Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (12.2000(2001))

TELL QARAMEL

SYRIA

Pottery from the deeper-lying layers
appears to belong to the Middle Bronze
Age and is similar to sherds found at Tell
Rifarat H5 and Tell Hailane.
The deepest layers reached this year
contained pottery which can be dated to the

Early Bronze IV period. Close parallels are
to be found among sherds retrieved from the
Kiln Dump at Tell Kadrich (e.g. fine-ware
ring-based goblets with ribbed decoration,
bowls with crescent rims and a cordon
below the rim on the outside, etc.).

CHIPPED STONE INDUSTRY

Flint artifacts were found in all the
excavated trenches this year, on the surface
of the tell, and on the spot of the PPNA
settlement. Almost all of them were made
from local raw material of chocolate color,
easily available in the form of small
concretions and pebbles. Other flint
material, as well as gray obsidian (most
likely imported from Turkey) occurs, albeit
seldom. Blades and flakes were obtained
from bipolar cores with opposite platform to
blade, as well as short conical cores with a
single platform, and to a lesser degree from
splinters. Among tools, which constitute
over a dozen percent of all flint artifacts,
points are the most numerous group.
Moreover, retouched blades, end-scrapers,
sickle blades, burins, retouched flakes,
perforators, scrapers, borers, saws, and
truncations can be distinguished.
The chronological and cultural classi-
fication of tools is still provisional at the
present stage of the research. Unfortunately,

artifacts clearly associated with PPNA and
Early PPNB tend to co-exist with evidently
younger forms belonging to the Pottery
Neolithic, Chalcolitic, and Bronze Age
periods.
As for typical PPNA forms, El-Khiam
points occur (A 10, A 12, according to
Cauvin's classification4)) together with
Mureybet (A 25 - A 32) and a single
specimen of an erminette. Furthermore, some
of our end-scrapers and perforators look like
analogous tools known from the PPNA
settlement at Mureybet, for example. Other
flint tools made of blades, like retouched
blades, end-scrapers, sickle blades, burins,
borers, saws; truncations, are derived from
unipolar and bipolar cores. They are
encountered in comparable percentages at
our site. These tools, of much smaller size
than those typical of the PPNA and PPNB,
are known from both the Pottery Neolithic
and the Chalcolitic periods, and in the case
of sickle blades from the Bronze Age, too.

GROUND AND PECKED STONE INDUSTRY

The ground and pecked stone industry of
Tell Qaramel is represented by a big
number of complete or partly preserved
querns IIBla, IIEla and grinders IIIEla,
IIIE2a, IIIE2b and IIIB1, IIIB2 (in

Mazurowski's classification).5) They are
nearly all made of basalt and may
represent occupation of different periods,
starting from the PPNA. Unfortunately,
most of the objects discovered in this

4) M.C. Cauvin, D. Stordeur, Les oucillages lithiques et osseux de Mureybet, Syria, Fonilies (Van Loon 1965). Publications
de l'URA n° 17, Cabiers de I’Euphrate no. 1 (Paris 1978).
5) R.F. Mazurowski, Ground and pecked stone industry in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Northern Iraq, in: S.K. Koztowski
(ed.), Neinrik 9- Pre-Pottery Neolithic Site in Iraq, vol. 3 (Warsaw 1997).

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