AL-LAHUN Jordan

 Prehistory

 

In Prehistory the area was certainly temporarily inhabited. Numerous rock shelters ("abris sous roche"), caves hidden in cliffs, and some occasional springs were ideal surroundings for the Palaeolithic man, who could also exploit flint stone layers for manufacturing tools and weapons.

Undertaking a lithic survey of the whole site in 1980, G.O. Rollefson and G. Finkbeiner collected about 1000 flints from the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic in an area of 225,000 m². Their finds proved a long, but often discontinuous occupation of the site, as no Neolithic tools have been found. The oldest examples go back 150,000 to 80,000 years. They consisted mainly of racloirs, burins, scrapers, flakes (including some made according to the Levallois technique), nuclei and core fragments. Temporary settlements must have existed in the Pottery Neolithic and the Chalcolithic periods, as a few combed sherds and some flints were found.

 

 

  Lehun - Abris sous roche

 

 

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