Chapter 5: Neolithic 3 Tell Neba'a Faour (Pages 344-345)

Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

Tell Neba'a Faour I lies on the east side of the Bekaa Valley at the foot of an outlier of the Anti-Lebanon not far from the present road from Beirut to Damascus (See Page 87 in *1 Below). A stream now flows at its foot but we do not know if it was there in the Neolithic. The site is a large low mound which has been heavily eroded since its abandonment and has recently been damaged by road and house building. Plaster floors laid on beds of stones could be seen in exposed sections (See Page 88 ibid).

A considerable amount of chipped stone - pottery and some other material was collected from the Neolithic layers in sections opened up by recent disturbance. Flint blades were struck off pyramidal and double-ended cores. All the arrowheads were tanged and pressure flaked; some of them were Byblos points and Amuq points of types 1 and 2 (See Figure 2A ibid). The sickle blades were segmented and some were backed; they had either fine or coarse denticulation along their cutting elges. Two flaked axe-like tools with polished edges were found but these had been reused as other tools and were not really diagnostic. The remaining tools consisted of a variety of scrapers - burins and retouched blades. A little obsidian was found at the site.

Fragments of querns and basalt rubbers were collected as well as stone vessels. One of the latter came from a fine hemispherical bowl with a bead rim. A number of white plaster vessel fragments of large dishes and bowls with ring bases were also picked up from the site (See Figure 2B ibid).

The sherds were buff - brown - grey and black in colour with a little grit and straw filler. Despite this variety in colour the range of shapes and decoration was limited. The vessels were either hole-mouth jars or hemispherical bowls some of which had the unusual feature of ring bases. They were supported by ledge handles and pierced lugs. Most of the pots vere burnished and a few were decorated with incised or combed patterns; one was scraped with a cardium shell like so much of the pottery from Byblos (See Page 89 ibid). A few vessels were painted in red but it is not clear if these belonged to this or a later phase of occupation.

The diagnostic flints - white plaster ware and the simple burnished pottery all resemble the material from Neolithique Ancien Byblos despite a few local idiosyncracies. Neba'a Faour like the Labweh sites was occupied in Neolithic 3 .....