R11 - The Neolithic of Southern Levant in its Wider Context

Session Organisers: Anna Belfer-Cohen, Nigel Goring-Morris

Category: Near East

Session Abstract: Recent Neolithic research in the Southern Levant has provided less spectacular results than that of the more northerly regions. This said, the picture of local Neolithisation is much more complex and thought-provoking than previously assumed. Interestingly, the findings provide new insights into the processes that modified and shaped the transition from ephemeral, extractive life-ways into a permanent, productive mode of existence. Updated excavation and research methodologies enable charting the ways and means human groups tackled the challenges involved in that transformation as numerous intensive field projects, conducted in various regions of the Southern Levant considerably modify previous comprehension of Neolithic processes in the area. It appears that the initiation of such processes extend much deeper in time than was assumed a few decades ago. What was considered as strictly new, Neolithic, phenomena, can be now observed not only in the Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian but also in earlier Epipalaeolithic archaeological entities. There is on-going debate whether, and to what degree, human societies consciously promoted the developments that finally rendered the ‘Neolithic worldview”. Moreover, it seems that it was truly a “bumpy ride to village life”; we observe significant variability in the intensity and tempo of evolving events, differences stemming from both the inner, social realm of the communities partaking in the Neolithic transformation, as well as the external, environmental ‘envelope’ that defined the ecological conditions enabling or restricting the processes involved.

Room: J

07/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:00	Danielle Macdonald, Lisa Maher	Pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers and the production of place
15:15 - 15:30	Seiji Kadowaki, Nanako Kimoto, Yasuhisa Kondo	Continuity and changes in marine shell exploitation from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in Southern Jordan near the Red Sea
15:30 - 15:45	Tobias Richter	From the Natufian to the EPPNB in the Jordanian Badia: Chronology, change and interaction across the Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic transition
15:45 - 16:00	Abraham Gopher	When did southern Levantine Neolithic worldviews fully divorce the H-G ethos?

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:45	Bill Finlayson	Ordering the Neolithic world - communities of practice and localisation
16:45 - 17:00	Michal Birkenfeld	Paths of transition: Exploring Neolithic hunter-gatherers and pastoralists of the hyper-arid desert. The southern Negev as a test case
17:00 - 17:15	Bocquentin Fanny, Anton Marie	The funeral sequence as a compass for time and place in a changing world: long-term trends in Natufian and Neolithic mortuary customs
17:15 - 17:30	Marion Benz	Processes of segregation - social developments during the middle and late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B as seen from burial customs
17:30 - 17:45	Bogdana Milic, Juan José Ibáñez, Lionel Gourichon	Projectile points as indicators of socio-economic changes in the Southern Levantine Neolithic – the evidence from the PPNA-PPNB Kharaysin (Jordan)

08/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:15	Daniella Bar-Yosef	The Evolution of Neolithic Personal Ornaments in the Levant
10:15 - 10:30	Lena Brailovsky-Rokser	Reevaluating the southern Levantine PPNA: new insights in light of recent discoveries from Barkai, Israel
10:30 - 10:45	Cheryl Makarewicz, Nigel Goring-Morris	Close to home, close to community: Stable isotopic perspectives from Kfar HaHoresh
10:45 - 11:00	Ferran Borrell	Bidirectional blade technology and the Neolithization of the Levant: An updated assessment of its origin, dispersal, and significance
11:00 - 11:15	Liora Kolska Horwitz	Tracking Inter-Regional Variation in Levantine Animal Domestication: A Critical Examination

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Eugenio Nobile, Maurizio Troiano, Fabio Mangini, Marco Mastrogiuseppe, Jacob Vardi, Fabrizio Frezza, Cecilia Conati Barbaro	Cultural Subdivisions within the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B in the Southern Levant: A neural network approach on the techno-typological analysis of the chipped stone industry
13:15 - 13:30	Juan José Ibáñez, Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, Carolyne Douché, Lionel Gourichon, Eneko Iriarte, Jesús Tapia, Juan Muñiz, Luis Teira, Fiona Pichon, Khaled Abdo, Josu Aranbarri, Andoni Mateos, Bogdana Milic, Aroa García-Suárez, Alejandra Calderón Ordóñez, Jonathan Santana, Aaron Morquecho, Marta Portillo, Andrea Zupancich	The PPNA-PPNB transition in the southern Levant: Contributions from Tell Qarassa north (Sweida, Syria) and Kharaysin (Zarqa, Jordan
14:00 - 14:15	Ehud Weiss	The Neolithic founder crops - updated data and opinions

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:00	Eva Gabrieli	The development of pottery production in the Southern Levant: continuity and discontinuity of a step in the process of ‘containerization
15:00 - 15:15	Gary Rollefson	A house is not always a home: A re-evaluation of the function of Late Neolithic (c. 6,900-5,000 cal. BCE) architecture in Jordan’s Black Desert
15:15 - 15:30	Alexander Wasse, Yorke Rowan	Not a place for respectable people, but the ends of the Earth converge there: Transregional networks and the Steppe during the seventh and sixth millennia BC
15:30 - 15:45	Hans Georg K. Gebel	The Eastern Steppes’ interaction spheres of the LPPNB Southern Levant
15:45 - 16:00	Sumio Fujii	Northern Hijaz PPNB settlements and Late Neolithic pseudo-settlements: Arabian forefront of the southern Levantine Neolithic

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 18:00	All Participants	Final Discussion