L’aire funéraire de Tell Aswad (PPNB)

Abstract

-Le site néolithique de Tell Aswad, situé à 30 km à l'est-sud-est de Damas, a été découvert et sondé par H. de Contenson en 1972 et 1973. Le site a été fouillé par une équipe franco-syrienne de 2001 à 2006. Les trois phases du PPNB (Horizon PPNB ancien, PPNB moyen, PPNB récent) ont été mises en lumière dans quatorze niveaux archéologiques. Cet article présente une aire funéraire qui se rattache sans doute au début du PPNB récent. Deux groupes de sépultures, représentant deux états successifs, réunissent plus de cinquante individus inhumés selon diverses pratiques (sépultures individuelles, plurielles, primaires, secondaires, combinées). L'état initial de cette aire a été fondé par le dépôt de quatre crânes surmodelés.

Interpreting a ritual funerary area at the Early Neolithic site of Tell Qarassa North (South Syria, late 9th millennium BC)

“…Example of an exposed secondary burial. (Stordeur et al, 2006), and in buildings or rooms specifically used for burials, such as at Dja'de (Coqueugniot, 2000), as well as for the storage of human remains, as at Çayönü (Özdogan, 1995; Özdogan and Özdogan, 1998). The use of abandoned houses already occurred in the Natufian (Valla, 1981;Bouquetin, 2003: 344), and has been documented for the PPNB (Goring-Morris, 2000: 120) at the sites of Ain Ghazal (Rollefson, 2000), Yiftahel (Hershkovitz et al, 1986), Jericho (Kenyon, 1981) and Beidha (Byrd, 2005).…”

Crania with mutilated facial skeletons: A new ritual treatment in an early Pre‐Pottery Neolithic B cranial cache at Tell Qarassa North (South Syria)

“…The presence of postcranial elements together with cranial caches has been documented at several PPNB sites, like Kfar HaHoresh, Tell Ramad, Tell Aswad and Beisamoun (Stordeur and Khawam, 2007). Placing crania in circles has been observed at one of the caches in Jericho (Kenyon, 1981) and in the modeled crania at Tell Aswad (Kuijt and Goring‐Morris, 2002; Stordeur et al, 2006). At other sites the crania tend to be laid out in lines, as at Çayönü or in certain deposits at Jericho.…”

“…This cranial treatment first appears in the Natufian (Belfer‐Cohen, 1988), among the last groups of hunter‐gatherers in the area (12,000–9700 cal BC). It consolidated during the first phase of the Neolithic, in the Pre‐Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA; 9700–8500 cal BC) and becomes more complex in the second phase of the Neolithic, in the Pre Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB; 8500–7000 cal BC), especially in the Middle and Late PPNB, in the eighth millennium BC, when some crania were chosen to be modeled by recreating the face with plaster (Arensburg and Hershkovitz, 1989; Byrd and Monahan, 1995; Kuijt, 1996; Goren et al, 2001; Verhoeven, 2002; Kuijt and Goring‐Morris, 2002; Stordeur et al, 2006; Kuijt, 2008). Despite the significance of this funerary ritual, anthropological studies about cranial caches are still rare.…”

“…In addition, many of them are located in particular contexts, or display direct evidence of having been subjected to a treatment that seems to exalt their value. Thus, for example at Tell Aswad, the modeled crania were found in the center of a necropolis that had been organized around them (Stordeur et al, 2006). However, the fact that the modeled crania belonged to men, women and children does not fit the interpretation that they belonged to ancestors, understood as male individuals who had founded a lineage, or to heroes (Bonogofsky, 2006).…”

Keeping the dead close: grief and bereavement in the treatment of skulls from the Neolithic Middle East

“…Given the diversity of burial practices it is difficult to categorise a particular burial type as typical. Furthermore, many sites themselves contained a variety of burial types, such as at Tell Aswad, where there were plastered skulls, primary burials, secondary burials, and multiple interments (Stordeur et al 2006) and Yarim Tepe II where there were primary and secondary burials, as well as cremations (Campbell 2007-8). However, despite the many thousands of burials recovered, the evidence still does not represent entire populations, likely due to a combination of factors including preservation and taphonomic conditions, later disturbance, or alternative treatments of the dead not leaving archaeological traces.…”