Wright, K. I. & Garrard, A. N. 2003. Social identities and the expansion of stone beadmaking in...

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Social identities and the expansion ofstone bead-making in Neolithic WesternAsia: new evidence from JordanKatherine Wright & Andrew Garrard*

From their research in Jordan, the authors show that the appearance of early farming andherding communities in western Asia coincided with a large expansion in stone beadproduction. This reflects a new social role for personal ornament.

Keywords: Western Asia, Neolithic, beads, identity, exchange

Introduction

In the study of the beginnings of farming and herding in western Asia, many questionsremain unanswered, but two stand out. First, important changes in craft production andexchange attended the Neolithic, but what stimulated them? Second, what were the effectsof changing economies on social organisation, or vice versa? Beads and bead-making areimportant signals of social values, and can shed light on both issues. In this paper, we explorethe expansion of stone bead-making in Neolithic western Asia, using workshops in the Jilat-Azraq Basin, eastern Jordan. By ‘workshops,’ we mean simply bead production areas.

Body ornaments first appear in the archaeological record in the early Upper Palaeolithic(45,000–20,000 BP), in East Africa (Enkapune ya Muto), Europe (Bacho Kiro), and westernAsia (Ksar Akil, Uçagizli). Upper Palaeolithic beads, pendants and bracelets imply new attitudesto body decoration that probably had evolutionary implications. The vast majority of UpperPalaeolithic ornaments were made from ivory, shells, animal bones and teeth. By contrast,Upper Palaeolithic stone beads are rare (Kuhn et al. 2001: 7642–5; White 1993:279–80;1995: 29). In western Asia, at the end of the Palaeolithic (Natufian period), most bodyornaments were made of shells, gazelle phalanges, deer bones and fox teeth (D. Bar-Yosef1991; O. Bar-Yosef 1997:166; Goring-Morris 1989:175–6; Reese 1991). Stone beads,however, continue to be rare, although Natufian hunter-gatherers were fully capable of makingelaborate stone items (e.g. figurines). Stone beads become numerous and diverse only in theNeolithic (conventionally divided into several sub-periods, see Table 1). In the Pre-PotteryNeolithic A (PPNA) stone body ornaments begin to appear in abundance. By the MiddlePre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) most sites contain them and they become more numerousand diverse in the PPNB and Early Late Neolithic (ELN).In this paper, we address six questions:

*Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY(Email: [email protected]; [email protected])

Received: 2 April 2002; accepted: 1 October 2002

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Katherine Wright & Andrew Garrard

1 What stimulated the initial expansion of stone bead manufacture in the Neolithic?2 What can early stone ornaments tell us about social identities?3 What do aesthetic choices in stone bead-making tell us about cognition?4 What were the social units of bead production?5 To what degree can we speak of intensification and specialisation in Neolithic bead-

making?6 How was exchange in stone beads integrated into changing economies?

To answer such questions, the ideal evidence would come from excavations of several well-dated, contemporary sites in a defined region. Some, but not all, of the sites should havespecial access to a source of a localised raw material used for ornaments. Such sites wouldhave in situ bead production areas, excavated with a view to maximum recovery of micro-artefacts and biological evidence. The Jilat-Azraq Basin Project in Jordan provided just suchan opportunity. Here, Neolithic stone bead workshops were found along with evidence forthe beginnings of cultivation and sheep or goat herding.

Neolithic Settlement and Subsistence in the Jilat-Azraq Basin

The Jilat-Azraq Basin is a region of dry steppe-desert (Wadi Jilat) and oasis (Azraq), whererainfall farming is not possible today (Figure 1). Wadi Jilat lies 30–40 km east of the present-day margins of the ‘Levantine Corridor’ (the Jordan Valley and adjacent highlands) whererain-fed cultivation is possible and where large Neolithic villages emerged. Azraq Oasis lies50 km north east of Wadi Jilat in this region, on the edge of the Basalt Desert. In all, 16 latePalaeolithic and Neolithic sites have been excavated (Figure 2) (Garrard 1998, in preparation;Garrard et al. 1994a–b; Baird et al. 1992).

