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The human face and the origins of the Neolithic: the carved bone wand from Tell Qarassa North, Syria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Juan José Ibáñez ,
Jesús E. González-Urquijo  and
Frank Braemer
Juan José Ibáñez
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Institució Milà i Fontanals, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Calle Egipciaques 15, E-08001 Barcelona, Spain (Email: ibanezjj@imf.csic.es)
Jesús E. González-Urquijo
Affiliation:
Institute of Prehistory (IIIPC), Universidad de Cantabria, Avenida de los Castros s/n, E-39005 Santander, Spain (Email: gonzalje@unican.es)
Frank Braemer
Affiliation:
Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, Pôle Universitaire, Saint Jean d'Angély, SJA 3 – CEPAM, CNRS UMR 7264, 24 Avenue des Diables Bleus, F-06357 Nice Cedex 4, France (Email: frank.braemer@cepam.cnrs.fr)
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Abstract

The origins of the Neolithic in the Near East were accompanied by significant ritual and symbolic innovations. New light is thrown on the social context of these changes by the discovery of a bone wand displaying two engraved human faces from the Early Neolithic site of Tell Qarassa in Syria, dating from the late ninth millennium BC. This small bone object from a funerary layer can be related to monumental statuary of the same period in the southern Levant and south-east Anatolia that probably depicted powerful supernatural beings. It may also betoken a new way of perceiving human identity and of facing the inevitability of death. By representing the deceased in visual form the living and the dead were brought closer together.

Keywords

SyriaTell Qarassa Northninth millennium BCPre-Pottery Neolithichuman representationfunerary ritualfigurative artplastered skullsNeolithic transition
Type
Research articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 339 , March 2014 , pp. 81 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2014

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