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9 - ’Ain Ghazal, Jordan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Gary O. Rollefson
Edited by
Graeme Barker  and
Candice Goucher
Graeme Barker
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Candice Goucher
Affiliation:
Washington State University
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Summary

The oldest layers occur atop sterile red clay, and it appears that 'Ain Ghazal began as a small village about 2 ha in area. The end of the MPPNB in the southern Levant was a tumultuous one, and there were severe disturbances in the settlement pattern of the region. Wholesale abandonment of farming villages in Israel and the Jordan valley began around this time, and many of the dislocated populations sought refuge elsewhere, probably often in highland Jordan. If the plastering of skulls of some family members might have had some relationship with ancestral veneration in the MPPNB, it is highly likely that the stunning plaster statuary from 'Ain Ghazal is an extension of the ancestral cult that characterized the central Levant. In view of larger cultic buildings, people prefer to call the smaller apsidal and circular buildings shrines to indicate a lower rank in a hierarchy of ritual buildings.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 243 - 260
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Further reading

Betts, A.V.G. The Later Prehistory of the Badia. Excavations and Surveys in Eastern Jordan, vol. ii. Oxford: Oxbow, 2013.Google Scholar
Byrd, B. Early Village Life at Beidha, Jordan: Neolithic Spatial Organization and Vernacular Architecture. Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Y., Ben-Shlomo, D., and Korn, N.. Symbolic Dimensions of the Yarmukian Culture: Canonization in Neolithic Art. Sha’ar Hagolan 3. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology, 2010.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Y., Dag, D., Khalialy, H., et al. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Village of Yiftahel: The 1980s and 1990s Excavations. Berlin: Ex oriente, 2012.Google Scholar
Gebel, H.G.K., Nissen, H.J., and Zaid, Z. (eds.). Basta. II: The Architecture and Stratigraphy. Berlin: Ex oriente, 2006.Google Scholar
Rollefson, G. ‘The greening of the badlands: pastoral nomads and the “conclusion” of Neolithization in the southern Levant.’ Paléorient, 37/1 (2011), 101–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, A., Rollefson, G., Kafafi, Z., et al. ‘Wadi Shu’eib, a large Neolithic community in central Jordan: final report of test excavations.’ Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 321 (2001), 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stordeur, D. and Khawam, R.. ‘Les crânes surmodelés de Tell Aswad (PPNB, Syrie): premier regard sur l’ensemble, premières réflexions.’ Syria, 84 (2007), 5–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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