The earliest steps in Levantine plant cultivation took place in the Levantine Corridor inthe PPNA. In the Jilat-Azraq Basin, cultivated plants appeared only later, in the Early-MiddlePPNB (Jilat 7, Azraq 31), when agricultural villages in the adjacent Levantine Corridor werealready well established (Garrard 1999). Similarly, while domestic goat and sheep first appearedin Levantine Corridor villages in the Middle-Late PPNB (Horwitz et al. 1999), goat andsheep were introduced (by human populations) into the Jilat-Azraq Basin only later, in the

Table 1 Chronology of the southern Levant. Dates calibrated using INTCAL 98. Figures are roundedoff to the nearest 25 years.

Period 14C BP Cal BC

Upper Palaeolithic 45000–20000Epipalaeolithic (Early and Middle) 20000–12500 21750–12750Natufian (=Late Epipalaeolithic) 12500–10250 12750–10050Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) 10250–9600 10050–9000Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) 9600–9200 9000–8400Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB) 9200–8500 8400–7550Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB) 8500–8000 7550–6950Early Late Neolithic (ELN) (= PPNC) 8000–7500 6950–6400Late Neolithic (LN) (=Pottery Neolithic) 7500–6500 6400–5450Chalcolithic 6500–5500 5450–4350Early Bronze Age 5500–4000 4350–2500

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Social identities and the expansion of stone bead-making in Neolithic Western Asia

Figure 1 Map of the southern Levant.

Figure 2 Map of Wadi Jilat showing prehistoric sites (numbered)

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ELN (Jilat 13, 25, Azraq 31) (Garrard et al. 1996). By then, in the Levantine Corridor manyPPNB villages were abandoned and many of the successive ELN settlements were muchsmaller. This so-called PPNB collapse has been the subject of environmental, economic andsocial interpretations (Kuijt 2000; Rollefson & Kohler-Rollefson 1989).

The Jilat-Azraq Neolithic sites may be interpreted as seasonal camps occupied by smallgroups engaged in hunting, trapping, foraging, plant cultivation and – starting in the ELN –sheep or goat herding. Most buildings are circular or oval, cut into bedrock, with flimsy wallsmade of upright limestone slabs that supported lightweight roofs. The interiors containedpartitions, bins, hearths, postholes, benches, and worktables. The buildings are similar tothose of other steppe-desert Neolithic sites and those used by present-day nomads.

The beads

All contexts from all 16 excavated sites were sieved through a 5 mm mesh and substantialsamples were either dry or wet sieved through a 1.5 mm mesh (the latter after flotation).Artefacts from rich contexts were separated by 1m square units. Despite these procedures,not one stone bead was found in the 10 excavated late Palaeolithic sites. However, all six ofthe excavated Neolithic (or later) sites produced stone beads and related debris from securecontexts – a total of 10 528 items (Table 2).

Details of the bead technology will be published elsewhere (Wright, Garrard & Critchleyin preparation), but we present initial observations. Debris was classified into nodules, cores,flakes, microflakes and shatter. Finished ornaments occurred in eight basic types (Figure 3).Unfinished ornaments (blanks) occurred in the same forms, but have retouch scars orincomplete or absent perforations. Some contexts yielded tools clearly used in bead-making:flint drills, knives or saws, miniature mortars, sandstone abraders and limestone worktables.The beads were made from ‘Dabba Marble’ of which the main sources lie between 10–20km west of Wadi Jilat. These ‘marbles’ are localised Maastrichtian-Palaeocene limestones,chalks and cherts which have undergone light metamorphosis and injection with greenchromites and apatites, red, dark brown and black bitumens and iron oxides (Bender 1974;Jaser 1986). Similar materials may occur in isolated pockets west of the Dead Sea (HatrurimFormation; Gross 1977) (Figure 1).

The Dabba Marble used for ornaments occurs in several colours. Green, brown/black andpale red variants are recrystallised and mineralised limestones; bright red variants derivefrom altered cherts. Other materials used were dark brown/black flint, black silicifiedsandstone, white limestone/chalk, white quartz/calcite, and white flint (Figures 4–6). Onlytwo long-distance imports (turquoise and malachite) were found. The nearest malachitesources are Faynan (south Jordan) or Timna (south Israel) and the nearest source of turquoiseis southern Sinai (Figure 1).

The workshops

Most contexts of manufacture were found inside buildings and consist of true activity areasand fills above floors (Table 2). Specifics of site formation can be found in the primaryreports (e.g. Garrard et al. 1994b; Baird et al. 1992), but most of the sites represent relativelyshort-term occupations abandoned and buried fairly quickly.

