Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (13.2001(2002))

TELL QARAMEL

SYRIA

SQUARE J-7

Pre-pottery Neolithic levels were finally
reached this year with only small intrusions
of EB IV layers in the upper parts of the
filling of earlier structures. The Pre-pottery
Neolithic settlement sequence discovered
to date in trench J-7 consists of three
occupational phases. Virgin soil has yet to
be reached.
From the earliest phase is a fragment of
a round house, Loc. 26 (Fig. 1) discovered
in the southwestern corner of the square. It
has a tamped floor made of hard clay and
probably a low bench, of which a big flat
stone is all that remains. Walls, which are c.
0.2 m thick, were built of large upended
stone slabs, leaning outward slightly and
supplemented in the upper part by smaller
stones. This structure has a close parallel in
the partly preserved Loc. 17 discovered in
the lowest level of trench K-5. Also
belonging to the oldest phase is a pit,
situated close to the southern trench wall,
filled with ashes and bones, possibly with a
fireplace in the upper part.
The most important structure existing
in phase 2 was a round building — Loc. 24
— of which nearly half was unearthed within
the limits of the trench (Fig. 2). Since the
foundation level has not been reached yet, it
is possible that this building was erected in
an earlier phase of occupation, perhaps on
virgin soil: In the lower part it probably
had an outer diameter of c. 7.5 m. Only the
southern part of the wall is preserved; the
building was partially destroyed in this
phase and Loc. 29, described below, was
built in its place. The wall of Loc. 24 in its
preserved part is 2.25 m wide and is
constructed of large unshaped stones up to
0.8 m in length on both (external and
internal) faces. The space inside the wall is
filled with smaller stones set in red clay.
The filling of this structure consisted of

large and small stones in brown, loose earth
with EB IV sherds. This substantial
building could be interpreted as a tower
constituting part of the settlement defense
system. It remains to be fully explored and
its role in the presumed line of
fortifications to be examined.
Loc. 29, which is poorly preserved, is
a small structure replacing part of the de-
stroyed wall of Loc. 24 and is surrounded
by a narrow (c. 0.2 m) wall of yellow clay.
It was built against the wall of another
round house (Loc. 25), situated in the west-
ern part of the trench and only partly with-
in its limits. The upper part of a Loc. 25
wall was constructed of blocks of tamped
yellow clay (pise), c. 0.3 m wide and 0.7 m
long, laid on a stone wall, which rested on
layers of small stones. The space inside this
wall was reused later as a place where
a double-chamber fireplace surrounded by
stones or a small oven was built.
Immediately south of Loc. 24 a shallow
depression, c. 2 m in diameter, filled with
a large quantity of animal bones was
discovered.
In phase 3, Loc. 24 (tower) was recon-
structed on a slightly different plan. Above
the layers of small pebbles set in red clay,
a stone wall c. 1.2 m wide was raised. The
building had an outer diameter of c. 6.5 m.
Also belonging in this latest Pre-pottery
Neolithic phase is the previously uncovered
round structure in the southeastern corner
of the trench (Loc. 17).
An open space or courtyard appears to
have surrounded the loci in all of the
discerned phases. Successive layers consist
of dark and light gray ashes, concentrations
of pebbles, layers of reddish clay, greenish
soft earth with decayed organic matter, and
also flint artifacts and amazing quantities of
animal bones.

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