Phillip C Edwards
Biographic Data
| ID | 158971 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Phillip C Edwards |
| GIVEN NAMES | Phillip C |
| FAMILY NAME | Edwards |
| SIGNATURE | EDWARDS P C |
| AFFILIATIONS | La Trobe University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4960-721X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 103 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Khirokitia, an idiosyncratic Neolithic settlement in Cyprus, its putative foreign relations, and integrity in archaeological research
This study enquires into a groundstone artefact from the Cypriot Neolithic site of Khirokitia, claimed by James Mellaart to have been found in the northern Levant. In doing so, it pursues the broader issue of integrity in archaeological research. The method followed here is to scrutinise the archaeological record available to Mellaart in the 1960s and 1970s, when the claim was made, followed by an examination of recent archaeological research con…
Innovations at the Margins: The Transmission of Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) Culture across the Levantine Interior
The advent of the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) in the southern Levant is reviewed here in the light of data from recent excavations. Data from the western flank of the southern Levant continue to indicate that the EPPNB cultural horizon arrived in the region around 9,300 BP/8,612–8,491 cal. BCE. This body of evidence includes a bloc of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) sites in central western Jordan that terminate around the same time. On …
Wadi Hammeh 27: An Open-air ‘Base-camp’ on the Fringe of the Natufian ‘Homeland’
A zoomorphic sickle terminal from the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan
Excavations at the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan undertaken in 2014 led to the discovery of several new portable art pieces, including the representation of an ungulate mammal (RN 140226), probably intended as a gazelle, carved in the round from bone. The small object was extensively damaged by fire and had become separated at its neck from longer pieces of fragmented, burnt bone lying distally to it. This configuration and the style …
The Natural Inspiration for Natufian Art: Cases from Wadi Hammeh 27, Jordan
The likelihood that Palaeolithic artisans sometimes used natural objects as models for their image-making has long been suggested, yet well-contextualized and stratified examples have remained rare. This study examines a series of natural and fabricated items from the Natufian settlement of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan (12,000–12,500 cal.bc) to propose that the site occupants collected a variety of found objects such as fossils, unusually shaped ston…
Wadi Hammeh 27: An Open-air ‘Base-camp’ on the Fringe of the Natufian ‘Homeland’
The chronology and dispersal of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B cultural complex in the Levant
La période du Néolithique précéramique B (PPNB) a vu la création de villages basés sur une économie agraire en Asie du sud-ouest ; c’est l’un des plus anciens complexes culturels pour lesquels nous pouvons suivre les processus d’interaction à travers le Levant. Cet article fait le point de nos connaissances sur la chronologie du PPNB ancien (EPPNB) et soutient l’idée que l’EPPNB est apparu dans le Levant septentrional ca 9600 BP/ 9200 cal. BC, et…
Natufian Interactions Along the Jordan Valley
Building on recent observations made by Belfer-Cohen and Goring-Morris, this study proposes that a zone of intensive interaction existed between communities in the Jordan Valley during much of the Early Natufian period (c. 12,500–11,000 cal bc). Recently published data demonstrate distinctive and even unique links between open-air Jordan Valley sites. Whereas some models have utilised specific types of material culture (e.g. bone artefacts or art…
Redemption in the Land of Archaeological Sin: Great excavators in the Middle East during the 1920s
Mortimer Wheeler’s account of his introduction of systematic digging methods in archaeology has proved durable over the sixty years since its publication. In particular, Wheeler was dismissive of the efforts of pioneer excavators in the Middle East. It has long been considered that this quandary was not redressed until the 1950s when his most notable student, Kathleen Kenyon, introduced stratigraphic excavation methods to the Levant. By tracing t…
The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East: Transforming the Human Landscape . Alan H. Simmons
The context and production of incised Neolithic stones
Incised Neolithic stones are rare in the archaeological record of the southern Levant, with only a handful of examples known from the entire Neolithic period. Structure 2 at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site of Zahrat al-Dhra' 2 (ZAD 2) in Jordan has yielded three incised plaques and pebbles, decorated with similar geometric motifs, together with two limestone blanks possibly intended for the production of more incised pieces. The circumstances of…
The Third Season of Investigations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Site of Zahrat adh-Dhraʿ 2 on the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan
