Investigating Late Neolithic ceramics in the northern Levant: the view from Shir

Abstract

This paper presents a review of the ceramic investigations at the Late Neolithic site of Shir. Situated in Western Syria the site occupies a central position in the so-called 'Levantine corridor', which linked the southern Levant, Central Anatolia, and Upper Mesopotamia in the Neolithic. The ceramic sequence covers a period of several centuries between c. 7000 and 6450 cal BC. The pottery analysis combined bulk processing in the field and archaeometric work in the laboratory to construct a viable ceramic categorization. This paper discusses long-term ceramic trends that follow the first appearance of pottery in the northern Levant, including the development of pottery containers for storage.

Ceramics, society and economy in the northern Levant

“…BC. Geographically the papers encompass an area extending from the Amuq (Welton 2018) through the plains of inland western Syria Vacca 2018a), the Orontes Valley (Boileau 2018;Kennedy et al 2018, Nieuwenhuyse et al 2018Shabo 2018), the edge of the Syrian steppe (Mouamar 2018), southwards through Lebanon and northern Jordan Jean 2018;Sowada et al 2020).…”

“…Our volume has also served to highlight some major gaps in our knowledge. While our strong focus on the EBA has allowed us to develop many of the points made above, the more limited representation of papers dealing with earlier (Nieuwenhuyse 2018) and later periods (Shabo 2018), demonstrate that until we expand this approach to embrace other time periods, we will be unable to place the changes we see during the 3rd millennium cal. BC within a longer temporal sequence of varied forms of ceramic organization.…”

Forensic Exploration of the Mechanical Properties of Basalt Grains in Earthenware

“…Several Levantine craftsmen likely travelled or obtained basalt which has outcrops several days away. Basalt and the presence of this material in (Levantine) pottery has been attested widely and mostly identified as local production, but has only limitedly been questioned on a technological basis (Philip and Baird 2000;Nieuwenhuyse et al 2018). The addition of basalt to cooking ceramics however seems to be preferred over the addition of quartz, although probably more-time-consuming regarding procurement and preparation.…”