Transregional Perspectives: Characterizing Obsidian Consumption at Early Chalcolithic Ein el-Jarba (N. Israel)

ABSTRACT

This paper details the characterization of 48 obsidian artifacts from Ein el-Jarba, an Early Chalcolithic site of the southern Levantine Wadi Rabah culture (6th millennium cal b.c.). By melding sourcing data from energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy with the artifacts’ techno-typological specifics, we contrast Ein el-Jarba’s obsidian consumption practices with those of broadly contemporary and earlier communities in the context of the period’s emergent transregional character. The results attest to a major reconfiguration of long-term traditions, with well-known Cappadocian and Lake Van region source materials now supplemented by obsidian from the Caucasus, such material’s most southerly distribution. These diverse resources are believed to have circulated within the same exchange networks, mediated by communities of the Halaf culture to the north. Most of Ein el-Jarba’s obsidian was in the form of pressure blades from a common technical tradition, the implements likely procured ready-made from the well-connected site of Hagoshrim.

KEYWORDS:

• Obsidian sourcing
• southern Levant prehistory
• Wadi Rabah
• Early Chalcolithic
• transregionalism
• Anatolia
• Caucasus
• Halaf

Acknowledgments

The material examined in this study was excavated at Ein el-Jarba under the license numbers G-6/2013, G-9/2014, G-57/2015 and G-35/2016 under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest, and no financial gains were made from this work.

Notes on Contributors

Tristan Carter (Ph.D. 1999, University College London) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University. He employs lithic analyses to engage with various debates in the Eastern Mediterranean, from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Late Bronze Age.

Kathryn Campeau (B.A. 2016, McMaster University) is a Ph.D. candidate in forensic anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. She is a trained specialist in XRF applications, focusing on human bone and obsidian.

Katharina Streit (Ph.D. 2016, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is a Martin Buber postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was the director of the Ein el-Jabra excavation project (2013–2016) and since 2017 has co-directed excavations at Tel Lachish with Felix Höflmayer. Her research covers the Neolithic to Iron Age in the southern Levant, with particular focus on material culture change and transregional interactions.

ORCID

Tristan Carter http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4760-404X

Kathryn Campeau http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3132-2451

Katharina Streit http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2573-6738