The first two seasons of work at Zahrat adh-Dhraʿ 2 (ZAD 2) in Jordan established it as one of the final Pre-Pottery Neolithic A sites and provided evidence for a later transition to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period in the southern Levant than had been previously expected. The third season of excavations concentrated on lateral clearance of the uppermost phase of occupation. A small area in one of the curvilinear dwellings (Structure 2) yielded…
A 14000 year-old hunter-gatherer's toolkit
A sickle, 21 flint lunates for tipping spears and evidence of the hunted quarry - gazelle bones - lay together by the wall of a Natufian building. The author deduces that these objects were contained in a bag and constituted the versatile working equipment of a hunter-gatherer
From the PPNA to the PPNB: New views from the Southern Levant after excavations at Zahrat adh-Dhra' 2 in Jordan
Results from excavations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site of Zahrat adh-Dhra' 2 (ZAD 2) in Jordan promise to resolve ambiguity over the introduction of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic В (PPNB) period in the southern Levant. Zahrat adh-Dhra ' 2 is the first southern PPNA site to date exclusively to the late PPNA period (9 600-9 300 BP/ 9 200-8 300 cal ВС). The settlement is a small mound containing a single phase of curvilinear architecture. I…
The Garbage Crisis in prehistory: Artefact discard patterns at the Early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 and the origins of household refuse disposal strategies
Zahrat Adh-Dhraʿ 2: A New Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Site on the Dead Sea Plain in Jordan
Previously, archaeological exemplars of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period that heralded the advent of agrarian societies in the Levant were very rare east of the Jordan River. Those that were known did not include any examples of the larger hamlets, usually buried under alluvial fans, which are known from the Jordan Valley. This situation has changed significantly in the past few years, with the discovery of three PPNA hamlets in the arid…
The Natufian human skeletal remains from Wadi Hammeh 27 (Jordan)
This report describes skeletal remains from the early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan. At least seven individuals are represented, and although small, the collection is notable for the eclecticism of its mortuary practice. Modes of mortuary disposal and ritual include a single-primary burial, a collective-secondary burial, burnt human cranial fragments disposed in residential contexts, and the ochre staining of bones. The two burials co…
The Early Epipalaeolithic of Wadi al-Hammeh
This article outlines research on a suite of six early Epipalaeolithic sites located in Wadi al-Hammeh in the East Jordan Valley, Jordan. The sites are all in situ, stratified and carbondated, constituting the only well-developed archaeological sequence in the region for this period (c. 20,000–15,000 BP). The Wadi al-Hammeh group contrasts with recently excavated, contemporaneous sites in adjacent areas, extending our growing awareness of the cul…
More than One, Less than Five Hundred: Comments on Campana and Crabtree, and Communal Hunting
In proposing a model for the advent of agrarian societies, Campana and Crabtree (1990) courageously advance a species of social prime mover, and predict specific material correlates in support of it. They propose that the advent of community hunting of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) in the Natufian period of the Levant (c. 12,500-10,300 BP) allowed human capacities of group planning and social organization to emerge sufficient to render possi…
Revising the Broad Spectrum Revolution: And its role in the origins of Southwest Asian food production
During the last two decades the Broad Spectrum Revolution, a proposed food-getting adaptation of the terminal Pleistocene, has been generally accepted as an explanatory factor in the accomplishment of food production in Early Holocene Southwest Asia. A survey of faunal and other prehistoric data from the Levant is employed here to argue that wide-ranging exploitation of plants and animals had been persistent in the region from at least the Middle…
Natufian Settlement in Wadi Al-Hammeh
Wadi Hammeh 27 is an Early Natufian residential settlement, dated ca. 12,000 b.p., located on the eastern margins of the central Jordan Valley. The site has produced a wide variety of cultural and environmental data. This report briefly describes its settlement plan and architecture ; artefacts in basalt, limestone, bone and chert, incised and carved art pieces, and botanical, faunal and human skeletal remains
Surface lithic finds from Kharaysin, Jordan
Kharaysin, a large PPNB site, was recently discovered on the banks of the Wadi Zarqa in Transjordan. With regard to regional settlement patterns of the PPNB. interest lies in the location of site about 25 km away from the major village site of Ain Ghazal. A variety of surface lithic finds indicate at least the partial contemporaneity of Kharaysin with that site
Oblique Pressure Retouch in the PPNB
Revising the Broad Spectrum Revolution: And its role in the origins of Southwest Asian food production
