Pre-Pottery Neolithic A - Regional Variants

Regional Variants

With more sites becoming known, archaeologists have defined a number of regional variants:

• 'Sultanian' in the Jordan River valley and southern Levant with the type site of Jericho. Other sites include Netiv HaGdud, El-Khiam, Hatoula and Nahal Oren.
• 'Mureybetian' in the Northern Levant. Defined by the finds from Mureybet IIIA, IIIB, typical: Helwan points, sickle-blades with base amenagée or short stem and terminal retouch. Other sites include Sheyk Hasan and Jerf el-Ahmar.
• 'Aswadian' in the Damascus Basin. Defined by finds from Tell Aswad IA. Typical: bipolar cores, big sickle blades, Aswad points. The 'Aswadian' variant was recently abolished by the work of Danielle Stordeur in her initial report from further investigations in 2001–2006. The PPNB horizon was moved back at this site, to around 8700 BC.
• sites in 'Upper Mesopotamia' include Çayönü and Göbekli Tepe.