Jerf el Ahmar ( ar, الجرف الأحمر) is a
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
site in northern Syria, which dated back between 9,200 and 8,700 BC.
History
Jerf el Ahmar contained a sequence of round and rectangular buildings, which is currently flooded by the
Lake Assad following the construction of the
Tishrin Dam. For five centuries, the site was shaped by the
Mureybet
Mureybet ( ar, مريبط, muribit, lit=covered) is a tell, or ancient settlement mound, located on the west bank of the Euphrates in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria. The site was excavated between 1964 and 1974 and has since disappeared und ...
culture, which had artifacts such as flint weapons and decorated small stones. The first transitions to agriculture in the region could be observed by the discovery of
wild barley and
einkorn. The first evidence of
lentil
The lentil (''Lens culinaris'' or ''Lens esculenta'') is an edible legume. It is an annual plant known for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about tall, and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each. As a food crop, the largest pro ...
domestication appears in the early Neolithic at Jerf el Ahmar.
Notes
References
{{Neolithic Southwest Asia
Archaeological sites in Aleppo Governorate
Tells (archaeology)
Upper Mesopotamia
Pre-Pottery Neolithic