Pre-Pottery Neolithic A

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
Geographical range Fertile Crescent
Period Pre-Pottery Neolithic
Dates circa 8,500 B.C.E. — circa 7,600 B.C.E.
Type site Jericho
Preceded by Khiamian
Followed by Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, Neolithic Greece, Faiyum A culture
The Neolithic
Mesolithic
Fertile Crescent
Heavy Neolithic
Shepherd Neolithic
Trihedral Neolithic
Pre-Pottery (A, B)
Qaraoun culture
Tahunian culture
Yarmukian Culture
Halaf culture
Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period
Ubaid culture
Byblos
Jericho
Tell Aswad
Çatalhöyük
Jarmo
Europe
Boian culture
Butmir culture
Cernavodă culture
Coțofeni culture
Cucuteni-Trypillian culture
Dudeşti culture
Gorneşti culture
Gumelniţa–Karanovo culture
Hamangia culture
Linear Pottery culture
Malta Temples
Petreşti culture
Sesklo culture
Tisza culture
Tiszapolgár culture
Usatovo culture
Varna culture
Vinča culture
Vučedol culture
Neolithic Transylvania
Neolithic Southeastern Europe
China
Peiligang culture
Pengtoushan culture
Beixin culture
Cishan culture
Dadiwan culture
Houli culture
Xinglongwa culture
Xinle culture
Zhaobaogou culture
Hemudu culture
Daxi culture
Majiabang culture
Yangshao culture
Hongshan culture
Dawenkou culture
Songze culture
Liangzhu culture
Majiayao culture
Qujialing culture
Longshan culture
Baodun culture
Shijiahe culture
Yueshi culture
Tibet
South Asia
Mehrgarh

farming, animal husbandry
pottery, metallurgy, wheel
circular ditches, henges, megaliths
Neolithic religion

Chalcolithic
Map of the world showing approximate centers of origin of agriculture and its spread in prehistory: the Fertile Crescent (11,000 BP), the Yangtze and Yellow River basins (9,000 BP) and the New Guinea Highlands (9,000–6,000 BP), Central Mexico (5,000–4,000 BP), Northern South America (5,000–4,000 BP), sub-Saharan Africa (5,000–4,000 BP, exact location unknown), eastern North America (4,000–3,000 BP).[1]
El Khiam point, schematic drawing

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating around 8000 to 7000 BC.[2][3] Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent. The time period is characterized by tiny circular mud brick dwellings, the cultivation of crops, the hunting of wild game, and unique burial customs in which bodies were buried below the floors of dwellings.[4] The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) were originally defined by Kathleen Kenyon in the type site of Jericho (Palestine). During this time, pottery was not yet in use. They precede the ceramic Neolithic (Yarmukian). PPNA succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic).

Settlements

PPNA archaeological sites are much larger than those of the preceding Natufian hunter-gatherer culture, and contain traces of communal structures, such as the famous tower of Jericho. PPNA settlements are characterized by round, semi-subterranean houses with stone foundations and terrazzo-floors. The upper walls were constructed of unbaked clay mudbricks with plano-convex cross-sections. The hearths were small, and covered with cobbles. Heated rocks were used in cooking, which led to an accumulation of fire-cracked rock in the buildings, and almost every settlement contained storage bins made of either stones or mud-brick.

One of the most notable PPNA settlements is Jericho, thought to be the world's first town (c 8000 BC). The PPNA town contained a population of up to 2,000–3,000 people, and was protected by a massive stone wall and tower. There is much debate over the function of the wall, for there is no evidence of any serious warfare at this time.[5] One possibility is the wall was built to protect the salt resources of Jericho.[6] It has also been proposed that the tower caught the shadow of the largest nearby mountain on summer solstice in order to create a sense of power in support of whatever hierarchy ruled the town's inhabitants.[7]

Burial practices

PPNA cultures are unique for their burial practices, and Kenyon (who excavated the PPNA level of Jericho), characterized them as "living with their dead". Kenyon found no fewer than 279 burials, below floors, under household foundations, and in between walls.[8] In the PPNB period, skulls were often dug up and reburied, or mottled with clay and (presumably) displayed.

Lithics

The lithic industry is based on blades struck from regular cores. Sickle-blades and arrowheads continue traditions from the late Natufian culture, transverse-blow axes and polished adzes appear for the first time.

Crop cultivation and granaries

Sedentism of this time allowed for the cultivation of local grains, such as barley and wild oats, and for storage in granaries. Sites such as Dhra′ and Jericho retained a hunting lifestyle until the PPNB period, but granaries allowed for year-round occupation. This period of cultivation is considered "pre-domestication", but may have begun to develop plant species into the domesticated forms they are today. Deliberate, extended-period storage was made possible by the use of "suspended floors for air circulation and protection from rodents". This practice "precedes the emergence of domestication and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years".[2]

Granaries are positioned in places between other buildings early on 9500 BC. However beginning around 8500 BC, they were moved inside houses, and by 7500 BC storage occurred in special rooms.[2] This change might reflect changing systems of ownership and property as granaries shifted from a communal use and ownership to become under the control of households or individuals.[2] It has been observed of these granaries that their "sophisticated storage systems with subfloor ventilation are a precocious development that precedes the emergence of almost all of the other elements of the Near Eastern Neolithic package—domestication, large scale sedentary communities, and the entrenchment of some degree of social differentiation". Moreover, "Building granaries may ... have been the most important feature in increasing sedentism that required active community participation in new life-ways".[2]

Regional variants

With more sites becoming known, archaeologists have defined a number of regional variants:

See also

References

  1. Diamond, J.; Bellwood, P. (2003). "Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions". Science 300 (5619): 597–603. Bibcode:2003Sci...300..597D. doi:10.1126/science.1078208. PMID 12714734.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Kuijt, I.; Finlayson, B. (Jun 2009). "Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley" (Free full text). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106 (27): 10966–10970. Bibcode:2009PNAS..10610966K. doi:10.1073/pnas.0812764106. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2700141. PMID 19549877.
  3. Ozkaya, Vecihi (June 2009). "Körtik Tepe, a new Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in south-eastern Anatolia". Antiquitey Journal, Volume 83, Issue 320.
  4. Mithen, Steven (2006). After the ice : a global human history, 20,000–5,000 BC (1st Harvard University Press pbk. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 63. ISBN 0-674-01999-7.
  5. Mithen, Steven (2006). After the ice : a global human history, 20,000–5,000 BC (1st Harvard University Press pbk. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 59. ISBN 0-674-01999-7.
  6. "Jericho", Encyclopædia Britannica
  7. Liran, Roy; Barkai, Ran (March 2011). "Casting a shadow on Neolithic Jericho". Antiquitey Journal, Volume 85, Issue 327.
  8. Mithen, Steven (2006). After the ice : a global human history, 20,000–5,000 BC (1st Harvard University Press pbk. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 60. ISBN 0-674-01999-7.
  9. http://www.archeorient.mom.fr/FICHES/fiches_actuelles/STORDEUR.html Daneille Stordeur, Directeur de recherche (DR1) émérite , CNRS Directrice de la mission permanente El Kowm-Mureybet (Syrie) du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères – Recherches sur le Levant central/sud : Premiers résultats
  10. Curry, Andrew (November 2008). "Göbekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2009-03-14.

Further reading

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