During the last two decades the Broad Spectrum Revolution, a proposed food-getting adaptation of the terminal Pleistocene, has been generally accepted as an explanatory factor in the accomplishment of food production in Early Holocene Southwest Asia. A survey of faunal and other prehistoric data from the Levant is employed here to argue that wide-ranging exploitation of plants and animals had been persistent in the region from at least the Middle…
The chronology and dispersal of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B cultural complex in the Levant
La période du Néolithique précéramique B (PPNB) a vu la création de villages basés sur une économie agraire en Asie du sud-ouest ; c’est l’un des plus anciens complexes culturels pour lesquels nous pouvons suivre les processus d’interaction à travers le Levant. Cet article fait le point de nos connaissances sur la chronologie du PPNB ancien (EPPNB) et soutient l’idée que l’EPPNB est apparu dans le Levant septentrional ca 9600 BP/ 9200 cal. BC, et…
The Natufian human skeletal remains from Wadi Hammeh 27 (Jordan)
This report describes skeletal remains from the early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan. At least seven individuals are represented, and although small, the collection is notable for the eclecticism of its mortuary practice. Modes of mortuary disposal and ritual include a single-primary burial, a collective-secondary burial, burnt human cranial fragments disposed in residential contexts, and the ochre staining of bones. The two burials co…
A 14000 year-old hunter-gatherer's toolkit
A sickle, 21 flint lunates for tipping spears and evidence of the hunted quarry - gazelle bones - lay together by the wall of a Natufian building. The author deduces that these objects were contained in a bag and constituted the versatile working equipment of a hunter-gatherer
Surface lithic finds from Kharaysin, Jordan
Kharaysin, a large PPNB site, was recently discovered on the banks of the Wadi Zarqa in Transjordan. With regard to regional settlement patterns of the PPNB. interest lies in the location of site about 25 km away from the major village site of Ain Ghazal. A variety of surface lithic finds indicate at least the partial contemporaneity of Kharaysin with that site
Natufian Settlement in Wadi Al-Hammeh
Wadi Hammeh 27 is an Early Natufian residential settlement, dated ca. 12,000 b.p., located on the eastern margins of the central Jordan Valley. The site has produced a wide variety of cultural and environmental data. This report briefly describes its settlement plan and architecture ; artefacts in basalt, limestone, bone and chert, incised and carved art pieces, and botanical, faunal and human skeletal remains
Innovations at the Margins: The Transmission of Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) Culture across the Levantine Interior
The advent of the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) in the southern Levant is reviewed here in the light of data from recent excavations. Data from the western flank of the southern Levant continue to indicate that the EPPNB cultural horizon arrived in the region around 9,300 BP/8,612–8,491 cal. BCE. This body of evidence includes a bloc of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) sites in central western Jordan that terminate around the same time. On …
Natufian Interactions Along the Jordan Valley
Building on recent observations made by Belfer-Cohen and Goring-Morris, this study proposes that a zone of intensive interaction existed between communities in the Jordan Valley during much of the Early Natufian period (c. 12,500–11,000 cal bc). Recently published data demonstrate distinctive and even unique links between open-air Jordan Valley sites. Whereas some models have utilised specific types of material culture (e.g. bone artefacts or art…
More than One, Less than Five Hundred: Comments on Campana and Crabtree, and Communal Hunting
In proposing a model for the advent of agrarian societies, Campana and Crabtree (1990) courageously advance a species of social prime mover, and predict specific material correlates in support of it. They propose that the advent of community hunting of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) in the Natufian period of the Levant (c. 12,500-10,300 BP) allowed human capacities of group planning and social organization to emerge sufficient to render possi…
A zoomorphic sickle terminal from the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan
Excavations at the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan undertaken in 2014 led to the discovery of several new portable art pieces, including the representation of an ungulate mammal (RN 140226), probably intended as a gazelle, carved in the round from bone. The small object was extensively damaged by fire and had become separated at its neck from longer pieces of fragmented, burnt bone lying distally to it. This configuration and the style …
The Natural Inspiration for Natufian Art: Cases from Wadi Hammeh 27, Jordan
The likelihood that Palaeolithic artisans sometimes used natural objects as models for their image-making has long been suggested, yet well-contextualized and stratified examples have remained rare. This study examines a series of natural and fabricated items from the Natufian settlement of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan (12,000–12,500 cal.bc) to propose that the site occupants collected a variety of found objects such as fossils, unusually shaped ston…