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Figure 3 Typology of stone ornaments from Jilat-Azraq sites.

The sites and their contexts illustrate changes in bead-making from the PPNB to the ELN.The PPNB workshops were found at Jilat 7, Jilat 26, Jilat 32 and Azraq 31 (Table 2,Occupations 1–13). In general, PPNB bead production seems to have been modest in scaleand associated with evidence for routine domestic activities (e.g. food processing).

At Jilat 7, bead workshops were found in a house cluster (Area A/C) and in an oval dwellingwith a bedrock shelf, a bin, post-holes or bedrock mortars and two hearths (Area B) (Figure7). The most common stone ornaments were of dark brown silicified sandstone, a non-localmaterial that occurs only as finished beads, and only at Jilat 7 (Figure 4). Bone ornamentsand shell beads (of either Mediterranean or Red Sea origin) were also found (Martin &Reese, in Garrard et al. 1994b and Baird et al. 1992). These buildings contained well-made,unbroken basalt vessels, and caches of robust grinding slabs and handstones.

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At Jilat 26, two workshops were excavated amongst the 20 buildings revealed (Garrard etal. 1994b: Figure 3). Area C revealed a sunken, circular dwelling, with a hearth, a posthole/mortar and work-tables inside. Area A revealed a rectangular structure partitioned into fourniches. In plan (but not building technique), this structure resembles ‘pier houses’ in LevantineCorridor villages (Byrd & Banning 1988). Dabba Marble debris, worked bone and shellsand ground stone artefacts were present but scarce. At Jilat 32, a small oval house was exposedwith ashy deposits inside. A few Dabba Marble debris fragments were found, along with acomplete mortar and pestle. At Azraq 31, Trench 1 revealed Late PPNB hearths in an outdoorarea, with beads and debris found in situ. The debitage shows that Dabba Marble was imported

Figure 4 Unfinished bead blanks and finished beads fromJilat 7 (PPNB). Left column: bead blanks, green DabbaMarble. Middle column: irregular beads, dark brownsilicified sandstone. Right column: disc beads, red DabbaMarble (top and middle), and white chalk bead blank(bottom right).

Figure 6 Pendants from Jilat 13 (ELN), green DabbaMarble.

Figure 5 Unfinished bead blanks and finished beads fromJilat 13 (ELN), in red and green Dabba Marble. Top 3rows: unfinished bead blanks; Bottom 2 rows: finished beads.Note the red flint variant of Dabba Marble (at top right).

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as raw material and worked on site. Only three bone beads and two marine shells (ofMediterranean origin) were recovered.

In the Early Late Neolithic sites, changes could be observed, especially at Azraq 31, Jilat25, and Jilat 13 (Table 2, Occupations 14–21). Generally, ELN bead production seems tohave been larger in scale and associated with evidence for more specialised, craft–relatedactivities.

The ELN occupation at Azraq 31 consisted of large outdoor pits (Area B) and two ovalbuildings (Area C). Much more bead-making debris was recovered in the ELN phase, incomparison to the PPNB at this site. Debris and blanks indicate that Dabba Marble wasimported as raw material. Of the shell beads, mother-of-pearl appears for the first time, as doshells native only to the Red Sea – evidence of wider exchange networks. Ground stoneartefacts were scanty, but included a miniature mortar with ochre residue. At Jilat 25, a singleoval building was exposed (Figure 8b), with postholes, stone-lined pits, and hearths. Themost common finished beads were red Dabba Marble discs; there were also white chalkbracelets. Marine shells included species native only to the Red Sea. Ground stone itemswere small sandstone abraders and work-slabs with cut-marks and percussion marks.

Jilat 13 was contemporary with Jilat 25 and ELN Azraq 31 (see 14C dates in Table 2). AreasA–C at Jilat 13 revealed an oval structure, the largest Neolithic building found (Figure 8a).The interior contained partition walls, postholes, pavements and hearths. Finished bodyornaments displayed the widest range of materials of all the sites, including two importedbeads, one of malachite (from Faynan or Timna) and one of turquoise (from Sinai). Morebone and shell beads were found here than at any other Neolithic site; the shells includemother-of-pearl and four species of Red Sea origin. Ground stone artefacts were mainlyminiature mortars and pestles, limestone handstones, cut-marked slabs, small sandstoneabraders, and pebbles with ochre residues. Limestone pillars carved into statues were alsofound, along with animal and phallic figurines. Finally, a large limestone work-slab wasfound near a bin. Similar working surfaces have been found with bead-making debris inhouses at PPNB Beidha (Kirkbride 1966:25).

