Sha'ar Hagolan: Neolithic Art in Context

Yosef Garfinkel

This grant proposal is for the analysis and preparation for final publication of the data collected during my 11 years of excavation (1989-90, 1996-2004) at the 8,000-year-old Neolithic site of Sha'ar Hagolan. The site is located in the central Jordan Valley of Israel, 1.5 miles south of the Sea of Galilee, and is the type-site for the Yarmukian culture, which occupied large parts of Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. The excavations have opened new horizons for our understanding of the Neolithic period, but also have more far-reaching implications for the entire ancient Near East in terms of history of architecture, urban planning, art history and cult. The Pottery Neolithic period, previously considered to be an era of decline, has proved to be a time of cultural evolution in the Levant.

The main achievements of Sha'ar Hagolan excavations are:

1. Unearthing an area of 3,000 sq .m., making Sha'ar Hagolan the largest Neolithic excavation in Israel and one the largest in the Near East.
2. Discovering monumental courtyard houses, ranging between 250 and 700 sq. m. in area. These are the world’s earliest courtyard buildings.
3. The houses were separated by streets, the earliest ever found in Israel and among the earliest streets built by man.
4. A well, 4.26 m. deep, was dug into the water table. This is the third oldest well in the world.
5. . Over 300 art objects were discovered, the largest collection of prehistoric art in Israel and one of the most important in the world. Currently artifacts from Sha'ar Hagolan are on exhibit at the Louvre Museum in Paris (10 items) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (20 items).

The Sha'ar Hagolan excavations revealed a flourishing Neolithic community that developed new architecture new settlement planning and a unique artistic style. With the help of the Shelby White–Leon Levy program, we will be able to publish all of these results within a few years.

Sha'ar Hagolan: Neolithic Art in Context

I. Purpose and Significance of Sha'ar Hagolan

This grant proposal is for the analysis and preparation for final publication of the data collected during 11 years of excavations at the Neolithic site of Sha'ar Hagolan. The total excavated area is 3,000 sq. m., making Sha'ar Hagolan the largest Neolithic excavation in Israel and one of the largest in the Near East. The excavations took place in five areas (E, F, G, H and N) and were completed in 2004. After excavation all the areas were backfilled with sand, geo-textiles and local earth. The excavation unearthed three large courtyard complexes, three streets, over 2,000,000 flint items, over 200,000 pottery sherds, over 100,000 animal bones, several thousand seashells, over 1,600 stone vessels made of basalt and limestone, and over 300 art objects (clay "Mother Goddess" figurines, pebble figurines, geometric incisions, and others). This material was excavated in a controlled stratigraphic sequence according to the highest standards of field work, with 100% of the excavation sediment being sieved.

Significance of Sha'ar Hagolan

The Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant has traditionally been a neglected period of study that fell between two disciplines: prehistoric archaeology on the one hand and biblical archaeology on the other. The vacuum of modern research has been taken to reflect the actual circumstances of the period. In the words of Bar-Yosef, "part of the blame for the fragmentary data may be placed on the character of the remains themselves" (1992:31). Kenyon termed the Pottery Neolithic period "a retrogression" and stated that the "newcomers brought with them the use of pottery, but in every other respect they were much more primitive than their predecessors" (1957:77). In Kirkbride’s summary of the period, published in 1971, the Pottery Neolithic period was described as "the pit dwelling settlements of these people who, until Wadi Rabah and late Jericho VIII, appeared to have no solid architecture, point to a semi-nomadic way of life in Palestine."

Not long ago, Herzog wrote (1997:27-29): "At the beginning of the sixth millennium B.C.E. a major breakdown of the Early Neolithic culture occurred in the southern Levant… The collapse is evident from the disintegration of all major settlements and the erection of small villages. The dominant dwelling form in this period is the circular house; in most cases these were only circular pits that formed the lower part of huts. In other instances only remains of floors, fireplaces and shallow pits pointed to the existence of huts or tents constructed from organic, perishable materials."

In another discussion, Bar-Yosef (1998:170–171) wrote: "The 'grandeur’ of the PPNB days are over. The main economic powers at this time are in the northern Levant, Anatolia, and northern Mesopotamia. Although there was no gap in the population history, the people of the southern Levant definitely became 'marginal’ to the powerful social organizations further north."

According to the accepted scholarly consensus, the population of the Pottery Neolithic period was organized in small, semi-nomadic groups that inhabited each site for only part of the year and lived in pits or circular huts.

Against this background of prejudice, the Sha'ar Hagolan excavations have completely altered our understanding of the Pottery Neolithic period (Garfinkel 1999, 2002; Garfinkel and Miller 2002):

1. Architecture: Courtyard buildings. Three complete courtyard buildings were found, together with the remains of at least ten more (three in Area E, four in Area H, two in Area F and one in Area G). Evidence of massive construction was found even in Areas G and F, in which excavation was very limited. It is thus clear that there were large courtyard houses in extensive areas of the site, and that these were residential houses of a standard type and not exceptional public buildings. The courtyard houses, ranging in area between 250 and 700 sq. m., were used by extended families.
   
   
2. Settlement planning: The courtyard buildings abut one another in a dense pattern, with few open areas between them. The houses were built on both sides of streets. There is a system of streets, some running on a roughly north-south axis leading to the river, with cross streets in an east-west orientation. Though so far no junction has been found, the network of streets must have divided the settlement into quarter-like areas, in each of which a group of houses was surrounded by streets on all sides. The streets were plastered and replastered from time to time. There was annual maintenance of the public areas.
   
