Sha'ar Hagolan: Neolithic Art in Context

Excavations at Sha'ar Hagolan, Israel, presenting revolutionary evidence that shows that the Neolithic in the Levant was not a period of decline as previously thought.

This monograph presents the revolutionary results of ten years of excavation and research in the Neolithic village of ShaÆar Hagolan, Jordan Valley, Israel. Sha'ar Hagolan is dated to the Pottery Neolithic period, and is the type-site for the Yarmukian culture, which occupied large parts of the Mediterranean climatic zones of Israel, Jordan and Lebanon during the sixth millennium BC. Recent excavations at the site have far-reaching implications for the entire Neolithic period, as well as for the history of architecture, art and cult and other aspects of material culture in the ancient Near East. The evidence for the architecture and village planning, material culture and remarkable art objects shows what was previously considered to be an era of decline was a time of cultural evolution and development in the Levant.