Social identities and the expansion of stone bead-making in theNeolithic

What underlay the new demand for stone body ornaments in the Neolithic? One clue lies inthe diversity of early stone beads. Of the few Natufian stone beads, most are circular discs oroval pendants, smaller than the predominant bone and shell ornaments. The PPNA andPPNB stone ornaments are larger and much more diverse. Beads are discoidal, barrel-shaped,cylindrical, and spherical; pendants are square, rectangular, or triangular (e.g., Gopher1997:170; Talbot 1983:789–90; Wheeler 1983:782–4). In the Jilat-Azraq workshops, (EarlyPPNB to ELN), there are eight basic forms (with variations), in eleven materials (eight local,three exotic) and four colours (green, red, dark brown/black, white) (Figures 3 and 9). Theyinclude relatively standardised circular disc beads (mostly of red Dabba Marble); variablebarrel beads (mostly green Dabba Marble); large pendants in several shapes (mostly greenDabba Marble); and bracelets (of white chalk).

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Figure 7 Jilat 7 (PPNB): (a) structures in Area A/C; (b) structures in Area B and Trench 2. For site plan see Garrard et al.1994: figure 2.

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Figure 8 (a) Jilat 13 (ELN), Areas A–C (late phase).(b) Jilat 25 (ELN), Area A. For site plans see Garrard et al. 1994:figures 5–6.

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Used alone, bone and shell ornaments limit the visual impact conveyed by the wearer. Byadding stone ornaments to the repertoire, variations can be much greater, in colour, size andshape. A greater diversity in individual beads also makes possible a greater diversity in beadcombinations. Consequently, it becomes possible to define a greater number of ‘signatures’or non-verbal messages conveying an individual’s place in his or her social milieu. A greaternumber of statuses, roles and social personae (such as age, gender and group affiliations)could be defined for a given individual.

Ethnographies show that permissible dress often marks key stages and transitions in anindividual’s life. Examples include coming of age; membership in sodalities (e.g. huntinggroups, cf. ‘war paint’); chastity (cf. veiling); marriage (cf. wedding rings) (Turner 1969).Rules governing such customs can be quite rigid as a means of ensuring social control of theindividual. Treatment of an individual’s hair is often also used to convey the degree of socialcontrol (Hallpike 1969) and Australians use body painting for political purposes (Layton1989). In fact, social control of the human body may be the mechanism par excellence ofenculturation, the imprinting of a culture on an individual (Bourdieu 1977:94; cf. Meskell1996). Dress and body decoration can serve to construct social identities such as gender andethnicity; they can also form an arena for individual expression (Eicher 1995; Jones 1996;Sφrenson 1997, 2000; Strathern & Strathern 1971).

Early Neolithic villagers were increasingly sedentary, living in close year-round contactand depending on specific arable territories. This situation must have affected neighbouring(arid-zone) groups as well. In these circumstances, social controls were probably becomingmore important, to define individuals, social boundaries, territories, group affiliations andshared values. The ‘presentation of the self in everyday life’ (Goffman 1956) seems to take ona new emphasis and a new degree of complexity in the Neolithic. The human body may alsobe used to symbolise cosmologies (Douglas 1996). By adding stone ornaments to bone andshell ornaments, it becomes possible to express a wider range of meanings.

There is other evidence that variations in dress conveyed important information about anindividual’s identity. Anthropomorphic art, very rare in Natufian sites, proliferates in theNeolithic. Figurines, statues, paintings, and plastered adult skulls all testify to a profoundinterest in the human body. Figurines and statues have decorations indicating clothing,ornaments, hair. Depictions of hunters carefully delineate variations in clothing (especiallyhead-dress), and caches of special objects implying males and hunting activities indicatesomething similar (e.g. from Jericho, ‘Ain Ghazal, Dhuweila, Nahal Hemar, cf. Çatalhöyük:Bar-Yosef & Alon 1988; Betts 1998; McAdam 1997; Mellaart 1966; Tubb & Grissom 1995;Wright 2000).

