Neolithic Ayn Abu Nukhayla Reveals Mixed Economy, Seasonal Settlement In Wadi Rum

(MENAFN- Jordan Times) AMMAN - Ayn Abu Nukhayla, located in Wadi Rum Desert, is a Neolithic site and run-off rain supported pastoralism and farming in the area.

The excavation of the qa' pit emerged as a major part of the research during field work in 2005 and 2006. The pit was expanded and deepened in an effort to gather additional environmental data as well as economic information from the pollen and the phytoliths of cereals and from microscopic fecal spherulites from goat and sheep dung, said Professor Emeritus from The University of Tulsa Donald Henry.

"The chronometry of the sediment column of the qa' pit was also reined through the collection of samples for optically stimulated luminescence [OSL] determinations that complemented the series of 14C dates," Henry said, adding that other research efforts were also directed towards better understanding how the inhabitants of the site subsisted.

Faunal analysis confirmed the presence of domesticated sheep and goats and further suggested the seasons in which Ayn Abu Nukhayla was occupied.

Concentrations of fecal spherulites in some of the pit-houses pointed to their dual use for human shelter as well as animal enclosures, most likely during lambing season, Henry continued, noting that phytoliths recovered from the sediment samples of living floors and from grinding stones not only identified specific areas of cereal processing, but also that wheat was the cereal being milled.

The results of the phytolith (a micro-botanical technique used in archaeology to study ancient plant remains) studies were further corroborated by Emery-Barbier's (pollen analyses in which she identified anthers and Cerealia type pollen.

"Edge-wear studies by Kay identified microscopic sickle sheen on relatively high proportions of chipped stone blades further pointing to cereal cultivation and harvesting near the site. Beyond evidence for foraging, herding and farming at Ayn Abu Nukhayla, extensive, far lung trade in ornamental shells was traced through the study of a rich shell assemblage from the site," Henry elaborated

The professor added that integration of these diverse lines of evidence began to offer insights into the broader landuse strategies followed by the inhabitants of Ayn Abu Nukhayla and furnish a picture quite different from that usually presented for Middle PPNB inhabitants of Levantine deserts.

Rather than living as groups restricted to mobile foraging, the groups that settled seasonally at Ayn Abu Nukhayla followed very much of a mixed economy based upon farming, herding, foraging and trading.

"They appear to have done this along the edge of the better watered areas of the Ma'an Plateau and the arid zone by following a pattern of transhumance in which they moved seasonally to different elevational belts to take advantage of peaks in the availability of water, pasturage, and other resources," Henry said.

"The settlement-procurement strategy of the inhabitants of the site appears to have depended largely on three inter-related factors," he outlined.

First, a moist pulse provided sufficient upland rainfall to regularly charge the qa' over an interval of about two centuries and this, in turn, allowed groups to cultivate cereals on the floor of the qa'.

Finally, the groups integrated foraging, herding, farming, and trading into a seasonal cycle of settlement at Ayn Abu Nukhayla followed by an upland migration to the Maan Plateau.

"It is important to recognise here that herding and farming were newly acquired economic practices that, when combined with foraging, provided unusual and heretofore unavailable settlement options to the inhabitants of the area."

The groups inhabiting the site are thought to have settled there seasonally, most likely from late fall until late spring - early summer depending upon the timing and amount of winter rain, the professor added.

"His schedule would have accommodated the sowing of cereals on the qa' in October - November before the winter rains, a gamble that would not have been taken if there had not been a good chance that sufficient rains would come," Henry elaborated.

Beyond providing food for the groups inhabiting Ayn Abu Nukhayla, the cereal would also have provided fodder for the herd animals and the wheat chaff would have been especially important as a grazing supplement.

"It was during the autumn segment of settlement at the site that a grazing supplement would have been most needed, for it was then, at the end of the dry season, that grasses and forbs would have been least abundant in the area of the site, the professor said.

"The chaff stored from the previous season's harvest would have provided such a supplement to bridge animals over to grazing the new growth that would have emerged with the winter rains; a practice followed today by Bedouin groups living in the area," Henry explained, adding that the abundance of forage would have increased through the winter and spring, beginning to declinein the late spring.

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