Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LIFE IN THE 'FERTILE CRESCENT'
(10,000-4000 BC)
Early Settlements
Stand on top of the knoll at Shkarat Msaiad, on
the seldom-used road from Siq Al-Barid (Little
Petra) to Wadi Araba (see the boxed text,
Click
and you could be forgiven for wondering what
all the fuss is about. Despite the isolated beauty
of the place, there isn't much to see but some
stone walling. Yet this is the kind of place that
archaeologists rave about because what you are
looking at, they will solemnly tell you, is a
SETTLEMENT
From the earliest settlements, some people devoted
themselves to animal husbandry, sustained by the
meat, milk and wool of their livestock, while others
planted olives, wheat and barley and farmed the
land. This distinction between the 'desert and the
sown' is apparent to this day.
'PPN'.
A PPN, for the uninitiated, stands for Pre-Pottery Neolithic and is significant because
such sites indicate a high degree of organisation among early communities. In fact, at this
sheltered spot in the hills, you are looking at the very dawn of civilisation. If nothing else,
the traces of shelter, water collection and farming demonstrate the basic immutability of
life.
Jordan has a remarkable number of early settlements, largely thanks to its location within
the 'fertile crescent' - the rich arc of lands that included Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine.
The fecundity of the soil in this region allowed early humans to move from a hunter-gather-
er existence to settlement in the world's earliest villages, dating between 10,000 and 8500
BC. One such village in Jordan is Al-Beidha, near Petra. It's tempting to think of our an-
cient forebears as simple people living simple lives, but the inhabitants of villages such as
Al-Beidha built houses of stone and wood; they tamed, bred and cooked domestic animals;
they planted wild seeds, grew crops, crushed grains and kept food in mud vessels hardened
under the sun; and they began wearing and forming decorative items - such as the astonish-
ing fertility sculptures from Ain Ghazal dated around 6000 BC. These early settlers even
left a record of their existence through wall paintings, such as those at Teleilat Ghassul in
the Jordan Valley.
