What was Jericho like 9,00o years ago?

by Little-Bears_11-2-16

What would the buildings be like? The art? Everyday life? What did they eat? What were jobs? It always amazes me that cities could exist 6,000 years before the Egyptian Old Kingdom. I don't really have anything specific to ask, just really curious about something so ancient. Just anything and everything really.

Polgara19

The Levant 10 000 years ago was a wild, wild place. Agriculture was just starting to emerge, and people were starting to live in more sedentary villages. This was originally called the Neolithic period, but as archaeologists are wont to do, the period got subdivided - first into the Pre Pottery Neolithic and Pottery Neolithic, and then into the Pre Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC - existence currently debated today) and then the Pottery Neolithic. Archaeologists are splitters, clearly.

The existence of the PPNA and PPNB was first elucidated at the site of Jericho by Kathleen Kenyon's excavations in 1952-1958, but the reality is that the actual Neolithic area excavated was really really small. So we can't say all that much about life at Jericho without referring to more recent excavations at other PPNA and PPNB village sites.

PPNA villages tend to be made up of small C-shaped or U-shaped houses clustered together. People would have been farming various crops, and hunting, herding, and managing animals. Diet was quite varied, really. The most interesting thing about these earliest villages is that they also tended to include some sort of public space. At Jericho, this was an enormous tower. At Wadi Faynan 16 in Southern Jordan, this is a huge sunken building with a bench around the outside. The large building lined with a bench is repeated elsewhere, most famously at Gobekli Tepe, but also at Jerf el-Ahmar in Syria. These buildings were likely used for some sort of public performance to maintain community cohesion - people were investing more in a single location for the first time and couldn't just move if they hated their neighbour!

Later on, during the PPNB, most villages transition to having rectangular buildings with internal subdivisions. Lots of scholars have suggested lots of things into this development. Some think it could indicate the development of more privacy, moving production and resources inside the house so as to not flaunt it in front of the neighbours.

Neolithic people in the Levant were also engaged in a really interesting funerary practice called skull plastering. After the death of someone deemed appropriate (more on that later), they would be buried until the flesh had decomposed enough to separate the bones. At this time, the cranium would be re-excavated and then covered with plaster to recreate the appearance of a person. These were individualized, with different plastered skulls looking different. There are lots and lots and lots (and lots) of theories as to why this was happening, and the reality is that we just don't know. It's unclear why someone was selected for plastering after their death. The plastered individuals are both men and women, young and old, though there is some suggestion that they might have been subject of some skull modification - which would have been visible during their lifetime.

Not everyone would have been selected for plastering, though Jericho itself did have an extremely large collection of plastered skulls found, particularly considering just how small an area was excavated! Most people would therefore have been buried under the floor of the houses, keeping the dead and presumably your ancestors, close to the living. This is great for archaeologists since you don't need to go looking for a cemetery!

Anyways, all this to say that you are probably best actually looking at what archaeologists are saying about contemporary villages around Jericho than Jericho itself since we have so little information about the site. I suggest you look at Wadi Faynan 16 since it is a recent excavation and has been very well published. Other sites of interest would be 'Ain Ghazal, located today on a highway in Amman, Jerf el-Ahmar, or even sites like Çayönü in Turkey.

Sources

Kenyon, K. (1954). "Excavations at Jericho." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 84(1/2): 103-110.

Kenyon, K. (1960). "Excavations at Jericho 1957-58." Palestine Excavation Quarterly 1960: 88-113.

Kenyon, K. (1981). Excavations at Jericho: The Architecture and Stratigraphy of the Tell. London, British School of Archaeology.

Naveh, D. (2003). "PPNA Jericho: A Socio-Political Perspective." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13(1): 83-96.

Banning, E. B. and B. F. Byrd (1988). "Souther Levantine Pier Houses: Intersite Architectural Patterning during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B." Paleorient 14(1): 65-72.

Finlayson, B., et al. (2009). "New excavations at WF16, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in Southern Jordan." Antiquity 83(319).

Finlayson, B., et al. (2010). "Excavations at Wadi Faynan 16, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Site in Southern Jordan." Bulletin of the Council for British Research in the Levant 5: 46-48.

Finlayson, B., et al. (2011). "Architecture, sedentism, and social complexity at Pre-Pottery Neolithic A WF16, Southern Jordan." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(20): 10966-10970.