Greener Pastures: 7th and 6th Millennia Pastoral Potentials in Jordan’s Eastern Badia

F O R S C H U N G S C LU S T E R 1 Von der Sesshaftigkeit zur komplexen Gesellschaft: Siedlung, Wirtschaft, Umwelt, Kult

Palaeoenvironment and the Development of Early Settlements Proceedings of the International Conferences Palaeoenviroment and the Development of Early Societies (Şanlıurfa / Turkey, 5 – 7 October 2012) The Development of Early Settlement in Arid Regions (Aqaba / Jordan, 12 – 15 November 2013)

Edited by Markus Reindel, Karin Bartl, Friedrich Lüth and Norbert Benecke

XX, 240 Seiten mit 160 Abbildungen und 3 Tabellen Titelvignette: Wadi Rum / Jordan (photo: DAI, K. Bartl)

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Reindel, Markus; Bartl, Karin; Lüth, Friedrich; Benecke, Norbert (Eds.) Palaeoenvironment and the Development of Early Settlements Palaeoenviroment and the Development of Early Societies (Şanlıurfa / Turkey, 7 October 2012) The Development of Early Settlement in Arid Regions (Aqaba / Jordan, 12 – 15 November 2013 Rahden/Westf. – Leidorf 2016 (Menschen – Kulturen – Traditionen ; ForschungsCluster 1 ; Bd. 14) ISBN 978-3-86757-395-5

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Greener Pastures: 7th and 6th Millennia Pastoral Potentials in Jordan’s Eastern Badia Gary O. Rollefson

Abstract Over the past several years archaeological survey and excavation in several areas of the eastern badia region of Jordan have revealed intensive occupation of certain parts of the region that is not consistent with the limitations that the today’s landscape would seem to have imposed. Population

was relatively high in the area due in part to an absorbent topsoil that captured winter rainfall. Intensive desertification of the badia may have begun after the Neolithic period, making the region uninviting until the domestication of the camel.

Introduction The beginning of the 7th millennium BC witnessed tumultuous changes in the demography and subsistence economy in the southern Levant. The megasites that characterized the highlands of western Jordan during the Late PPNB period (ca. 7,500 – 6,900 cal BC) all collapsed; some of them, such as Basta and Al-Sifiya, were abandoned completely, while others (including ʿAin Ghazal and Wadi Shuʿeib) saw their populations depleted by up to 90 % in a short period of time. The reasons for the dramatic shift in settlement patterns remain

obscure, although annual rainfall seems to have become erratic by 7,000 BC,1 and coupled with the pressures on the local environments of the large populations during the LPPNB,2 there must have been substantial emigration to other areas of the region, including the badia region of eastern Jordan and Syria, an area that today receives too little rainfall for reliable agriculture. The volcanic region known as Harrat al-Sham or the Black Desert is characterized as a hyperarid desert, receiving less than 50 mm annual rainfall.3

Previous Research in the Eastern Badia of Jordan Although surveys in the badia began as early as the 1925,4 and excavations in the 1930s,5 more intensive and systematic research unfolded in the area during the 1980 s and 1990s.6 These efforts recorded sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic through the Ottoman periods, but it was only the work of Betts and Garrard that provided secure documentation of the times of early pastoral exploitation of the steppe and desert. Many sites of the Late Neolithic were recorded, and several were tested by limited excavation. The impression that the excavations themselves provided was that Late Neolithic

presence was typified by small and ephemeral settlements, with one or two families, perhaps, working as small units engaged as herders of sheep and goats.7 The small size of the sites and their thin deposits could be interpreted as tentative inroads into what was perceived as a forbidding landscape, one that would be difficult to inhabit until the adoption of camels thousands of years later. Camels would make logistical improvements for the support of mobility across more far-reaching territory for exploitation by particular groups of people.

New Research at Sites in the Wadi al-Qattafi and at Wisad Pools

Survey and excavation have been underway since 2008 at two sectors of the panhandle of Jordan (Fig.  1). Wadi alQattafi is about 60 km east of North Azraq, and numerous

basalt-topped mesas are found on both sides of the drainage (Figs. 1 – 2). Most have tower tombs on their summits, but only a few have huts and animals pens on them.8 But it is on the slopes near the foot of the mesas that residential structures are especially profuse.

