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Introduction

Tell Fendi is one of 106 sites recorded by the 1975 East Jordan Valley Survey ¹ and one of ten sites later surveyed by the Jisr Sheikh Hussein Project. ² The site is situated in the northern Jordan Valley, about 22 km south of Lake Tiberias and 2 km west of the site of Khirbet Marqa'a. It is less than 2 km from the current course of the Jordan River and lies on the southern bank of the Wadi Ziqlab (see fig. 1).

The tell itself is a low mound rising 4 m above the surrounding flat alluvial plain, and measures approximately 130 m east-west by 140 m north-south, covering approximately 2 ha. This mound was not formed entirely by human action, but is instead comprised of a fairly thin layer of cultural remains deposited upon a qatar, one of the naturally deposited, low clay hills sparsely scattered across the alluvial floor of the Jordan Valley. The thickness of the cultural deposits ranges from about 0.9 m on the top of the tell to 0.4 m on the southern slope.

The cultural deposits at this site are predominantly Late Chalcolithic (ca. 3700 BC); there are no Bronze or Iron Age deposits, but Byzantine and Mamluk ceramics were found in small quantities. Excavations revealed the foundations of a Chalcolithic broad-room house, a num-ber of architectural features, associated stone and bone tools, and abundant pottery. These remains suggest that this site was a small farming community whose members were exploiting the rich valley-bottom soils.

Excavations

Fig. 1. Plan of the Chalcolithic broad-room house and associated architectural features (plan by E. Banning)

Kareem reports that a mud brick building was built on the south-western corner of the mound in 1955 and destroyed in 1970. Since that time, the site has not been occupied. The former site of this house is presently marked by large disturbed fragments of its concrete foundations. The tell, like the surrounding fields, is currently ploughed twice yearly, once before the planting of barley in December and again after the harvest in May. Because the cultural deposits do not appear to have been buried by any significant subsequent deposition, this plowing results in disturbance of the upper Chalcolithic layers. In an attempt to avoid the most severe site disturbances around the site of the destroyed modern house and a clay borrow-pit dug into the western slope of the mound, we decided to excavate near the summit of the eastern portion of the tell.

Architecture

By the time we dug into our second excavation unit, we came upon the remains of a Chalcolithic broad-room house (fig. 1). This is an important find because, with the exception of Pella XIV ³ and Abu Hamid, ⁴ few complete Chalcolithic buildings have been excavated in the northern Jordan Valley. By the end of the excavation season, complete, relatively intact foundations of the building were exposed. This structure was single-roomed, approximately 9 x 5 m in external dimension, with the long axis oriented generally east-west. The foun-dations were single-course, double-leaf stone walls with rubble fill; these foundations would presumably have served as footings for a more substantial mud-brick wall.

Within the structure, in the southwestern corner, were found the remains of a large storage jar. Not far from this was the base of another large storage jar and the remains of a large basin. In the eastern half of the building was an enigmatic cluster of stones, founded on a semi-circle of large cobbles interspersed with traces of mud-brick detritus; as of yet, we are uncertain of the function of this feature.

The remains of a wall were found projecting eastwards from the southeastern corner of the building. This wall continued for only a few meters before ending in a jumble of wall collapse. As originally constructed, this wall may have been much longer, with the remainder destroyed by modern plowing. It is possible that this wall originally bounded a courtyard space of some type on the eastern side of the house. Near the northeastern corner of the building was a circular pavement of medium-sized rounded cobbles. Stone pavements of this sort are a common feature of Chalcolithic settlements, but their function remains uncertain. Adjacent to this feature was a blackened area containing ashy deposits, perhaps a hearth.

