Worked sheep and gazelle foot bones as possible figurative representations: a 12,000-year-old cluster of artifacts from Shubayqa 6, Jordan

Abstract

The use of animal bones to form figurative representations is well documented ethnographically and archaeologically. In this paper, we describe an intriguing group of bones from Shubayqa 6, a transitional Late Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in north-east Jordan, and consider the possibility that these bones are figurative representations. The assemblage is comprised of sets of articulating phalanges, from 21 limbs of wild sheep and gazelle, found as part of a group of artefacts. If this tentative interpretation for the Shubayqa 6 bones is correct, future discussions on the frequency of figurative representations by communities at the transition from hunting and foraging to agriculture in Southwest Asia may benefit from broader consideration of bones clusters.

Keywords:

• PPNA
• Late Natufian
• Grooved stones
• Worked bone
• Figurative representations

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Director-General of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, for permission to carry out our research, as well as the Department’s staff for their advice and assistance. This work was supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark, Danish Institute in Damascus, and H. P. Hjerl Mindefondet for Dansk Palæstinaforskning. We also thank an anonymous reviewer, Kathryn Twiss and Louise Martin for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.