 1 cf. Bar Matthews – Ayalon 2004; Migowsky et al. 2006; Mayewski et al. 2004.  2 Rollefson 2011; Rollefson – Pine 2009; Rollefson – Rowan – Wasse 2014  3 Ababsa 2013, Fig. 1.12.  4 Field 1960.  5 Waechter – Seton-Williams 1938.  6 e. g. Betts 1998; Betts 2013; Garrard – Byrd 2013

 7 One exception to this generalization was the site of al-Ghirqa, where several clusters of up to 10 possible residential structures each were found (Betts 1987).  8 On those mesas with architecture in addition to mortuary structures, huts and corrals usually number 10 or less. The striking exception to this generality is Mesa 4 (M-4, also known as ‘Maitland’s Mesa’), where there are more than 250 structures in addition to a tower tomb (Rowan et al. 2014).

Wadi al-Qattafi

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Fig. 1.  Location of the Black Desert in southwestern Syria, eastern Jordan, and northern Saudi Arabia.

Table 1 presents the minimum number of what appear to be residential structures,9 based on similarities to house SS-11 excavated on the SW base of Mesa 4 (M-4) (Fig.  3)10. House SS-11 was one of a cluster of 19 buildings, nine of which were isolated structures and ten (including SS-11) associated with animal pens. It is likely that the house-pen relationship is later than the isolated houses as noted by Betts,11 sup-

ported by a C-14 date of 5475 – 5325 cal BC (2ϭ, Beta-346614) from SS-11.12 The stunning number of residential structures around M-5, M-6, M-7, and M-8 – all within a half-kilometer from each other (Fig.  4) – is curious, suggesting perhaps that there was something special in terms of water or other resources near this nexus. Altogether, there are at least 620 structures in the immediate mesa area (Table 1).

Mesa

n

Mesa

n

Mesa

n

Mesa

n

Mesa

n

Mesa

n

1

?

4

19

7

287

10

?

13

>10

16

0

2

0

5

88

8

44

11

?

14

?

17

>10

3

54

6

15

9

0

12

>20

15

75

Table 1.  Probable number of residential structures at the base of the Wadi al-Qattafi mesas.

 9 Based on aerial photography undertaken by APAAME personnel . Some of the mesas were only minimally photographed, and the distance and angle of the shots made it impossible to determine if there were any residential structures (mesas M-11 and M-14). Additionally, the circular arrangement of structures at Mesas M-1 and M-10 raised doubts that there were dwellings there.

10 Wasse –Rowan – Rollefson 2012. 11 Betts 2013, 189. 12 There were 182 other structures all around the base of M-4 in addition to the ‘villages’ in Fig. 3, but these were either relatively large tombs or residential buildings very rapidly constructed of basalt cobbles rather than the more careful and sturdier houses on the SW slope.

Greener Pastures: 7th and 6th Millennia Pastoral Potentials in Jordan’s Eastern Badia

Fig. 2.  Some of the more than 40 basalt-capped mesas along the southern Wadi al-Qattafi.

Fig. 3. Residential structures on the SW slope of M-4; SS-11 was excavated in 2012.

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Fig. 4. Aerial photo towards the west of a tributary wadi that debouches into the Wadi al-Qattafi and the relative position of mesas M-5, M-6 and M-7.

Wisad Pools Fifty kilometers farther east, near the eastern edge of the basalt field, is a short wadi draining runoff from a broad plateau to a qaʿ (playa) to the SE that lies only 8 – 9 m lower in elevation. In this wadi are natural depressions as well as manmade barrages that trap runoff in the rainy season. Pool 1, nearest the plateau, can hold more than 2000 m3 of water;13 Pool 9, which debouches into the qa, is half a kilometer long, c. 35 m wide, and a meter deep in places (Fig. 5). The site of Wisad is enormous, with residential buildings, corrals, and mortuary structures distributed over a range of about 10 km2, although there is a dense ‘core’ centered around the pools of about 1.5 km2. Survey of the core revealed more than 300 structures, excluding animal pens and low burial mounds (Fig.  6).14 Three of these structures were excavated (in 2011 and 2013 – 2014), including a looted Safaitic tomb built over a Late Neolithic house (W-110) and two Late Neolithic dwellings (W-66 and W-80). W-66 is a roughly circular building 4.25 m (NW/SE) x 3.0 m (NE/SW) or about 11 m2; there is also a small alcove at the NW part of the house (added later?) of 1.5 m2 (Fig. 7). Outside, there was a circular platform 3.35 m in diameter and 40 cm 13 14 15 16