Oblique Pressure Retouch in the PPNB
Surface lithic finds from Kharaysin, Jordan
Kharaysin, a large PPNB site, was recently discovered on the banks of the Wadi Zarqa in Transjordan. With regard to regional settlement patterns of the PPNB. interest lies in the location of site about 25 km away from the major village site of Ain Ghazal. A variety of surface lithic finds indicate at least the partial contemporaneity of Kharaysin with that site
Natufian Settlement in Wadi Al-Hammeh
Wadi Hammeh 27 is an Early Natufian residential settlement, dated ca. 12,000 b.p., located on the eastern margins of the central Jordan Valley. The site has produced a wide variety of cultural and environmental data. This report briefly describes its settlement plan and architecture ; artefacts in basalt, limestone, bone and chert, incised and carved art pieces, and botanical, faunal and human skeletal remains
Revising the Broad Spectrum Revolution: And its role in the origins of Southwest Asian food production
During the last two decades the Broad Spectrum Revolution, a proposed food-getting adaptation of the terminal Pleistocene, has been generally accepted as an explanatory factor in the accomplishment of food production in Early Holocene Southwest Asia. A survey of faunal and other prehistoric data from the Levant is employed here to argue that wide-ranging exploitation of plants and animals had been persistent in the region from at least the Middle…
More than One, Less than Five Hundred: Comments on Campana and Crabtree, and Communal Hunting
In proposing a model for the advent of agrarian societies, Campana and Crabtree (1990) courageously advance a species of social prime mover, and predict specific material correlates in support of it. They propose that the advent of community hunting of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) in the Natufian period of the Levant (c. 12,500-10,300 BP) allowed human capacities of group planning and social organization to emerge sufficient to render possi…
The Early Epipalaeolithic of Wadi al-Hammeh
This article outlines research on a suite of six early Epipalaeolithic sites located in Wadi al-Hammeh in the East Jordan Valley, Jordan. The sites are all in situ, stratified and carbondated, constituting the only well-developed archaeological sequence in the region for this period (c. 20,000–15,000 BP). The Wadi al-Hammeh group contrasts with recently excavated, contemporaneous sites in adjacent areas, extending our growing awareness of the cul…
Zahrat Adh-Dhraʿ 2: A New Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Site on the Dead Sea Plain in Jordan
Previously, archaeological exemplars of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period that heralded the advent of agrarian societies in the Levant were very rare east of the Jordan River. Those that were known did not include any examples of the larger hamlets, usually buried under alluvial fans, which are known from the Jordan Valley. This situation has changed significantly in the past few years, with the discovery of three PPNA hamlets in the arid…
The Natufian human skeletal remains from Wadi Hammeh 27 (Jordan)
This report describes skeletal remains from the early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan. At least seven individuals are represented, and although small, the collection is notable for the eclecticism of its mortuary practice. Modes of mortuary disposal and ritual include a single-primary burial, a collective-secondary burial, burnt human cranial fragments disposed in residential contexts, and the ochre staining of bones. The two burials co…
From the PPNA to the PPNB: New views from the Southern Levant after excavations at Zahrat adh-Dhra' 2 in Jordan
Results from excavations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site of Zahrat adh-Dhra' 2 (ZAD 2) in Jordan promise to resolve ambiguity over the introduction of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic В (PPNB) period in the southern Levant. Zahrat adh-Dhra ' 2 is the first southern PPNA site to date exclusively to the late PPNA period (9 600-9 300 BP/ 9 200-8 300 cal ВС). The settlement is a small mound containing a single phase of curvilinear architecture. I…
The Garbage Crisis in prehistory: Artefact discard patterns at the Early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 and the origins of household refuse disposal strategies
The context and production of incised Neolithic stones
Incised Neolithic stones are rare in the archaeological record of the southern Levant, with only a handful of examples known from the entire Neolithic period. Structure 2 at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site of Zahrat al-Dhra' 2 (ZAD 2) in Jordan has yielded three incised plaques and pebbles, decorated with similar geometric motifs, together with two limestone blanks possibly intended for the production of more incised pieces. The circumstances of…
The Third Season of Investigations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Site of Zahrat adh-Dhraʿ 2 on the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan
