifera syriaca and from all subspecies other than A. m. anatoliaca, which presently resides in parts of Turkey. This finding suggests either that the Western honeybee subspecies distribution has undergone rapid change during the last 3,000 years or that the ancient inhabitants of Tel Rehov imported bees superior to the local bees in terms of their milder temper and improved honey yield.
Journal Article