Editorial

Special Topic Contributions

Gebel and Fujii

Introduction Gebel CommodificationofWater Fujii DomesticationofRunoffSurfaceWater Wilkinson EarlyHydraulicSystems

Garfinkel SocialAspectsofWaterTechnology

Edwards EarlyAgricultureandDitchIrrigation

Galili and Rosen SubmergedNeolithicSettlements,WaterMining Nieuwenhuyse and Nilhamn WaterintheVillage Cokun, Benz, Erdal, Koruyucu, Deckers, Riehl, Siebert, Alt and zkaya KrtikTepe

Klimscha EarlyWaterExploitation

Other Contributions Dietrich and Schmidt ARadiocarbonDateGbekliTepe

NEO-LITHICS2/10The Newsletter of Southwest Asian Neolithic ResearchSpecial Topic on The Domestication of Water

2Neo-Lithics 2/10

Content

Editorial 2Special Topic Contributions Hans Georg K. Gebel and Sumio Fujii TheDomesticationofWater.AShortIntroduction 3 Hans Georg K. Gebel TheCommodificationofWater 4 Sumio Fujii DomesticationofRunoffSurfaceWater:CurrentEvidence andNewPerspectivesfromtheJafrPastoralNeolithic 14 Tony J. Wilkinson TheDomesticationofWater:EarlyHydraulicSystems 33 Yosef Garfinkel SocialAspectsofWaterTechnologyintheProtohistoricNearEast 39 Phillip C. Edwards EarlyAgricultureandDitchIrrigation 43 Ehud Galili and Baruch Rosen SubmergedNeolithicSettlementsoftheMediterraneanCarmelCoast andWaterMiningintheSouthernLevant 47 Olivier Niewenhuyse and Bonnie Nilham WaterintheVillage 53 Marion Benz LivingbytheWaterBoonandBaneforthePeopleofKrtikTepe 60

Florian Klimscha EarlyWaterExploitationanditsPost-NeolithicAftermath 72

Other Contribution Oliver Dietrich and Klaus Schmidt ARadiocarbonDatefromtheWallPlasterofEnclosureDofGbekliTepe 82Masthead 84

Editorial

How rapid Neolithic research proceeds. Two trends can be observed in recent times: A struggle for new interpretative frameworks generating new topics (or old topics in new perspectives), and booming studies contributed by freshly applied technologies of science (all sorts of isotope analysis, for instance) or new interpretations from disciplines previously rarely involved in Neolithic research (e.g. evolutionary biology). In the good old times, all new questions and research generated by specialist studies and new frameworks were filtered, tested and coordinated with the projects archaeological, bio- and geoarchaeological results. Is this still the case these times? Only partially, and not to the same extent. There seems to be a tendency for some isolated if not separatistic Neolithic specialist research, also resulting from a lack of (alerted) competency by prehistoric research to understand, evaluate and integrate these results properly. In particular, information produced by the new auxiliary disciplines (as we tend to understand them) and new interpretative frameworks often remain neglected, or their use is delayed, because we traditional researchers of the Neolithic have little capacity and awareness to understand their new potentials, restrictions, terminologies, etc., and thus are not real research partners except on a very general level. However, we feel that much of our understanding has already or will become outdated and should be reconsidered by these new approaches. Often the new results or new directions of research render our beloved traditions and stereotypical understanding obsolete, or at least do question them, and a psychological barrier arises that hinders cooperation and adoption of their utility and explanatory power.

Where will this all lead? Certainly, the cacophony index of our research will rise, and there will be pressure to unite in circles to apply and promote certain interpretations, and the number of different research frameworks will increase. How good or bad is this diversity for our research?

This special topic issue of Neo-Lithics is much delayed. We apologize to the guest editor of this issue, Sumio Fujii, for tardy publishing. The domestication-of-water concept received an immense momentum by Sumios outstanding results from his work near Maan, leading us to extend our invitation to him to coordinate a Neo-Lithics special issue on water domestication. The original concept to have keynotes on water domestication that we discussed with him failed for various reasons, thus this issue has to be understood as a sampler on the topic. We warmly thank Sumio Fujii for all his steady, patient and friendly efforts to have Neo-Lithics 2/10 materialize.