Aesthetic choices, cognition and value

Despite the available diversity of the Neolithic stone beads, the Jilat-Azraq beadmakers hadcertain colour preferences. Green Dabba Marble overwhelmingly dominates the bead-makingdebitage at each site and accounts for most of the unfinished bead blanks (Figures 9–10).Green Dabba Marble was also used to make the largest, most conspicuous, and most diverseornaments (barrel beads, pendants), which, when worn, would have made the strongestvisual impact (Figures 5–6). Consequently, it appears that the green colour was emphasised.There seems to have been a particular, and widespread, interest in green-coloured ornaments

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across the Levant and beyond. Unspecified ‘greenstone’ and other green beads are widelyreported and sometimes dominate bead assemblages from the PPNA onward (e.g. Garfinkel1987:79; Gopher 1997:167; Talbot 1983:788; Wheeler 1983:781). Generally, bodyornaments are a rich but under-developed source for investigating colour classifications andother aspects of cognition. Red, the second most common colour in the Jilat ornaments,perhaps formed a structural opposition to green (and perhaps similarly for dark brown/blackversus white). It is tempting to infer certain meanings (e.g. green/ fertility/vegetation/life vs.red/blood/animals/death) but we cannot substantiate them.

Thus, symbolic value (Appadurai 1986) probably played a role in Neolithic bead choices.A high cultural value placed on green beads may have affected the eventual development ofcopper metallurgy (A. Hauptmann, pers. comm.). Neolithic villagers in Wadi Faynan (acopper source) specialised in green beads made of local copper ores (Simmons & Najjar1998). Bead-making continued as a ‘sideline’ of early copper-working villages in Faynan inthe Early Bronze Age, when settlements proliferated there (Adams & Genz 1995; Wright etal. 1998). By contrast, in Wadi Jilat the wave of Dabba Marble exploitation peaked in theELN and declined thereafter. Jilat 27 (Early Bronze Age) produced only a tiny amount of(green) Dabba Marble debris. By then, mere stone beads were perhaps no longer enough andgreen-coloured minerals had to be of a very particular kind.

Household production, intensification and specialisation

To what degree can we speak of craft specialisation in early stone bead-making? Obviously,the large-scale specialisation characteristic of urban societies does not apply here, butprehistorians have often wondered whether there was specialisation amongst Neolithic groups.Costin (1991) suggests that archaeological patterns left by specialist craftsmen should showthree characteristics: (1) artefacts are differentially distributed among production units(households, communities, regions); (2) there is a high density of craft production debrisrelative to some other generally used item; (3) there are high ratios of unfinished goods tofinished goods. What patterns occur in the Jilat-Azraq sites?

In the PPNB sites the buildings occur in small clusters and the structures and assemblagesimply that small domestic households were the social units of ornament production. Assumingthat the samples are representative, variability between sites implies that in this period bead-making was an opportunistic activity emphasised by some groups (Jilat 7) but not others(Jilat 26, 32). Bead-making in PPNB Jilat-Azraq was not on a very large scale; the PPNBsites account for only 7.6% of all stone bead-making artefacts from the Neolithic sites. Theoverall densities of beads and related debris are also consistently low (Table 2). However, thePPNB sites account for 66.7% of all Neolithic ground stone artefacts (58.3% from Jilat 7alone) and the densities of ground stone are high. Shaft straighteners and food processingtools (handstones, grinding slabs) overwhelmingly dominate the ground stone (Wright 1992).Thus, bead-making appears to be embedded in – a sideline of – routine domestic activities.

By contrast, the ELN bead-makers’ buildings are isolated, not clustered, and one (Jilat 13)is unusually large. Finished ornaments are diverse; for the first time, the full range of formsshown in Figure 3 is seen. Bead-making was conducted on a much larger scale than in thePPNB. Of all stone beads and related artefacts recovered in the project, 92.4% came fromELN sites (88.1% from Jilat 25 and Jilat 13 alone), and the densities of bead-making artefacts

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are at their highest (Table 2).However, ground stoneartefacts from ELN sitesaccount for only 33.3% of allNeolithic ground stone. Theground stone artefacts are alsovery different, with very few(mainly fragmentary) foodprocessing tools. Instead,sandstone abraders (notfound in PPNB contexts),miniature tools, andworktables dominate, whilststatues and figurines alsooccur, all signalling a greateremphasis on bead-makingand other crafts (Wright1992). Thus, relative to thePPNB, the ELN sites indicateintensification in craftproduction, with an increasedelement of (site)specialisation.