Isolated architectural finds include a short wall comprised of three large mud bricks to the south of and somewhat below the level of the house. Just north of this brick wall was a deep pit dug into the subsoil that contained the remains of a large storage jar as well as some human teeth and bone fragments, suggesting the presence of a jar burial. Jar burials were a common means of interment for infants during the Chalcolithic. Often the jars were formed around the cadaver, as was the case at Teleilat Ghassul. ⁵

Ceramics

The pottery recovered from Tell Fendi is quite similar to that found at Pella XIV. Our preliminary study of the pottery has been hampered by the thick layers of hardened clay that coated most sherds. No complete vessels were found but, judging from the types of sherds and handles recovered, we can surmise that the following types of diagnostic vessels were present: small jars with vertically pierced lug handles; V-shaped bowls (ranging from 12 to 17 cm in diameter); large storage vessels with heavy, out-flaring rims; small jars with out-flaring rims; and large plain basins with thick bases.

Chipped Stone

The chipped stone assemblage from Tell Fendi can be considered typical of the Late Chalcolithic and has parallels at sites such as Teleilat Ghassul, ⁶ Abu Hamid ⁷ and Pella ⁸ among others. As is typical during the Chalcolithic, the density of formed tools is quite low, with the bulk of the assemblage consisting of ad hoc tools and debitage which appears superficially to have been unutilised.

Because only part of the lithic assemblage has been analysed to date, a complete tabulation of the artifacts recovered is not yet available. The tabular fan scrapers, perforated discs, and the particular sub-types of sickle blades and adzes are all typical of the Chalcolithic. Other, less diagnostic, formed tools include perforators, drills, finely retouched bladelets, and various types of slightly formed scrapers. The exact composition of the ad hoc tool assemblage is as yet undefined because of the difficulty in reliably identifying utilised flakes by means of macroscopically visible attributes. The debitage is dominated by flakes bearing large, minimally prepared platforms apparently struck off single-platform or multiple-platform cores. The form of these cores is highly variable, and most are best described as amorphous. Blades make up a smaller proportion of the debitage and appear to have been struck off mixed flake/blade cores, given the paucity of clearly identifiable blade cores at the site.

Other Material

Very few bone objects were found. All bone was highly fragmented, although some pieces bear signs of polishing. A preliminary analysis suggests that, as well as animal faunal material, the faunal assemblage includes some human teeth and bone fragments, as well as invertebrate remains, including significant numbers of both land and water snail shells.

Also recovered were fragments of groundstone vessels, probably made from either basalt or phosphorite. One base fragment of a basalt pedestalled bowl was found. No maceheads (a typical artifact for the Chalcolithic) were found in this season, and they may be entirely absent from the assemblage. A small number of stone and clay spindle whorls was also discovered.

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
TORONTO, ONTARIO M5S 3G3

¹ M. Ibrahim, J.A. Sauer, K. Yassine, "The East Jordan Valley Survey, 1975," Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 222 (1976) 41-66.

² C.J. Lenzen, J. Kareem, S. Thorpe, "The Jisr Sheikh Hussein Project, 1986," Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 31 (1987) 313-319; J. Kareem, "Tell Fendi: Jisr Sheikh Hussein Project, 1986," Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 33 (1989) 97-109.

³ A. McNicoll, R.H. Smith, B. Hennessy, Pella in Jordan, 1 (Canberra 1982).

⁴ G. Dollfus, Z. Kafafi, Abu Hamid (Amman 1987).

⁵ A. Mallon, R. Koeppel, R. Neuville, Teleilat Ghassul, I (Rome 1934); R. Koeppel, Teleilat Ghassul, II (Rome 1940).

⁶ J.R. Lee, Chalcolithic Ghassul: New Aspects and Master Typology (Diss. Hebrew University 1973).

⁷ G. Dollfus, Z. Kafafi, J. Rewerski, N. Vaillant, E. Coqueniot, J. Desse, R. Neef, "Abu Hamid, an early fourth millennium site in the Jordan Valley," in A.N. Garrard, H.G. Gebel, eds., The Prehistory of Jordan: The State of Research in 1986. BAR International Series, vol. 396 (ii) (Oxford 1988) 567-601.

⁸ G.O. Rollefson, "Chipped stone tools from Pella," in Pella in Jordan, 2 (Sydney 1992) 231-241.