The Epipalaeolithic Near East designates the Epipalaeolithic in the prehistory of the Near East. It is the period after the Upper Palaeolithic and before the Neolithic, between approximately 20,000 and 10,000 years Before Present (BP). The people of the Epipalaeolithic were nomadic hunter-gatherers who generally lived in small, seasonal camps rather than permanent villages. They made sophisticated stone tools using microliths—small, finely-produced blades that were hafted in wooden implements. These are the primary artifacts by which archaeologists recognise and classify Epipalaeolithic sites.
The Natufian culture is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. The Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture, at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. The world's oldest evidence of bread-making has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,500-year-old site in Jordan's northeastern desert. In addition, the oldest known evidence of beer, dating to approximately 13,000 BP, was found at the Raqefet Cave in Mount Carmel near Haifa in Israel.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating to c. 12,000 – c. 10,800 years ago, that is, 10,000–8,800 BCE. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and Upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent.
Azraq is a small town in Zarqa Governorate in central-eastern Jordan, 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of Amman. The population of Azraq was 9,021 in 2004. The Muwaffaq Salti Air Base is located in Azraq.
The Ḥarrat al-Shām, also known as the Black Desert, is a region of rocky, basaltic desert straddling southern Syria and the northern Arabian Peninsula. It covers an area of some 40,000 km2 (15,000 sq mi) in the modern-day Syrian Arab Republic, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Vegetation is characteristically open acacia shrubland with patches of juniper at higher altitudes
Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant. Its type-site, Teleilat Ghassul, is located in the eastern Jordan Valley near the northern edge of the Dead Sea, in modern Jordan. It was excavated in 1929-1938 and in 1959–1960, by the Jesuits. Basil Hennessy dug at the site in 1967 and in 1975–1977, and Stephen Bourke in 1994–1999.
The Yarmukian culture was a Pottery Neolithic A (PNA) culture of the ancient Levant. It was the first culture in prehistoric Israel and one of the oldest in the Levant to make use of pottery. The Yarmukian derives its name from the Yarmuk River, which flows near its type site of Sha'ar HaGolan, near Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan at the foot of the Golan Heights. This culture existed alongside the Lodian, or Jericho IX culture and the Nizzanim culture to the south.
Adrian Nigel Goring-Morris is a British-born Archaeologist and a Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. He completed his PhD there in 1986 and is notable for his work and discoveries at one of the oldest ritual burial sites in the world; Kfar HaHoresh. The earliest levels of this site have been dated to 8000 BC and it is located in the northern Israel, not far from Nazareth.
Avi Gopher is an Israeli archaeologist. He is a professor at the University of Tel Aviv.
Tell Halula is a large, prehistoric, neolithic tell, about 8 hectares (860,000 sq ft) in size, located around 105 kilometres (65 mi) east of Aleppo and 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Membij in the Raqqa Governorate of Syria.
Iraq ed-Dubb, or the Cave of the Bear, is an early Neolithic archeological site 7 km (4.3 mi) northwest of Ajlun in the Jordan Valley, in modern-day Jordan. The settlement existed before 8,000 BCE and experimented with the cultivation of founder crops, side by side with the harvesting of wild cereals. Along with Tell Aswad in Syria, the site shows the earliest reference to domestic hulled barley between 10,000 and 8,800 BCE. The site is located on a forested limestone escarpment above the Wadi el-Yabis in northwest Jordan. An oval-shaped stone structure was excavated along with two burials and a variety of animal and plant remains.
Wadi Jilat is a seasonal stream (wadi) in the Badia of eastern Jordan. Part of its course runs through a steeply-incised ravine that retains water for much of the year, an unusual feature in the desert region.
Qasr Burqu' is a set of ruins and an archaeological site in the badia of eastern Jordan and is the site of one of the earliest of the Umayyad desert castles.
Qafzeh cave means “precipice”, also known as Kedumim cave or Ha'kfitza cave, is a prehistoric archaeological site located at the bottom of Mount Precipice, in the Jezreel Valley of the Lower Galilee, south of Nazareth. Important remains of prehistoric people were discovered on the site - some of the oldest examples in the world, outside of Africa, of virtually anatomically modern human beings. These were discovered on the ledge just outside the cave, where 18 layers from the Middle Paleolithic era were identified. The interior of the cave contains layers ranging from the Neolithic era to the Bronze age.
Kharaysin is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site (PPN) located in the village of Quneya, at the Zarqa River valley, Jordan. This site was discovered in 1984 by Hanbury-Tenison and colleagues during the Jerash Region Survey. The site was allocated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B because of the analysis of archaeological artefacts recovered on the surface.
Anna Belfer-Cohen is an Israeli archaeologist and paleoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Belfer-Cohen excavated and studied many important prehistoric sites in Israel including Hayonim and Kebara Caves and open-air sites such as Nahal Ein Gev I and Nahal Neqarot. She has also worked for many years in the Republic of Georgia, where she made important contributions to the study of the Paleolithic sequence of the Caucasus following her work at the cave sites of Dzoudzuana, Kotias and Satsrublia. She is a specialist in biological Anthropology, prehistoric art, lithic technology, the Upper Paleolithic and modern humans, the Natufian-Neolithic interface and the transition to village life.
Kharaneh IV is an archaeological site in Jordan. The site contains evidence of human activity dating to the Late Pleistocene. Its main period of occupation was 18,900 to 16,600 BC.
Wadi Hammeh 27 is a Late Epipalaeolithic archaeological site in Pella, Jordan. It consists of the remains of a large settlement dating to the Early Natufian period, about 14,500 to 14,000 years ago.
ʿAyn Qasiyya is an Early Epipalaeolithic archaeological site in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan; the remains of a lakeside camp used by hunter-gatherers around 20,000 years ago. Located near the aquifer-fed spring, at the time the site was occupied it was surrounded by a substantial wetland, attracting a wide range of animals which were hunted by the inhabitants. The stone tools found at the site are associated with both the Kebaran and Nebekian cultures, suggesting that it was visited by people from different cultural groups. Human burials have also been found at the site, which is rare for this period.
Wadi Rajil is a seasonal stream (wadi) in the Badia region of eastern Jordan and southern Syria. It originates in the Jabal al-Druze and flows south through the harrat al-Sham into the Azraq oasis. One of the major watercourses in the Azraq basin, it drains much of the northern part of the basaltic harrat al-Sham, which is also known as the harrat al-Rajil.