   
3. The well: One of the biggest surprises of the excavations at Sha'ar Hagolan came to light in Area G. Within the layers of alluvium and pebbles washed into the site by the Yarmuk River we uncovered a ring of large basalt pebbles. Further excavation clarified that this is a well, 4.26 m. deep, dug down to the water table. This is the third oldest known well in the world. It is clear that the well was constructed in three main stages: digging, construction and backfilling. The removal of the major ecological barrier of water shortage gave an impetus to population growth on the one hand and animal herding on the other.
   
   
4. Art Objects: The largest assemblage of prehistoric art ever found at one site in Israel, including figurines of both clay and stone as well as more enigmatic stone carved objects, is from Sha'ar Hagolan. For comparison, from all Natufian and other Neolithic phases, some 100 anthropomorphic figurines have been found (Yizraeli-Noy 1999), while over 200 items are known to us from Sha'ar Hagolan. This wealth of symbolic expression at a single site raises many questions: What are these objects? Why were they made? Who made them? Who used them? Do the anthropomorphic figures represent humans or divinities? Why are there so many of these objects? Why have the greatest number of them been discovered at one site, Sha'ar Hagolan? Despite much scholarly speculation, these questions remain unanswered, as most of these objects were collected from the site’s surface, thereby providing us with little information concerning their function and use.
   
   As we are dealing with a prehistoric human community that left behind no written texts, the context in which the art objects were found is our major source of information for analysis and interpretation. Only with the recent excavations at Sha'ar Hagolan have sufficient numbers of these objects been found in secure stratigraphic contexts, enabling better understanding of their use and function in Yarmukian society.
   
   
5. The transition from Pre-Pottery Neolithic to Pottery Neolithic: In three deep test pits dug in the final season an earlier occupation phase, dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC), was found. This is an exceptional situation that will enable us to study the transition from Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Pottery Neolithic. Various aspects of the early and later occupation can be compared: radiometric dates, flint typology and technology, stone tools, economy and animal domestication (especially the domestication of cattle and pig).
   
   The site of Sha'ar Hagolan displays an urban concept on a scale never previously found in the Neolithic Near East, as indicated by various features: the site size, which is nearly 20 hectares; the arrangement of the buildings on both sides of streets; the dense construction of the houses; the grid-like network of streets; the open areas incorporated into the houses as courtyards; and the special attention paid to water supply, including the digging of wells.
   
   
6. Zooarchaeological analysis. As about 30% of the budget is aimed at the zooarchaeological analysis, a detailed presentation of this aspect follows:
   
   

1: Animal Domestication at Sha'ar Hagolan (by Nimrod Marom)

It is generally agreed that the incipient stages of animal domestication in the Near East would have occurred during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (Bar-Yosef and Meadow 1995; Clutton-Brock 1999; Smith 1995; Zeuner 1963). Recent evidence shows that later periods of the Pottery Neolithic and early Chalcolithic saw the stabilization of the entire suite of domesticates, including sheep, goats, cattle and pigs (Haber and Dayan 2004). Research on faunal assemblages has mainly focused on the earlier periods, however, and aspects of the economy and environment of the Pottery Neolithic remain poorly understood. The excavation of Sha'ar Hagolan, a large site dating to an early cultural phase of the Pottery Neolithic, provides an opportunity to investigate the incipient stages in establishment of the Mediterranean livestock economy. A large amount of animal remains was systematically collected during excavations of the site from a wide range of spatial contexts and phases of occupation, as described by Garfinkel (1999, 2004; see also Garfinkel and Miller 2002; Hesse 2002). Detailed zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis of the faunal assemblage from Sha'ar Hagolan will contribute greatly to our understanding of ancient subsistence practices and the environmental conditions that prevailed during the early stages of animal domestication in the Near East.

The macro-mammal remains from Sha'ar Hagolan are currently under investigation by Nimrod Marom. Analysis of this assemblage is expected to yield important insights into early herd management strategies and butchery and dietary practices, as well as spatial and diachronic variability in economic activities at the site (e.g., Lyman 1994; Payne 1973; Redding 1981). Another important question that will be addressed by the study is the domestication status of pigs during the earlier Neolithic period. It has recently been shown that pigs in the Near East were domesticated sensu stricto by the early Chalcolithic (Haber and Dayan 2004; Haber et al. 2005). Their domestication status in earlier periods, however, remains uncertain. Sha'ar Hagolan has yielded a large amount of pig remains that will allow the reconstruction of age structure and culling practices. These are key lines of evidence that can provide insight into the initial processes of cultural control and management that led to the eventual domestication of the pig. In addition, nitrogen isotope analysis will show whether pigs at Sha'ar Hagolan subsisted on human rubbish as domesticates or on natural vegetation as wild ranging animals, given that such resources exhibit differing levels of 15 N (e.g. Balasse et al. 2001; Zazzo et al. 2006).

2: Rodent and Insects and Paleo-ecological Reconstruction at Sha'ar Hagolan (by Lior Weissbrod).

In addition, reconstruction of the environment of Sha'ar Hagolan during the early Pottery Neolithic period will be based on analysis of micro-mammal (rodent and insectivore) remains that were systematically collected through fine sieving of soil samples. Micro-mammalian assemblages from Pleistocene sites in the Near East are considered particularly sensitive environmental proxies and have been extensively used to reconstruct high-resolution sequences of climate fluctuations (e.g. Tchernov 1968, 1981). Climatic and environmental changes during the early Holocene are currently not well understood, however (Bar-Matthews and Ayalon 1997; Gopher and Gophna 1993). Analysis of the chronologically well-controlled micro-mammalian assemblage from Sha'ar Hagolan will contribute significantly to our ability to correlate cultural changes with environmental and climatic conditions during this period (e.g. Köhler-Rollefson 1988).