Project description

The transition to sedentary and productive life triggered fundamental changes in relationships between individuals, groups, things, spaces, and the cognitive dispositions and identities behind them, determining their interaction spheres. Built space, claimed tangible and intangible territories as well as the enhanced commodification (of ideas, knowledge, work, and things) became constitutive and decisive in an unprecedented way for early sedentary communities. The early Neolithic mega-villages of the Near East represent extraordinary archives for studying these productive transformation processes, in order to understand the historical relevance of the social and cognitive spheres which developed in their various environments. In particular, the state of research of the well-known mega-sites of the eastern Jordanian mountain ranges (2nd half of the 8th millennium BCE) must be considered an extraordinary empirical database for such investigations. The already available extensive data from Baja and Basta and the results of the feasibility study carried out in autumn 2016 in Baja for a research focus Household and Death. Processes of Social Commodification and Identities in the Late PPNB of the Southern Levant ensure the great potential for this research. Recent fieldwork allowed to identify an intramural cemetery in Baja, and confirmed the existence and location of intentionally buried household inventories aside the active households. The relation of households and sepulchral spheres played an important role in the establishment of early Neolithic life modes and value systems. Approaching by the concepts and results of Household and Death in Baja, the project heads for an integral/ holistic answer for the research questions, asked from a southern Levantine perspective: Which social and ideological roles did the dead under the house floors play, were daily practices separated from their ritual sphere? Through which types of organization were identities of value and commodity communities established? Which interrelated processes fostered the success of the productive life ways, and do their characteristic acceleration and agglomeration processes explain later historic developments? Can the productive, social, and economic core groups be identified through built entities? Is it possible to apply the concept of familial relationship in order to understand early social organizations? Is it sensible to consider household production entities only from the perspective of subsistence and procurement? Consisted early sedentary communities of corporately linked groups? Our project approaches the topic from the interior and holistic: It evaluates the neolithisation by the findings of a small Neolithic community and how it participated in the general Neolithic trajectory. It is aiming at a deep historical understanding of the Neolithic ethos which became the substratum of the productive lifeways of following times.

Results of the project

The DFG project has opened up entirely new perspectives and insights into life and burial practices in the southern Levant 9,000 years ago. The excavation and sequential radiocarbon dating prove continuous settlement until the middle of the 7th millennium BCE with intensive construction activity. The new spatial biographical approach (event-based analysis) for architecture shows that, despite the continued use of walls, spatial utilisation concepts were changed several times, in some cases fundamentally. These findings also allowed for a more comprehensive identification and description of the flint artefacts of the early 7th millennium BCE, as well as a better assessment of continuities, developments and innovations from the LPPNB to the FPPNB/PPNC.

These observations contradict previous notions of an abrupt collapse of ‘mega-site’ societies at the end of the late PPNB and illustrate the importance of a regional perspective in the study of these transformation processes. The evaluation of the lithic finds also suggests that the communication and acquisition of common knowledge and everyday technologies took place in the domestic environment. The crafts organised at the household level can develop specific traditions. The first systematic analysis of striking errors and core reduction shows a transition from specialised flint tool production with high-quality pieces in special craft traditions to increased ad hoc production in the domestic context. For the first time, specialised workshops (bidirectional blade techniques) have also been identified in Ba`ja.

Previous findings on subsistence patterns have been confirmed: sheep and goats (80%) continue to dominate as the main sources of animal food, compared to a small number of wild animals. In social structures, however, a greater differentiation is emerging. Transdisciplinary anthropological and archaeothanatological investigations point to a local community that maintained a strong connection to its dead. As the new excavations and histotaphonomic studies show, burial rituals were much more complex than previously assumed, with the ‘liminal’ phase, the transition phase to another form of existence, being multi-phased for selected dead. The clear colour symbolism, the intentional fragmentation and the use of fire during the burial rituals testify to strong audio-visual and olfactory impressions that created emotionally charged collective experiences. The physical and psychological presence of the dead was thus preserved long after death, promoting a strong territorial and collective identification.

The grave structures and the grave goods show common elements, but these vary individually, so that although we cannot assume dogmas, we can assume collective ideals. The individually designed jewellery indicates distinction and confirms the increasing social differentiation that also emerges in the crafts of the late LPPNB and decreases in the post-earthquake settlement phase. Household-specific decorative elements have not yet been identified. A-DNA and isotope analyses suggest a local, sedentary community. A novel theoretical approach involving various disciplines (including social neuroscience and ethology) has for the first time enabled a deeper overall view and reconstruction of life and death in an early Neolithic settlement around 7000 BC, which also provided insight into the values and beliefs of the inhabitants.

Corporate and less hierarchical community structures were discovered, which made the dead part of the living environment of the living. Magical practices and rituals played a different and greater role than they do today and served in particular to end and hide things with social significance, especially household waste. The anthropological evaluation of all collective burials and the systematic analysis of the origin of exotic raw materials for jewellery in particular remain a desideratum for future research. Despite the environmental problems involved, further testing for Sr analyses, especially of animal teeth, would be promising in order to possibly detect changes in herd management. The potential of the site was far from being exhausted within the project. The transdisciplinary investigations of the Household and Death Project can therefore only represent a groundbreaking first step.

Bibliography

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