AMMAN — Tell Ammata, located in Jerash Governorate, is where archaeologists found a lot of pottery between the Wadi Rajib and Tell Ammata.
Although several tools and flint debitage have been discovered in the vicinity of the pottery concentration, they cannot be positively associated with it. The dating of flint tools is, especially for the later periods like the Roman or Islamic eras, notoriously difficult, said Eva Kaptijn from Leiden University.
Kaptijn added that the flint distribution shows no clear clustering at the same location as the pottery concentration. Furthermore, there is no evidence to chronologically connect the flint to the concentration as the tools discovered here are of an ad hoc nature.
"No large flint collection has been discovered in the northern area. In most plots only one or two pieces of flint were collected. At first glance flint artefacts seem to be randomly distributed over the fields in this region; no clear clustering is visible. Furthermore, the distribution of waste and tools also does not demonstrate any spatial patterning,” Kaptijn said.
She added that when the total number of flint artefacts and the ratio between waste and tools of this region is compared to other areas differences become apparent.
Fields located just a few kilometres to the south and surveyed by the same team yielded significantly fewer flint artefacts.
In the area around Tell Mazar and Tell Adliyyeh only one or two flint artefacts per hectare have been discovered, and the ratio between waste and tools is very high, even when compared to other concentrations, the scholar highlighted, adding that in this northern area tools constitute 36 per cent of the total flint assemblage.
"For the other fields surveyed in the same season only 25 per cent of the assemblage consists of tools," Kaptijn said.
The apparent lack of a flint concentration around the Ammata concentration is not an actual absence of clustering. The comparison with neighbouring areas to the south, surveyed by the same team and, therefore, not subject to collection biases, shows that the entire northern region should be considered as a dispersed cluster.
Selection of discovered tiles may be a result of the fact that pottery is mainly related to the specific locations in the landscape like settlements or farmsteads where it was used as e.g. storage containers and serving dishes, she underlined, adding that flint artefacts are, however, more used in special activities and less as passive receptacles.
"Scrapers were, for example, used in the preparation of skins and sickle blades in the harvesting of cereals. Some of these activities, like cereal harvesting, without a doubt took place outside the settlement in the cultivated fields."
"Other activities, like the slaughtering of animals, may well have taken place outside the confines of the domestic space. This phenomenon would be reflected in a less dense clustering of flint tools," Kaptijn elaborated, stressing that it does not explain the waste distribution, for this distribution is related to the manufacturing of a flint tool and not to its use.
All tools collected in this area are made with a very simple ad hoc technique using local flint cobbles available everywhere in the fields. These cobbles are relatively small and rounded by water erosion as they were transported by wadis.
Many of the artefacts made from them still display this rolled outer surface, which is not cortex as such, but is technologically its equivalent.
The scrapers, notches and retouched flakes or pieces are all characterised by an ad hoc technology, she said, noting that due to this technology these artefacts are difficult to place in a chronological context.
"The retouched flakes, pieces and the notches all grow more abundant in the Late Neolithic period and predominate during Chalcolithic, EB and MB I periods. After that they lose currency and occur only seldom in LBa and IA," Kaptijn underlined, adding that the scrapers manufactured by an ad hoc technique are equally difficult to date.
They occur frequently during the Chalcolithic and EB Age, but decline afterwards. Of the retouched blades only one may be considered a backed blade and, therefore, may be dated more specifically to the Chalcolithic period. The others are all simple retouched blades common throughout all periods, the scholar emphasised.
"There is, therefore, no reason to link the flint assemblage to the pottery concentration along the Wadi Rajib or to Tell Ammata. It is more likely that the assemblage is an accumulation of activity in several different periods."
"The ad hoc nature of the tools in combination with the flint waste and the type of flint makes it likely that these tools were produced locally when needed and were easily discarded when they broke or the need for them ceased," Kaptijn said.
She noted that the greater number of flint artefacts and higher frequency of tools compared with other areas suggest that this area either witnessed more activities or saw activity for a longer period of time or a combination of both.
The fact that this area, due to its location near the foothills of the eastern plateau, has more flint nodules is not the sole explanation for the greater number of flint artefacts.
"This would explain a larger amount of flint debitage and waste, but it is in disagreement with the higher frequency of tools as these would be transported to and discarded at the place where they were going to be used," Kaptijn concluded.