Rollefson – Rowan – Wasse 2011. cf. Rollefson – Wasse – Rowan 2014. Rollefson – Rowan – Perry 2011. All of the corbeled buildings examined at Wisad as well as those on the SW slope of M-4 in the Wadi al-Qattafi had roofs that collapsed into the interior, suggesting that the buildings were affected

high. The walls were corbeled, with one or more of the final roof slabs resting on a central pillar about a meter high. The floor was covered with gypsum plaster, and charcoal embedded in the plaster yielded a date of 6606 – 6455 cal BC (2ϭ, Beta-346621). The roof collapsed sometime after the initial occupation, but the shell of the structure continued in use, possibly as a windbreak, for butchering, food preparation, tool manufacture, and bead production.15 W-80 was a house with a collapsed roof16 also used as a windbreak for activities similar to W-66. The maximum interior dimensions were 6.5 m (N/S) by 5.4 m, or approximately 27.8 m2, about 2.5 times the size of W-66 (Fig.  8). The W-80 complex was also much more elaborate than W-66: A ramp about a meter long and 60 cm wide led to a doorway in the northeastern side of the house, which opened into the main room. The NW quadrant of the house interior was dominated by several large, thick grinding slabs, indicating this was an area of food preparation. An alcove with several phases of repaving is located in the SSW part of the house, near a second doorway that led outside to a small (ca. 15 m2) ‘porch’ set off by a semicircular ‘fence’ of basalt blocks set on edge; in the center of the porch is a large grinding slab. Adjacent by severe earthquakes at least twice (sometime around the middle of the 7th millennium and again after the mid-6th millennium. Over the past century, there have been 12 earthquakes recorded in the Qattafi and Wisad areas, including one that had a strength between 4.3 – 6.5 on the Richter scale (Yazjeen 2013, Fig. 1.8).

Greener Pastures: 7th and 6th Millennia Pastoral Potentials in Jordan’s Eastern Badia

Fig. 5. Aerial view towards the E of the pools in the Wadi Wisad.

Fig. 6. Aerial view to the NE of the central core of Wisad Pools. Numbers refer to field assignments during the 2009 field survey. White circles locate W-66 and W-80.

to the west is an open area (ca. 45 m2) also set off by a semicircular fence of uprights.17 Three charcoal samples were stratigraphically consistent in age, 6590 – 6580 cal BC (± 2σ,

17 cf. Rollefson et al. 2013

Locus 022, Beta 366677); 6000 – 5840 cal BC (±2σ, Locus 033, Beta 366676); and 5710 – 5610 cal BC (±2σ, Locus 011, Beta 366675).

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Fig. 7. Top plan of the W-66 house at Wisad. C = corbel stone, P = central pillar; Pl = plaster, and Pl B = plaster basin.

Fig. 8. Two views of the house W-80. Upper image is viewed towards the NW; lower image viewed to the SW. wf = western forecourt; p = ”porch”, d2 = western doorway; a = alcove; ss = central pillar; g = groundstone area; m = main room; d1 = northeastern door.

Discussion Wisad Pools and the mesas are not unique in the dense clusters of structures in the Black Desert. David Kennedy has identified two others to the northeast of Wisad at Bakhit and Ghussein (personal communication 2012), and my personal investigation on Google Earth has identified at least two more large and densely populated areas near the eastern edge of the harra. Not all of these structures need be residential, of course, nor do they necessarily date to the Late Neolithic. Even those that are highly likely datable to the Late Neolithic (such as the SW slope of M-4 in the Wadi al-Qattafi) probably are not contemporaneous; certainly that must be the case of the structures at the bases of M-5, M-6 and M-7. The Late Neolithic lasted for about 2,000 years (6,900 – 5,000 BC, if the PPNC/Final PPNB is included), so even if all of the structures at the foot of the mesas were Late Neolithic in age, a crude rate of construction would work out to one house every 3 – 4 years. But this is oversimplifying the situation. Houses SS-11, W-66, and W-80 were re-used for long periods of time, up to a thousand years in the case of W-80,

and this longevity reduces that “construction rate” to an absurd calculation. The construction of what appears to be the original single-family dwellings remains astounding, and the style and clustering of structures such as the area around SS-11 could be taken to reflect groups of families – perhaps related ones – of nine or ten families each operating as cooperative economic units. In the case of Mesa 7, with more than 280 structures around its base, there are clearly two specific styles of construction: one with walls made of horizontal slabs placed on top of each other and the other with huge slabs erected on edge (and thus not corbeled), so chronological variability is likely at play here.18 One thing is clear: the normally small Late Neolithic settlements on the western part of the basalt region described by Betts and by Garrard, generally consisting of only one or two dwellings, does not represent the intensity of occupation in other parts of the harra. At the southwestern corner of the Jordanian Black Desert as well as its eastern strip argues very strongly for a bold movement of herder-hunters into the region. The implied population density of the harra, as well

