Kharaneh IV

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Kharaneh IV is an archaeological site from the Epipalaeolithic in Jordan . It provided evidence that hunter-gatherer societies were at least temporarily settled about 20,000 years ago.

location

Kharaneh IV is located near the desert castle Qasr Kharana in the Azraq Basin about 70 km east of Amman . The region was fertile and rich in water until 1980. Due to the large amount of water withdrawn to supply Amman, only remnants of a swampy landscape near Qasr al-Azraq are preserved today. The landscape was also fertile in the Epipalaeolithic. There were water-bearing rivers all year round as well as a variety of plants and animals. Bone finds document the occurrence of gazelles, rabbits, foxes, turtles, water birds and fish. The charred remains of trees ( tamarisks , wild pistachios ) and herbs ( Chenopodiaceae ) suggest an open landscape with grassland and trees.

Research history

Several sites from the Epipalaeolithic are known in the Azrag Basin. Kharaneh IV was studied by Mujahed Muheisen of Yarmuk University in Irbid in the 1980s . He put a precise analysis of flint - artefacts in front of a limited excavation section and parallels could to Kebaran find culture. From 2005 to 2010, Kharaneh IV was explored by the Epipalaeolithic Foragers of Azraq Project (EFAP) . The aim of the project is to gain a detailed understanding of the hunter-gatherer societies in the Azraq Basin in order to be able to classify them in the broader context of the cultural upheaval in southwest Asia at the end of the Pleistocene . It examines patterns of social behavior including mobility, inter-regional exchanges, social organization and paleoecology to understand how landscapes were socially constructed and inhabited by human populations. This includes studies of burial practices, site activities and the use of the local landscape.

Excavation results

In the excavation campaigns from 2008 to 2010, around a thousand years of repeated and continuous settlement were documented. Samples from the excavation areas were examined using accelerator mass spectrometry . The epipalaeolithic settlement could thus be dated to 19,900 to 18,600 years BP . Two main areas have been dug and long and intensive settlement has been found. The uninterrupted sequence is evidenced by a high density of finds: up to 23,000 stone chips per cubic meter and a similar frequency of bones.

In area B, the stratigraphy was fully investigated and an extensive excavation was carried out. There were thin (2–3 cm) compact horizons that alternated with thicker (10–15 cm) layers of deposits. Muheisen found several large pits and two burials in this area. In 2010 two adjacent structures were excavated, which are interpreted as huts. One was covered with a black burned layer. On three places there were depots of pierced sea snails, each with a large piece of ocher. The whole structure was covered with a find-free, coarse, brown-orange sand. The total of around 1,000 marine snails came from both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea - that is, they were imported from distances of 130 and 270 kilometers respectively.

Conclusion

At the Kharaneh IV site, the international research results show that sedentariness and the beginning of village structures began before arable farming began. The beginning of this development had to be shifted 10,000 years into the past. Sites such as Kharaneh and Ohalo II on the Sea of ​​Galilee suggest that the beginning of - at least seasonal - sedentariness and "village structures" took place earlier than assumed.

With an age of almost 20,000 years, the hut structures in the Jordanian desert belong to the Epipalaeolithic of the Middle East . The Epipalaeolithic is the term used to describe the transition period of several thousand years (in Europe, the Mesolithic ) to the Neolithic . During this time, typical Neolithic elements were already emerging in the hunter-gatherer societies. For the late Epipalaeolithic, stone buildings, complex settlement structures and a complex social structure are now documented.

Only a few sites are known from the early and middle Paleolithic that are considered seasonal campsites for small groups of hunters and gatherers. The two huts found in Kharaneh IV are not the only evidence of settlement. The total area of ​​21,000 m² yielded numerous finds from different phases of the Epipalaeolithic, such as larger complexes of stone and bone tools, red ocher and marine shell pearls .

literature

  • Mujahed Muheisen: The Epipalaeolithic phases of Kharaneh IV. In: A. Garrard, H. Gebel (Eds.): The Prehistory of Jordan: The State of Research in 1986. British Archaeological Reports 396, Oxford 1988, pp. 353-367.
  • Lisa A. Maher, Tobias Richter, Danielle Macdonald, Matthew D. Jones, Louise Martin, Jay T. Stock: Twenty Thousand-Year-Old Huts at a Hunter-Gatherer Settlement in Eastern Jordan . 2012, PLoS ONE 7 (2): e31447. [2]
  • Luise Martin, Y. Edwards, AN Garrard: Hunting Practices at an Eastern Jordanian Epipalaeolithic Aggregation Site: the case of Kharaneh IV . In: Levant 42/2 (2010), pp. 107-135.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lisa A. Maher, Tobias Richter, Danielle Macdonald, Matthew D. Jones, Louise Martin & Jay T. Stock: Twenty Thousand-Year-Old Huts at a Hunter-Gatherer Settlement in Eastern Jordan . 2012, PLoS ONE 7 (2): e31447. [1]
  2. ↑ Mujahed Muheisen, Hisahiko Wada: An Analysis of the microliths at Kharaneh IV, phase D, Square A20 / 37th Paleorient 21 (1995), pp. 75-95. (online) ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.persee.fr

Coordinates: 31 ° 43 ′ 25.5 ″  N , 36 ° 27 ′ 16 ″  E