AMMAN — Shubayqa 6 is located some 130 kilometres northeast of Amman and is identified as a site from 12,100 to 10,600 years ago.

 

The earliest structure comprises a large oval structure, Space 4, with internal benches built along the walls and a stone-paved floor.

 

Radiocarbon dates for the use of these two structures date from c. 12,100– 11,500 cal. BP (Late Natufian to the Early Pre- Pottery Neolithic A (EPPNA)); although the original hearths from the two structures have not yet been Dated, noted Lisa Yeomans from The University of Copenhagen.

 

"A later phase of architecture, dated to the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, associated with the construction of smaller oval structures and modification of the pre-existing architecture," Yeomans said.

 

The cluster of artefacts, left against the western wall, may have been placed

 

within in a container of perishable material when the structure was abandoned given that the finds were all found in close association, the archaeologist continued, noting that the group of artefacts includes five grooved stones, a large quantity of ostrich eggshell and worked bone items.

 

"Many artefacts were left in a broken state and some grooved stones appear to be heat damaged, leaving one altered to such a powdery condition it was rendered functionally useless," Yeomans said.

 

Very fine parallel incisions were also noted crossing the groove and similar decorated grooved stones are known from sites on the middle Euphrates, e.g. Mureybet and Sheikh Hassan.

 

"Two of the Shubayqa 6 grooved stones are split into two halves, the halves of the same grooved stone being separate when found. This separation, alongside the apparent heat damage to some items, but not to the assemblage as a whole, is consistent with intentional destruction prior to deposition," Yeomans noted.

 

Bones of gazelle and sheep were also present. Initially these bones were thought to represent a store of raw material.

 

 

The bones formed 21 sets of articulating phalanges from a minimum of four gazelle and six sheep.

 

"Two groups of foot bones represent an animal probably around 8–10 months of age. Another single foot might be from a slightly younger sheep, while the last group of foot bones would have been from a sheep less than about six

 

months of age at time of death," Yeomans outlined.

 

At least 10 animals are, therefore, represented by the 21 sets of foot bones in the cluster. Seven of the sets were from gazelle, the most commonly hunted mammal at both Shubayqa 6 and the earlier nearby Natufian site of Shubayqa 1.

 

"Fourteen sets were from wild sheep, which were also present in both the faunal assemblages of Shubayqa 1 and Shubayqa 6. Analysis of the entire faunal assemblage from Shubayqa 6 is ongoing, but thus far gazelle are more than six times more frequent than sheep," Yeomans underscored.