The ratios of unfinishedgoods (debris and blanks) tofinished beads are enormous,by both number and weight(Figures 9–10). Debris andunfinished bead blanksgreatly emphasise greenDabba Marble, whilstfinished ornaments occur ina much broader range ofmaterials. In short, thebeadmakers were making amuch narrower range of beadmaterials than they wereactually using (consuming) atthese sites. From these data,we venture that the Jilat-Azraq beadmakers werespecialising in green DabbaMarble, and producingsurpluses (stockpiles) of the Figure 9 Frequency of debris, unfinished blanks, and finished ornaments, by raw material,

at Jilat 7, Jilat 25, Jilat 13, PPNB Azraq 31 (A31–P) and ELN Azraq 31 (A31–E). ‘Other’includes dark brown/black flint, white flint, white quartz/calcite, malachite, turquoise.

Debitage (n)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Green Dabba Marble Red Dabba Marble

White Limestone/Chalk Sandstone Other

Perc

enta

ge

J7(n=564)

J25(n=1381)

J13(n=7369)

AZ31–PPN(n=48)

AZ31–ELN(n=376)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Perc

enta

ge

Unfinished blanks (n)

J7(n=23)

J25(n=88)

J13(n=180)

AZ31–PPN(n=0)

AZ31–ELN(n=23)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Perc

enta

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Finished ornaments (n)

J7(n=23)

J25(n=116)

J13(n=144)

AZ31–PPN(n=5)

AZ31–ELN(n=54)

Black Dabba Marble

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raw material, possibly forexport in that form (seeprevious page).

How much time wasnecessary to produce thesebeads? We have not yet begunexperiments to measure this,but an ethnoarchaeologicalstudy of agate bead-making inKhambat (India) is thought-provoking (Kenoyer et al.1991:50–59). Withtraditional techniques, thetime required for bead-making in Khambat wasformidable, from initialproduction stages (3–4months); hand sawing of onenodule (3–4 hours);handgrinding (4 hours to 4days); drilling (2–10 hoursper centimetre); andpolishing with abrasives (15days).

The Khambhat project wasdesigned to comparearchaeological patternsproduced by bothentrepreneurial householdsmaking beads on a small scaleto supplement income, andelite families specialising inbead-making. Houses ofsmall-scale entrepreneurswere characterised by lowquantities of debris andunfinished beads and rapidlyfluctuating bead styles, withlittle standardisation overtime. By contrast, houses ofelite bead merchants werecharacterised by stockpilingof raw materials andunfinished blanks (oftenrecycled or sold) and long-

Figure 10 Weight of debris, unfinished blanks, and finished ornaments, by raw material, atJilat 7, Jilat 25, Jilat 13, PPNB Azraq 31 (A31–P) and ELN Azraq 31 (A31–E). ‘Other’includes dark brown/black flint, white flint, white quartz/calcite, malachite, turquoise.

Debitage (weight in grams)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Perc

enta

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J7(n=864g)

J25(n=976g)

J13(n=6905g)

AZ31–PPN(n=79g)

AZ31–ELN(n=370g)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Perc

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Unfinished blanks (weight in grams)

J7(n=21g)

J25(n=82g)

J13(n=222g)

AZ31–PPN(n=0g)

AZ31–ELN(n=75g)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Perc

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Finished ornaments (weight in grams)

J7(n=11g)

J25(n=62g)

J13(n=60g)

AZ31–PPN(n=2g)

AZ31–ELN(n=47g)

Green Dabba Marble Red Dabba Marble

White Limestone/Chalk Sandstone Other

Black Dabba Marble

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term standardisation in the materials and types of ornaments produced. The ELN workshops,especially Jilat 13 and Jilat 25, display patterns closer to the second category.

Regional variation and exchange networks

Systematic sourcing studies do not yet exist for Levantine stone body ornaments, but we canmake some preliminary observations, focusing on the Jilat sites (closest to the Dabba Marblesource) and their relationships to other regions.