Hans Georg K. Gebel & Gary Rollefon

Other contribution

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The Domestication of Water

The PPN settlement of Gbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey has delivered the oldest examples of religious monumental architecture known so far. The archaeo-logical dating of the sites two main layers is quite clear. The oldest Layer III, which contains the well-known circular enclosures formed by T-shaped pillars gathered around a pair of bigger central pillars can be dated to the PPNA through lithic finds comprising pro-jectile points mainly of the Nemrik and Helwan types. The superimposing Layer II with its smaller, rectan-gular rooms often containing only two, considerably smaller central pillars, or none at all, is characterised especially by Byblos and a few Neval ori type pro-jectile points dating to the early and middle PPNB. Late PPNB finds are absent from Gbekli Tepe. Concerning the momentary state of the radiocarbon chronology for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, one would expect a duration of 96008800 calBC for the PPNA complexes of Layer III and 88008200 calBC for the EPPNB / MPPNB activities in Layer II, respectively.

But, as a recent review of the data available shows, a bigger part of them is biased by methodological prob-lems, although quite different sampling strategies were applied (Dietrich, in press). A bigger series of data was obtained from pedogenic carbonates on architectural structures (Pustovoytov, Schmidt and Parzinger 2007). Unfortunately they are of no use in dating the sampled structures themselves, as the carbonate layers started forming only after the moment of their burial. At least

these samples offer a good terminus ante quem for the refilling of the enclosures. For layer III this terminus ante quem lies in the second half of the 9th millennium calBC, while for layer II it is located in the middle of the 8th millennium calBC.

A recently obtained series of data from bones dis-covered in the filling and layers is at least partially bi-ased by methodological problems (Dietrich, in press). At least within the group of samples chosen, collagen conservation is poor and isotopic exchange processes with carbon rich surface and ground waters may have cause alterations in the carbonate contents of bones that lead to problems with the dating of apatite fractions.

The best dates available so far for Gbekli Tepe stem from charcoal samples of short-lived plants. Two dates for Enclosure A settle in the late 10th and early 9th millennium calBC (Kromer and Schmidt 1998), but they could also indicate the use of older fill material. The last intrusions in the big enclosures can be dated by a charcoal sample found under a fallen pillar fragment in Enclosure A to the middle of the 9th millennium (Di-etrich, in press).

As charcoal seems to be the sample material of choice at Gbekli, an attempt to date the big Enclo-sures of layer III directly was made by sampling the wall plaster of Enclosure D (Area L9-68, Loc. 782.3, 29.10.2010). This plaster is formed of loam, which fortunately contains also small amounts of charcoal. At the 14C laboratory Kiel a sample big enough for an

A Radiocarbon Date from the Wall Plaster of Enclosure D of Gbekli Tepe

Oliver Dietrich German Archaeological Institute odi@orient.dainst.de

Klaus Schmidt German Archaeological Institute kls@orient.dainst.de

Fig. 1 CalibratedRadiocarbonAgeusingOxCal4.1(DatensatzIntCal09);twoSigmaRange:9675(93,9%)9314calBC

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Other contribution

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The Domestication of Water

AMS dating could be obtained from the plaster.The result reads as follows (Fig. 1):

Radiocarbon Age (KIA-44149): 9984 +/- 42 BP, 13C -26,31+/-0,57.

Calibrated Radiocarbon Age using OxCal 4.1 (Datensatz IntCal09); two Sigma Range:

9675 (93,9%) 9314 calBC

With this date there is for the first time undisputable evidence for the absolute construction time of the big enclosures in the early PPNA. Also the date seems to be proof to the observation that Enclosure D is older than Enclosure A. In addition, a succesful sampling strategy for Gbekli Tepe has been lined out, which will be pursued further in the future.

References

Dietrich O.in press Radiocarbon dating the first temples of mankind. Comments on 14C-Dates from Gbekli Tepe. Zeitschrift fr Orient-Archologie 4.

Kromer B. and Schmidt K.1998 Two radiocarbon dates from Gbekli Tepe, South Eastern Turkey. Neo-Lithics 3/1998: 8-9.

Pustovoytov K., Schmidt K., and Parzinger H.2007 Radiocarbon dating of thin pedogenic carbonate laminae from Holocene archaeological sites. The Holocene 17, 6: 835-843.

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