Tell Aswad — Damascus Basin Neolithic Village
Tell Aswad · Tell Aswad (Damascus) · Aswad Pre-Pottery Village
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (8700–7500 BCE; phases I–III)·PPNB Levantine (Ghuta facies)·🇸🇾 Damascus Governorate, Ghuta basin, near Jdeidat al-Khass, Syria
About
About Tell Aswad — Damascus Basin Neolithic Village
Tell Aswad is a 4 ha PPNB (8700–7500 BCE) mound in the Damascus Ghuta oasis excavated by Danielle Stordeur (CNRS, 2001–07) after F. Braidwood 1967 soundings. Among earliest PPNB villages in interior Levant: pisé houses with lime floors, early barley-einkorn domestication, overmodelled plastered skulls with shell eyes, and PPNB lithic naviform blades. Ten phases show plastered floor replaster 100+ events.
Why it mattersEarliest interior Levant PPNB documenting skull cult eastward diffusion and oasis cereal domestication independent of Euphrates.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Is Aswad barley truly domestic vs wild harvest?
Theories
- 01Stordeur: Ghuta oasis independent domestication nucleus
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.8700 BCE (PPNB early)
- Period
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (8700–7500 BCE; phases I–III)
- Culture
- PPNB Levantine (Ghuta facies)
- Builders
- PPNB early farmers
- Purpose
- Oasis farming village initiating cereal domestication in Damascus basin
- Abandoned
- c.7500 BCE (PPNB to Pottery N hiatus)
- Rediscovered
- 1967 Braidwood; 2001 Stordeur CNRS rescue
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
2001–2007
Stordeur Ghuta salvage; skull caches
c.8200 BCE
PPNB plastered skull house phase Aswad I
On the ground
Structures & features
33.4100° N · 36.5500° E · 640 m · 3 mapped features
Aswad PPNB Plastered Skull House
shrineHouse with three overmodelled skulls with cowrie eyes
33.4106° N · 36.5505° EAswad Barley Storage Pit
habitationCarbonized barley cache in pisé silo
33.4093° N · 36.5508° EAswad Naviform Workshop
workshopNaviform blade core obsidian knapping floor
33.4110° N · 36.5494° E