Tell Mureybet 2000 Overview

Cultural Changes During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic
in the Middle Euphrates (Syria): the Site of Tell Mureybet
Juan José Ibáñez Estévez

The site of Tell Mureybet, is located in northern Syria, on the left bank of the middle Euphrates. Tell Mureybet, was excavated by Jacques Cauvin from 1971 to 1973, as a part of an international salvage archaeological program. The stratigraphy of the site comprises 4 main archaeological levels:
Level I: Late Natufian
Level II: Khiamian (transition between Natufian and PPNA)
Level IIIa and III: PPNA (Mureybetian)
Level IVa: Old PPNB; level IVb: Middle PPNB.

Different architectural structures were discovered along the stratigraphic sequence, showing the evolution from rounded to squared houses. This project focuses on some relevant questions dealing with the beginning of the Neolithic, as the origin of agriculture, the domestication of goats, the first peasant villages, the incipient establishment of networks of exchange at long distances and the revolution of symbols.

Information coming from this site has been used in some specialized papers (archeobotany, archaeozoology, etc.) and in one general book on the origins of agriculture, but, up to date, no specific monograph has been published. Most of the materials recovered in the excavation are deposited at the Institut de Prehistoire Orientale (ERS 2091 du CNRS) in Jales (France).

The study of the site of Tell Mureybet will shed some light on some of the most significant historical questions concerning the beginning of what V.G. Childe called the “Neolithic Revolution.” The Southern Levant (Jordan and Israel) has traditionally been the main scenario of research on the transition from hunter-gatherers to peasant societies. During the last 20 years, however, the archaeological research carried out in the Northern Levant has stressed the importance of this second focus of neolithization. Many questions have arisen dealing with the relationship between these two areas and on the role of the Middle Euphrates for the transmission of the new way of living towards Anatolia. The stratigraphical sequence of Tell Mureybet, with a continuous occupation from the Natufian to the Middle PPNB, shows the parallelism of the cultural processes taking place in the Southern Levant and in the Middle Euphrates between the 11th and the 9th millennium BP. Some relevant topics will be dealt with in the publication.