Sha'ar Hagolan

Julian Bond was on last year's 'Neolithic Art of the Jordan Valley' Earthwatch project and has sent us this report on his experience, illustrated with his own drawings (from Northern Earth 89)

In 2001 an Earthwatch Millennium Award enabled me to travel to northern Israel and take part in an excavation in the Jordan valley. The site, known as Sha'ar Hagolan, is just S of the Sea of Galilee, about 200m from the present border with Jordan. The settlement is Yarmukian, named after the adjacent Yarmuk river, a tributary of the Jordan flowing out of the Gilead mountains to the E. The Yarmukian culture is one of several Pottery Neolithic units which flourished in the S Levant in the 6th millennium BCE; the first evidence of it was unearthed at the base of Tel Megido ('Armageddon') in the 1930s.

The archaeology at Sha'ar Hagolan was discovered when workers from the nearby kibbutz began digging fishponds. It is now the largest and most well-defined of all the sites and has produced a huge accumulation of data and artefacts. The work there, now in its eighth year, has revealed not, as previously thought, a semi-nomadic people living in temporary pits and round huts, but a permanent settlement covering 30 hectares and it has become a site of international importance. A large variety of pottery has been found, and the presence of obsidian, seashells and greenstone indicate long-distance trade. The most fascinating feature of all is the rich collection of art objects. About 150 have been found there, mainly small anthropomorphic clay figurines with elongated heads, 'coffee-bean' eyes, great facial detail, earrings, dressed hair, a cloak or scarf, heavy thighs and buttocks and naturalistic hands, legs and feet. Most, but not all, are female. The workmanship is sophisticated, sensitive and elegant. Limestone pebbles are also found, with facial features scratched or carved into them.

Many things made the trip memorable: the beauty of the location; the excellent company - including two engineers, a retired judge from Utah, a policewoman from LA, and many students; the importance and richness of the site, which produced an abundance of natural finds every day; the 11.3Oam 'watermelon break' after an hours sieving in 90+; getting up before dawn and walking to the site through a totally still and silent landscape; the relentless humour which would threaten to bring all work to a halt and the friendly supportive atmosphere created by a wonderfully enthusiastic Principal Investigator and his team.

The three of us from Earthwatch were made to feel especially welcome, and we had the impression that Earthwatch's involvement in the project was greatly valued. Once a week trips by car were arranged around Northern Israel. There were regular evening lectures explaining the context of the dig and a Neolithic-looking man came down from the Golan Heights one evening, to run a flint-knapping workshop.

The archaeology is found surprisingly close to the surface and by the end of my stay we had unearthed the world's largest known building from the period, about 1200 sq.m. I experienced every beginner's 'buzz' at holding objects left undisturbed for nearly 8000 years. My own finds included many interesting pottery shards with incised zig-zags and painted decoration in red and yellow slip, a burnished clay pestle about 6- 7cm long with a pointed end and two denticulated flint sickle blades. But my best one was the remains of a large clay jar and having found it, I was allowed to excavate it completely - with some expert advice and a few anxious glances from the archaeologists (see drawing of pieces in situ). This was my first dig and 1 am told that every one is different, in terms of methods, priorities, personalities, organisation, atmosphere, money and so on. For me, it was special because of its sense of purpose and importance - a unique culture is being uncovered systematically for the first time.

There is also urgency there because ironically the Kibbutz that first discovered the site is also inevitably destroying it: first the fishponds sterilised large areas of the settlement and now the rest is being planted with one of Israel's new cash crops - bananas. This takes heavy machinery and is very destructive. At the same time, the Kibbutz is very proud of the site and of the museum it established. So a working dynamic has to be struck between the various interests.

Israeli archaeology has been criticised over political bias in the past, favouring Jewish remains over Christian or Moslem. I have no idea whether this is justified criticism, but Sha'ar Hagolan of course pre-dates all of them, so is free of any political or theological agenda. Indeed, there are known sites of the period in Syria and Jordan. It is even hoped that Israel, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian authority (which is also close by), will someday share in the establishment of an open-air park; at least that was the hope, but I imagine it will have receded somewhat in light of events since last summer.

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