Limestone bowls at the dawn of pottery production in the southern Levant: The case of Yarmukian Sha‘ar Hagolan

Stone vessels first appeared in the southern Levant during the Upper Palaeolithic period, whereas pottery was introduced to the region at ca. 6,400 cal BC by the Yarmukian culture of the Pottery Neolithic period. Since the Yarmukian culture was first discovered, numerous studies have been devoted to the typo-technological characteristics of its pottery. A recent comprehensive study we conducted on the Pottery Neolithic period, demonstrated that the introduction of ceramic technology had no significant effect on stone vessel production, which continued to flourish throughout the Pottery Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. While this suggests that stone and pottery vessels were produced and used differently, operating in discrete techno-functional systems, the technological characteristics of stone vessel production were hardly studied in comparable detail. The current paper focuses on the production of limestone vessels in the well-known Yarmukian site of Sha‘ar Hagolan. We will present and discuss these vessels’ characteristics, their technology and contexts of production, as well as contexts of use.