Early Natufian Burial Site offers insights into human settlement, rituals

AMMAN — Different teams of Australian archaeologists have been "very active" in northern and northwestern parts of Jordan. One of them has been led by Associate Professor from La Trobe University Philip Edwards, who came with his students to Wadi Hammeh to study Natufian burials. 

Wadi Hammeh 27 (12,000–12,500 BC), is a village located in a tributary stream valley of the northern Jordan Valley in the Irbid Governorate. 

According to Edwards, burial sites were dedicated to prominent community members since their tombs were marked by various pit features and stone constructions. 

“Furthermore, no individual was ever again buried at the site after the first series of inhumations was established,” Edwards noted, adding that instead, mortuary behaviour in the later phases was restricted to the unusual custom of scattering burnt human cranial and other bone fragments in domestic areas. 

“The Natufian period (13,000 – 10,300 cal. BC) in the Levant is considered a crucial juncture in human settlement history because it marks the transition between the mobile hunter-gatherers of earlier Epi-palaeolithic phases (20,000–13,000 cal. BC) and the sedentary, agrarian villagers of the Early Neolithic (10,300 – 8300 cal. BC),” Edwards elaborated. 

He noted that the Natufian settlement system has been claimed as an example of inter-annual, pre-agricultural sedentism, and while this level of settlement permanence has yet to be demonstrated, there is broad consensus that the large, open-air Early Natufian sites, termed "basecamps, represent a more intensive residential system than had previously existed in the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant. 

"However, it is not clear as to whether fully interannual, year-on-year sedentism is demonstrated, rather than intensified occupations per se. Natufian base-camps are important novelties in the archaeological record and represent the foundations of the Neolithic village in the Middle East," Edwards underlined, adding that they include the first agglomerations of round and oval huts, constructions which were rebuilt over many generations, with occupation persisting for hundreds or even thousands of years. 

"The earliest of the large basecamp settlements in the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant were located in caves or rock-shelters, such as at El Wad at Mount Carmel, founded around 13,000 cal. BC. Despite the provision of a natural shelter, the Natufian occupation at El Wad, as at several other Natufian cave sites, was equipped with a variety of stone features such as hearths, postholes and pavements," Edwards elaborated. 

He pointed out that around 12,500 cal. BC, basecamp sites were founded in open-air locations, in the Jordan Valley at Wadi Hammeh 27 and in the Galilee region shortly afterwards at Ain Mallaha.

"The burials encountered at Wadi Hammeh 27 are all of different types. A multiple secondary burial containing the remains of at least six individuals was situated in a shallow pit in, underlying the lowermost occupation phase of the house," Edwards underlined.

Archaeologists found two infants buried in shrouds or containers as well as grave goods.

"A dense pile of commingled human bones represents at least eight individuals, including four human skulls overlain by a jumble of long bones, ribs, vertebrae, and feet and hand bones, but many more bones lying below remain to be exposed, Edwards said.

He noted: "The most significant artifacts were a range of bodily ornaments. A singular item is an oblong bone pendant of a type not discovered at the site before, provided with suspension holes at each end," adding that a complex necklace of alternating types of beads was found near one of the crania. 

The piece included gazelle podial bones, avian tibiotarsal bone fragments, and tusk-shell spacers. An articulated scaphopod (marine tusk) shell (i.e., “dentalium”) bracelet was found next to a humerus, consisting of five rows of beads. A second articulated tusk shell bracelet lay between several bones. 

"The most notable object is a necklace of nine beads, made from avian tibiotarsal bones, found in an articulated sequence. Preserved cordage of some kind was found protruding from one of the beads; this piece is without parallel in the Jordanian archaeological record," Edwards underscored.