Neolithic Statues from 'Ain Ghazal: Construction and Form

Abstract

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Transformations in an early agricultural society: Feasting in the southern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic

“…Public architecture is not common, but the fact that it is found at multiple sites indicates escalation from the PPNA in terms of communal organization of labor and formalized community activities. Expansion of public ritual is further indicated by the regional advent of sizable (up to one meter tall) and eye-catching plaster statuary, well-suited for public display (Grissom, 2000;Schmandt-Besserat, 1998), as well as by the existence of small sites dedicated either largely or entirely to ritual activity (Bar-Yosef and Alon, 1988; Goring-Morris, 2000; but see Garfinkel, 2006). Subfloor burials without grave goods remain the mortuary standard, but far too few burials have been recovered to account for the majority of the MPPNB population (Rollefson, 2001).…”

Domesticating gender: Neolithic patterns from the southern Levant

“…Examples come from MPPNB contexts at 'Ain Ghazal, Jericho, and, possibly, Nahal Hemar. The most numerous (n = 34) and best-studied examples come from 'Ain Ghazal (Grissom, 2000;Rollefson, 1983;Schmandt-Besserat, 1998). Some of the figures are busts and others are full-bodied.…”

“…The larger, lime plaster forms (30+ cm) are typically described as monumental figures (Schmandt-Besserat, 1998) or statues (Grissom, 2000;Rollefson, 2000;Rollefson et al, 1992). The smaller forms made from clay and stone are described as figurines.…”

Settled? Recent debates in the archaeology of the Epipalaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Southwest Asia

“…Copeland 1991;Schroeder 1991), Syria (Cauvin 1977;Moore et al 1975;2000) and Jordan (Betts 1983;Betts 1984;Edwards 1991 (Valla et al 1986;Weinstein-Evron 1991). New fieldwork in the southern Israel desert region, the Negev, was carried out by N. Goring-Morris, resulting in the discovery of not only Natufian sites, but also those of the Bdesertic adaptation,t he Harifian (Goring-Morris 1987.…”

“…How else could we approach an understanding of PPNB Kfar HaHoresh in Lower Galilee, Israel (Goring-Morris 2005; Simmons et al 2007), with its extraordinary range of human and animal mortuary deposits, or PPNA Jerf el Ahmar's (Syria) remarkable large-scale Bkivalike^stone architecture (Stordeur et al 2000)? Similarly, the unique anthropomorphic lime plaster statues from PPNB 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan (Grissom 2000), and, dramatically, the monumental stone circles of PPNA Gobekli Tepe (southeast Anatolia/Turkey) with carved pillars depicting (for the most part) a diversity of wild creatures (Peters and Schmidt 2004;Schmidt and Wittwar 2012)-all defy the traditional environment/economy-driven BNeolithic narrative.^There are also hundreds of recently discovered human burials from the sites of Körtik Tepe (PPNA) in southeastern Anatolia (Erdal 2015) and Tell Halula (PPNB) in the Euphrates Valley, Syria (Molist et al 2009), testifying to the scale and diversity of mortuary practices in the centuries before the Bfully settled^Neolithic.…”