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Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the tenth millennium cal BC in northern Syria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2012

George Willcox  and
Danielle Stordeur
George Willcox
Affiliation:
Archéorient CNRS UMR 5133, Jalès, Berrias 07460, France (Email for correspondence: gwillcox@wanadoo.fr)
Danielle Stordeur
Affiliation:
Archéorient CNRS UMR 5133, Jalès, Berrias 07460, France (Email for correspondence: gwillcox@wanadoo.fr)
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Extract

At Jerf el Ahmar in northern Syria the authors have excavated a settlement where the occupants were harvesting and processing barley 1000 years in advance of its domestication. Rows of querns installed in square stone and daub buildings leave no doubt that this was a community dedicated to the systematic production of food from wild cereals. Given the plausible suggestion that barley was being cultivated, the site opens a window onto a long period of pre-domestic agriculture. Rye was also harvested, its chaff used to temper mud walls.

Keywords

LevantSyriaagriculturebarleyquerns
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 331 , March 2012 , pp. 99 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2012

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