18 It remains puzzling why so many buildings were constructed in the same place, even if they post-dated buildings already there. If we assume for the sake of argument that the corbeled buildings are all Late Neolithic, and that the corbeled buildings account for 50 % of the 287 structures, why didn’t groups rebuild earlier abandoned buildings, as was certainly the case at SS-11, W-66, and W-80? Even

atop M-4, with more than 200 structures representing huts and corrals that possibly date to the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, the numbers certainly can’t be interpreted as a small army of shepherds and their enormous combined flocks. What is so special about an animal pen that it couldn’t have been used repeatedly by different shepherds generations after the previous users had died?

Greener Pastures: 7th and 6th Millennia Pastoral Potentials in Jordan’s Eastern Badia

as the frequent use of grinding equipment to process plant materials (134 handstones and grinding slabs at W-80 and 49 from W-66) does not conform to the landscape as we see it

today. Two aspects of the harra that, if different from the circumstances of today, could account for this disparity: climate and topsoil.

Climate There has been a growing corpus of information that the aridity that typifies so much of the Levant today may have been considerably different during much of the Holocene, although the individual interpretations do not always coincide in terms of degree and periodicity of rainfall amounts (Fig.  9). Research on recovered flotation evidence in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia, based on stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) and reconstructed cereal kernel weight,19 supports the interpretation of speleothem development by Bar-Matthews and Ayalon,20 that rainfall was considerably higher during the Late Neolithic. Araus and his colleagues argue that water availability was two to four times greater than today, especially between 8,000 and 6,000 calBC.21 Extrapolation of rainfall patterns by Bar-

Matthews and Ayalon indicates that in the southern Levant during the Late Neolithic annual precipitation was as much as 300 mm higher than the current average of 500 mm per year (Fig. 10).22 There is no direct proxy for precipitation in Jordan’s badia, but if weather tracks in the Late Neolithic were essentially the same as those of today, it is likely that rainfall was higher in the steppe and desert than currently. It is unlikely that rainfall amounts were 300 mm higher than present, but the region may have been a dry grassland for centuries. In view of the high numbers of grinding stones at Wisad, it might even have been the case that sufficient precipitation was occasionally available for opportunistic cultivation of barley and perhaps other crops. Fig. 9. Asynchronous interpretation of rainfall variability. The upper chart is based on Dead Sea levels, with the “sill at 402.5 m” representing current rainfall (Migowski et al. 2006). The lower chart (after Mayewski et al. 2004) is based speleothem development at Soreq Cave, Israel.

Fig. 10. Extrapolation of rainfall amounts based on the results of research by Bar-Matthews and Ayalon (2004: Fig. 9c).

Topsoil The surface of the harra today can be characterized as a combination of basalt in various configurations, silt, and occasional areas of sand dunes. Vegetation is sparse, even after the close of the rainy season, though enough exists to support considerable populations of caprines and camels. The Wadi al-Qattafi mesas overlook a wadi bed densely populated by

qattaf, a woody shrub (Atriplex sp.), and herbaceous plants are scattered sparingly on the slopes of the mesas, but grasses are virtually absent. Woody shrubs also grow in the small Wadi Wisad, as do herbaceous plants, but across the expansive plateau the landscape is very bleak in terms of vegetation. Rain barely penetrates into the modern surface but runs

19 Araus et al. 2014 20 Bar-Matthews – Ayalon 2004 21 Araus et al. 2014. Higher rainfall during this range of time might explain the presence of domesticated cereals and legumes at Early/ Middle PPNB Jilat 7, located in what is at the transition from steppe

to desert (the site lies at the 100 mm isohyet), and higher rainfall during the Late Neolithic could account for domestic wheat and barley at Jilat 13, dated to c. 6400 cal. BC (Colledge in Garrard et al. 1994; Garrard et al. 1988). 22 Bar-Matthews – Ayalon 2004, Fig. 9c

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Fig. 11. Section near the eastern wall of W-80 showing the culturally sterile red-brown sediment (Locus 076) overlain by the first phase of occupation, Locus 078. Locus 022 is one of several phases of subsequent habitation.

