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A REANALYSIS OF BASAL TABBAT AL-HAMMAM, SYRIA
BY
FRANK HOLE
The purpose of this paper is two-fold. The first part is a reanalysis and expanded description of the material from basal Tabbat al-Hammam which was test-excavated during the early summer of 1938 by Robert J. and Linda Braidwood, then of the staff of the Oriental Institute's Syrian Expedition. A preliminary report (2) has appeared in which all the levels are given summary description. In this paper I will focus my attention on the lowest level — the remains of which are typologically akin to those found in certain other early village farming communities of the east Mediterranean littoral (3).
Secondly, I will make a brief comparative study so that Tabbat al- Hammam can be placed spatially and temporally in its relation to other sites in the general eastern Mediterranean area. Because of the present limitations of evidence (both from Tabbat al-Hammam and from the other sites) a study such as this can only be tentative. However it will be possible to point out some areas of relationship as well as some major gaps in our understanding of the cultural sequence.
(*) I am indebted to Prof. Robert J. Braid- wood for making the Tabbat al-Hammam material available to me. It has also been a great help to be able to refer to the Braidwoods' soon-to-be-published Amuq report.
(2) R. and L. Braidwood, Report on two sondages on the coast of Syria, south of Tartous, Syria, XXI, 1940, pp. 183-226. Hereafter referred to as "Sondages."
(8) I follow Braidwood in his rejection of
SYRIA. — XXXVI.
the term "neolithic." This idea has been most fully developed in seminars at the University of Chicago during the years 1957-58, although similar ideas are expressed in print, e. g. R. J. Braidwood and C. A. Reed, The achievement and early consequences of food- production : a consideration of the archeological and natural-historical evidence. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, XXII, 1957, pp. 19-31.
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