2023-08-03 14:31:24
An international team led by the researcher Hala Alarashifrom the Social Dynamics Archeology (ASD) group of the Milà i Fontanals Institution for Research in the Humanities of the CSIC (IMF-CSIC) has found and analyzed a trousseau from 7,400-6,800 BCE (before the Common Era), found in Ba’ja, a Neolithic settlement of the southern jordan.
The ornament was found in 2018 next to the body of a eight year old boy or girlburied in a fetal position, in a very elaborate tombunder the floor of a house and multiple layers of sediments.
A significant part was made with shells from the Red Sea and other exotic stones.
The joya was made with 2,500 beads, a pendant of piedra with double perforation and a delicate ring of nacre, that they were on the chest and around the child’s neck. It is a very elaborate work for the period to which it belongs, taking into account the technical, aesthetic, craft and economic efforts invested in its creation. “It’s spectacular,” he says. Alarashi.
The meticulous documentation of the distribution of the beads in the tomb and in relation to the bone remains, explains Alarashiwas what indicated that it was a composite ornament that had gradually crumbled, due to the effect of the passage of time on organic materials such as ropes and the position in which the body had been buried.
Fossil amber in a neolithic tomb
The researchers have analyzed and reconstructed the necklace in the closest shape to what it could have been and now publish their results in the journal PLOS ONE. In the article They explain the meaning that this ornament could have had on an aesthetic, artisanal and socioeconomic level, something that has exceeded their expectations.
It is not a mere union of beads, since it seems to have been a design made by specialized people
In the work, led by the IMF-CSIC, the Institute of Materials Science of Sevillemixed center of CSIC and the University of Seville, where they have analyzed two amber pearls, a material that had never been witnessed before during this period.
This, according to Alarashiopens new lines of investigation, since it is not known exactly where they could have extracted it, or with what techniques, or if they obtained it from an exchange.
What was found in the excavation of the Hala Alarashi team in southern Jordan. / CSIC
Despite the temporary degradation, the researchers say it is a stunning necklace, with an attractive design and several rows with a complex structure. Although it has been considered that it was created there, a significant part was made with shells from the Red Sea and other exotic stones.
Symbol of cohesion and unity
The necklace is not a mere union of beads, but was previously designed and created by people surely specialized in it. This is a sample of the importance of children in the society of the moment and also of this individual in particular, who would have an important social status.
In addition, according to the experts, it was a symbol of cohesion and unity before the emotions shared by family members, relatives and even people from other towns who would have participated in the burial rite.
Currently the trousseau can be seen in the Petra MuseumJordan, in the same region where it was found.
The universities of Seville, Turin (Italy), Cambridge (United Kingdom), Copenhagen (Denmark), Côte d’Azur (Nice, Framcia) and Vilnius (Lithuania) have participated in the work. The Archeology Center of the University of Lisbon (Portugal) also collaborated; the Turin Polytechnic (Italy); the Archaeological Institute and the Institute of Near Eastern Archeology in Berlin (Germany), among other research centers.
Reference article
Hala Alarashi et al. “Threads of memory: Reviving the ornament of a dead child at the Neolithic village of Ba`ja (Jordan)”. PLOS ONE (2023)
Rights: Creative Commons.
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