Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (15.2003(2004))

TELL QARAMEL

SYRIA

The predominant raw material for heavy
tools was basalt, followed by calcareous
mudstone and limestone. Pestles, celts
ornaments and shaft straighteners nearly all
were made of chlorite pebbles. Mortars and

pounders remained rare. Many of the
described stone relics were found reused in
walls and floors. The beads and pendants
were discovered mostly in the fill of the
“grill house” and its vicinity.

CONCLUSIONS

In the past three seasons, no less than 35
circular, ovoid or rectangular (two) houses
attributed to the PPNA horizon were dis-
covered. The chipped-stone and ground-
and pecked-stone industries represent the
full sequence of development in a period
when the domestication of plants and
animals had started and architecture began
to be an important feature.

In the light of 23 radiocarbon dates
(noncalibrated), the settlement at Qaramel
can be said to have existed uninter-
ruptedly from about the middle of the 9th
to the middle of the 8th millennium BC.
It was established in a very early El-
Khiam horizon and was not abandoned
until a developed phase of the PPNA
period.

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