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Other Archaeological Sites / The Neolithic of the Levant (500 Page Book Online)
Chapter 6: Neolithic 4 (Page 446-447)
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums Before considering the other Lebanese Heavy Neolithic sites on the west side of the mountains I wish to discuss several sites of this kind found long ago in northern Palestine. They lie in or near Wadi Farah in Galilee. This wadi cuts eastward through rugged country to meet the upper Jordan Valley near Lake Huleh. Turville-Petre explored the wadi in 1925 and 1926 finding three Heavy Neolithic sites. The first was Shemouniyeh on a plateau above the north side of the Wadi Farah a little north-west of Deishun. The second was the Wadi Farah site itself which was on a high terrace at the point where the Wadi Salhah joined the main wadi. A large number of big flint tools and much waste were found on both of these sites. The tools included adzes, picks, flake scrapers and borers. The third site was a small cave in the Wadi Salhah itself. Turville-Petre excavated most of it and found that his levels II and III consisted of occupation deposits with flints and potsherds. Some of the pottery was later in date but the flints included many of the large flake scrapers, thick blades and denticulated pieces found on the other two sites. There were also several pressure-flaked leaf-shaped and tanged arroewheads, one of Amuq 2 type. These flints are like those found on Heavy Neolithic sites in Lebanon so that the three Wadi Farah sites may be ascribed to the same group. Wadi Salhah was an occupation site rather than a factory site. The typolgy of the flints indicates that all three sites were occupied in Neolithic 4. Wadi Salhah was probably occupied quite early in the phase on the evidence of the arrowheads ... |