off instead as sheet wash into wadis that lead to the qi’an (mudflats), which probably is the factor that prevents much grass cover. Herbaceous plants also enjoy a brief life around the edges of small ponds on the plateau. If the soil had different edaphic qualities in the past such that water was readily absorbed, vegetation would have likely been much more luxuriant, and that in turn would have supported larger faunal communities to tempt hunters and herders alike. The current silty soil that typifies the aeolian

sediment is light brown in color and is generally quite compact, but at the base of both W-80 and W-66, the lowest occupation layers as well as the wall stones lay atop a reddishbrown sandy silt that probably permitted more percolation of water (Fig.  11). Laboratory analysis of the sediments has not yet begun, but there is some reason to think the foundation of a more hospitable and more vegetated landscape was available for Late Neolithic herder-hunters to exploit.23

Concluding remarks It is difficult to imagine that the modern landscape and its relatively meager resources would have been inviting enough for Late Neolithic herder-hunters to have expended as much labor as they did to construct permanent (though seasonally occupied) dwellings, not just at the mesas and at Wisad Pools, but at other dense concentrations of structures in in the harra. Furthermore, there are several lines of evidence that indicate a more humid and more vegetated environment, a conclusion reached by Braemer and Échallier after the excavation of Khirbet al-Umbashi in the harra of eastern Syria.24 Since Khirbet al-Umbashi was inhabited during Early Bronze III, IV and Middle Bronze I

(ca. 2700 – 2000 BC), it is probable that the harra was not in the degraded state we see today, but that desertification had set in by the last quarter of the third millennium and accelerated thereafter. Braemer and Échallier contend that the dramatic change in the landscape was not due to climate change alone, but that it also entailed damage due to human activity,25 possibly as a consequence of overgrazing. It was not simply the removal of vegetation by voracious sheep and goats but the breaking of the topsoil crust by literally thousands of hooves, exposing the topsoil to water erosion, but, with even more damaging impact, to deflating winds that almost perpetually blowing in this region.

23 As this volume goes to press, pollen recovered from the reddish soil indicates a marshy area around the mudflats.

24 Braemer – Échallier –Taraqji 2004, 245. 25 Braemer – Échallier –Taraqji 2004, 245.

Greener Pastures: 7th and 6th Millennia Pastoral Potentials in Jordan’s Eastern Badia

Illustration Credits Fig. 1, map: after Betts 2013, Fig. 1.2 Fig. 2, satellite image: Google Earth Fig. 3, photos: modified from D. L. Kennedy, APA_08_DLK_271; © APAAME, by permission Fig. 4, photo: D. L. Kennedy, APA_08_285; © APAAME, by permission; modified by author Fig. 5, photo: D. L. Kennedy, APA_08_DLK_366; © APAAME, by permission; modified by author Fig. 6, photo: D. L. Kennedy, APA_08_DLK_363; © APAAME, by permission; modified by author Fig. 7, drawing: M. Perry and G. Rollefson Fig. 8, photos: Y. Rowan Fig. 9, graph: compiled by author, see individual authors in the figure captions Fig. 10, graph: compiled by author, see individual authors in the figure captions Fig. 11, photo: G. Rollefson Tab. 1: G. Rollefson

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Betts 2013 A. Betts, The Later Prehistory of the Badia. Excavations and Survey in Eastern Jordan, Volume 2 (Oxford 2013). Braemer – Échallier –Taraqji 2004 F. Braemer – J-C. Échallier – A. Taraqji, Khirbet al Umbashi. Villages et campements de pasteurs dans le “désert noir » (Syrie) à l’âge du Bronze (Beirut 2004). Field 1960 H. Field, North Arabian Desert Archaeological Survey, 1925 – 1950 (Boston 1960). Garrard et al. 1994 A. Garrard – D. Baird – S. Colledge – L. Martin – K. Wright, Prehistoric Environment and Settlement in the Azraq Basin: an Interim Report on the 1987 and 1988 Excavation Seasons, Levant 26, 1994, 73 – 109. Garrard –Byrd 2013 A. Garrard – B. Byrd, Beyond the Fertile Crescent. Late Palaeolithic and Neolithic Communities of the Jordanian Steppe (Oxford 2013)

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Address of the author Prof. Dr. Gary O. Rollefson Whitman College Department of Anthropology 345 Boyer Ave. Walla Walla WA 99362 U.S.A. [email protected]