The first two seasons of work at Zahrat adh-Dhraʿ 2 (ZAD 2) in Jordan established it as one of the final Pre-Pottery Neolithic A sites and provided evidence for a later transition to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period in the southern Levant than had been previously expected. The third season of excavations concentrated on lateral clearance of the uppermost phase of occupation. A small area in one of the curvilinear dwellings (Structure 2) yielded…
A 14000 year-old hunter-gatherer's toolkit
A sickle, 21 flint lunates for tipping spears and evidence of the hunted quarry - gazelle bones - lay together by the wall of a Natufian building. The author deduces that these objects were contained in a bag and constituted the versatile working equipment of a hunter-gatherer
The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East: Transforming the Human Landscape . Alan H. Simmons
Redemption in the Land of Archaeological Sin: Great excavators in the Middle East during the 1920s
Mortimer Wheeler’s account of his introduction of systematic digging methods in archaeology has proved durable over the sixty years since its publication. In particular, Wheeler was dismissive of the efforts of pioneer excavators in the Middle East. It has long been considered that this quandary was not redressed until the 1950s when his most notable student, Kathleen Kenyon, introduced stratigraphic excavation methods to the Levant. By tracing t…
Natufian Interactions Along the Jordan Valley
Building on recent observations made by Belfer-Cohen and Goring-Morris, this study proposes that a zone of intensive interaction existed between communities in the Jordan Valley during much of the Early Natufian period (c. 12,500–11,000 cal bc). Recently published data demonstrate distinctive and even unique links between open-air Jordan Valley sites. Whereas some models have utilised specific types of material culture (e.g. bone artefacts or art…
The chronology and dispersal of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B cultural complex in the Levant
La période du Néolithique précéramique B (PPNB) a vu la création de villages basés sur une économie agraire en Asie du sud-ouest ; c’est l’un des plus anciens complexes culturels pour lesquels nous pouvons suivre les processus d’interaction à travers le Levant. Cet article fait le point de nos connaissances sur la chronologie du PPNB ancien (EPPNB) et soutient l’idée que l’EPPNB est apparu dans le Levant septentrional ca 9600 BP/ 9200 cal. BC, et…
Wadi Hammeh 27: An Open-air ‘Base-camp’ on the Fringe of the Natufian ‘Homeland’
A zoomorphic sickle terminal from the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan
Excavations at the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan undertaken in 2014 led to the discovery of several new portable art pieces, including the representation of an ungulate mammal (RN 140226), probably intended as a gazelle, carved in the round from bone. The small object was extensively damaged by fire and had become separated at its neck from longer pieces of fragmented, burnt bone lying distally to it. This configuration and the style …
The Natural Inspiration for Natufian Art: Cases from Wadi Hammeh 27, Jordan
The likelihood that Palaeolithic artisans sometimes used natural objects as models for their image-making has long been suggested, yet well-contextualized and stratified examples have remained rare. This study examines a series of natural and fabricated items from the Natufian settlement of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan (12,000–12,500 cal.bc) to propose that the site occupants collected a variety of found objects such as fossils, unusually shaped ston…
Wadi Hammeh 27: An Open-air ‘Base-camp’ on the Fringe of the Natufian ‘Homeland’
Innovations at the Margins: The Transmission of Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) Culture across the Levantine Interior
The advent of the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB) in the southern Levant is reviewed here in the light of data from recent excavations. Data from the western flank of the southern Levant continue to indicate that the EPPNB cultural horizon arrived in the region around 9,300 BP/8,612–8,491 cal. BCE. This body of evidence includes a bloc of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) sites in central western Jordan that terminate around the same time. On …
Khirokitia, an idiosyncratic Neolithic settlement in Cyprus, its putative foreign relations, and integrity in archaeological research
This study enquires into a groundstone artefact from the Cypriot Neolithic site of Khirokitia, claimed by James Mellaart to have been found in the northern Levant. In doing so, it pursues the broader issue of integrity in archaeological research. The method followed here is to scrutinise the archaeological record available to Mellaart in the 1960s and 1970s, when the claim was made, followed by an examination of recent archaeological research con…
Archaeology (21 works) · Geography (20 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (16 works) · History (16 works) · Ancient history (11 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (10 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (9 works) · Wadi (9 works) · Art (8 works) · History (8 works)