Of the thousands of stone beads and manufacturing debris recovered from the Jilat sites,fewer than 25 items are exotics. The source of the silicified sandstone items from PPNB Jilat7 is unknown. Apart from one possible blank, we have no clear evidence for the manufactureof silicified sandstone beads at Jilat 7. The only other exotics are the two finished beads ofmalachite and turquoise from Jilat 13, which derive from Faynan/Timna and Sinai (Figure1). In short, the exotics in the Jilat sites appear to have arrived on the sites as finished beads.On the other hand, there is evidence for export of Dabba Marble to sites far from Wadi Jilat(see below). It seems likely that the Jilat stone beadmakers were producing some DabbaMarble for export as raw material. In turn, they acquired a very few exotic finished beads,and perhaps other commodities (e.g., sheep and goat in the ELN; cf. Martin 1999). In theELN, the exotic beads were acquired from wider exchange networks (turquoise, malachite,mother of pearl, Red Sea shells).

As the Jilat sites were seasonal (probably occupied in the wet season, autumn to spring),where were the complementary, dry-season sites? The candidates are Azraq Oasis and theBasalt Desert, to the east, and the Levantine Corridor, to the west. Dabba Marble from WadiJilat was certainly exported as raw material to points east (Azraq 31; Dhuweila). The closeststylistic parallels to the Jilat ornaments also come from these sites (Cooke & Reese, in Betts1998:138–140). Thus the Jilat beads fall within a common eastern desert style of bead-making (and similarly for lithics; Baird 1993).

Ornaments from the Levantine Corridor villages differ sharply from this eastern desertstyle. Here, ornaments were made mainly of local materials, whilst the forms of finishedornaments seem to differ from site to site. ‘Ain Ghazal has mostly chalk pendants, tubularand butterfly-shaped beads, and bone finger rings. Thick sandstone bracelets dominate atBasta and Ba’ja; agate beads at Beidha; painted wooden beads at Nahal Hemar (Rollefson etal. 1990; cf. Bar-Yosef & Alon 1988; Gebel et al. 1997; Kirkbride 1966; Nissen et al. 1987;Talbot 1983; Wheeler 1983).

However, small quantities of exotic stones also occur in the villages (e.g. Garfinkel 1987).These stones occur as raw nodules, debris, unfinished beads, and finished beads made intolocal Levantine Corridor styles. Thus, some of these exotics were clearly imported in theform of the raw material. For example, at ‘Ain Ghazal, manufacturing debris of green DabbaMarble was found, along with other foreign materials (e.g. carnelian). Green Dabba Marbleand carnelian were both made into butterfly-shaped beads, a local style with no parallels inJilat (see Rollefson 1984:10; 1985:52; Rollefson and Simmons 1986:160; Rollefson et al.1990:103–104). Similarly, Neolithic stone beads from Negev and Sinai display distinctivecharacteristics not seen in eastern Jordan (e.g. Mayer 1997; Goring-Morris & Gopher1983:156). Elsewhere in western Asia, stone bead repertoires are also very different fromregion to region and site to site (Wright, Garrard & Critchley in preparation).

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These regional specialisations and small-scale exchanges probably testify to the role oftrade in forming alliances and creating ‘social storage’ or social capital stored for harder times(cf. Mayer 1997; O’Shea 1981). Early territorial food producers probably needed suchstrategies. Dependence on annual rainfall, which in the Levant varies enormously from yearto year and place to place, meant that crop failures could occur unpredictably and might bedisastrous without some sort of risk-buffering. For early food producers, one way to counteractthe risks of dependence on specific territories would have been to form exchange relationshipsand strategic alliances with other villages and with nomadic communities in neighbouring,arid regions such as Jilat-Azraq.

Conclusions

In western Asia, the beginnings of stone bead-making on a significant scale coincided withthe appearance of plant domestication and village life in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. By theELN, evidence from eastern Jordan shows a correlation between greater specialisation inbead-making and wider trade networks on the one hand and the introduction of domesticsheep/goat on the other. Domestication of sheep and goat may have opened up wider regionaltrade networks in exotic items from remote, distant, and arid areas – well before domesticationof pack animals (cf. Sherratt 1981). Early stone beadmaking can therefore be understood interms of new social and economic needs created by sedentary life.

AcknowledgementsWe are grateful to the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, the British Academy, the Council for British Researchin the Levant, and the Wainwright Fund. For useful discussions we thank Douglas Baird, Brian Byrd, Pat Critchley,Susan Colledge, Jack Green, Andreas Hauptmann and Louise Martin.

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