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Abstract
A unique Pottery Neolithic context corresponding to the Wadi Rabah culture was found at the multi-layered site of Ein Zippori, Israel. Given the significant amount of flakes, cortical flakes, thinning flakes, and bifacial tool rejects, it was classified as a refuse pit in which bifacial knapping waste from a nearby workshop was disposed. In this paper we present the assemblage of Locus 8071, focusing on the by-products of bifacial tool manufacture and maintenance as well as bifacial tool rejects. We reconstruct the bifacial knapping and maintenance procedures and suggest that Locus 8071 was a disposal area for by-products from a knapping workshop of bifacial tools—an aspect of spatial organization related to possible specialized lithic production at Ein Zippori during the Neolithic period.
Acknowledgments
The excavations at Ein Zippori were conducted by the Israel Antiquity Authority and were funded by the National Company of Roads. The authors would like to thank Pasha Shrago for the photos of the flint items that appear in this paper, and Dana Ackerfeld, Natalya Solodenko and Itamar Ben-Ezra for their assistance in preparing the figures.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Aviad Agam
Aviad Agam (M.A. 2015, Tel-Aviv University) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University. His research interests include lithic technology and flint raw material procurement and exploitation strategies in Palaeolithic and Neolithic times.
Naama Walzer
Naama Walzer is an M.A student in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on the Intermediate Bronze Age in the Shephelah, Israel.
Heeli C. Schechter
Heeli C. Schechter (M.A. 2012, Tel Aviv University) is a Ph.D. candidate at The Hebrew University and a research assistant in the Ein Zippori Project Laboratory, Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on lithic materials from the Neolithic and later periods.
Katia Zutovski
Katia Zutovski (M.A. 2015, Tel-Aviv University) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University. Her research interests include lithic technology, focusing on the Neolithic through Urban revolutions of the Southern Levant.
Ianir Milevski
Ianir Milevski (Ph.D. 2005, Tel Aviv University) is Senior Research Archaeologist in the Department of Excavations, Surveys, and Research at the Israel Antiquities Authority. He is also Associate Fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archeological Research, Jerusalem, and Fellow of the “Raices” program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Argentina. His research interests include the socio-economic formations of the Late Prehistory of the Southern Levant, especially the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age.
Nimrod Getzov
Nimrod Getzov is Senior Research Archaeologist in the Department of Excavations, Surveys, and Research at the Israel Antiquities Authority. His research interests include the Late Prehistory of the Southern Levant, focusing on the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Early Bronze Age.
Avi Gopher
Avi Gopher (Ph.D. 1985, Hebrew University) is Professor of Archaeology in the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. Together with Professor Ran Barkai, he co-directs the study of the lithic assemblages of Ein Zippori. He also co-directs excavations and research on the late Lower Palaeolithic at Qesem Cave, Israel. His research interests include the archaeological study of plant domestication in the Near East.
Ran Barkai
Ran Barkai (Ph.D. 2000, Tel-Aviv University) is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University. Together with Professor Avi Gopher, he co-directs the study of the lithic assemblages of Ein Zippori. He also co-directs excavations at the Middle Pleistocene site of Qesem Cave and has published extensively on different aspects of Palaeolithic and Neolithic technology, subsistence, cosmology, and lifeways.