Jordan - Abu Hamid

Abu Hamid, located in the central jordan Valley is a site of the late 6th-early 4th millennium BC. Five seasons of excavations have been conducted, sponsored on the french side by the french National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the Jordanian one by the University of Yarmouk, with the constant help of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. The first three seasons benefitted of a grant of the National Geographical Society. The research is pluridisciplinary and international. Its aims are :

 to help to reconstruct by geoarcheological studies and by archeozoological and paleobotanical ones as well the paleoenvironement of the region at the beginning of the Holocene and to look at the interactions man-environment in this specific region.

 to establish, on solid stratigraphical basis, archaeological and cultural sequences in order to be able to compare the evolution of Abu Hamid settlement with others of the Valley and of the neighbouring regions (Djaulan and Hauran, Jordanian Plateau, Araba region, Desert of Judea, Neguev, Mediterranean Coast...) and to see the role that this site could have played at certain periods.

 to examine what has been the socio-economic and technological evolution of the groups that were occupying the site.

Ca 5200-4800 BC. the settlement is a group of semi-subterranean dwelling pits ; the inhabitants are living on agriculture and herding. Ca 4700 BC., and for one or two centuries, the mobility of the groups seems to be greater : only postholes, hearths, firepits, plaster basins and pits have been uncovered. Ca 4600-4300 BC. Abu Hamid becomes a village ; the habitations are pluricellular and built in mudbricks. Ca 4000 BC. the settlement is much larger and covers about 6 ha, surounded by fields of leguminous, wheat and barley and olive trees as well. The material culture shows that at this period the site has links with the Djaulan and the Hauran (most probably on a transhumant basis) as well as with the Neguev (could be for ritual purposes).