Shepherd Neolithic is a name given by archaeologists to a style (or
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
) of small
flint tools
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...
from the
Hermel
Hermel ( ar, الهرمل) is a town in Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, Lebanon. It is the capital of Hermel District. Hermel is home to a Lebanese Red Cross First Aid Center. Hermel's inhabitants are predominantly Shia Muslims.
There is an ancie ...
plains in the north
Beqaa Valley,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
.
[Fleisch, Henri., Les industries lithiques récentes de la Békaa, République Libanaise, Acts of the 6th C.I.S.E.A., vol. XI, no. 1. Paris, 1960.] The Shepherd Neolithic industry has been insufficiently studied and was provisionally named based on a limited typology collected by
Jesuit archaeologist "Père"
Henri Fleisch
Reverend Father Henri Fleisch (1 January 1904 – 10 February 1985) was a French archaeologist, missionary and Orientalist, known for his work on classical Arabic language and Lebanese dialect and prehistory in Lebanon. Fleisch spent years rec ...
.
Lorraine Copeland
Lorraine Copeland (born Elizabeth Lorraine Adie, 1921April 2013) was a British archaeologist specialising in the Palaeolithic period of the Near East. She was a secret agent with the Special Operations Executive during World War II.
Early life
...
and
Peter J. Wescombe suggested it was possibly ''"of quite late date"''.
Characteristics
Shepherd Neolithic material can be found dispersed over a wide area of the north
Beqaa Valley in low concentrations. M. Billaux and Henri Fleisch suggested that the flints were of a higher quality than the brittle flint in the nearby
conglomerates indicating origin from elsewhere. Three groups of flint could be determined; light brown, red-brown and that varied but was usually grey-chocolate that was distinguished with a radiant "desert shine". Characteristics of the industry include smallness in size, commonly between 2.5 cm and 4 cm and frequently being quite thick, unlike geometric
microliths
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Th ...
. The small number of tools within the assemblage is another distinguishable characteristic, including short denticulated or notched blades, end scrapers, transverse
racloir
In archaeology, a racloir, also known as ''racloirs sur talon'' (French for scraper on the platform), is a certain type of flint tool made by prehistoric peoples.
It is a type of side scraper distinctive of Mousterian assemblages. It is created ...
s on thin flakes and borers with strong points. They also display a lack of recognizable
typology
Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...
although
Levallois technique
The Levallois technique () is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 300,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was ...
was occasionally observed to have been used. They also show signs of having been heavily worked with cores being re-used and turned into scrapers. Fleisch suggested the industry was
Epipaleolithic as it is evidently not
Paleolithic,
Mesolithic or even
Pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
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 ...
. He further suggested that the industry could have been used by
nomad
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
ic
shepherds.
The relationship and dividing line between the related
Heavy Neolithic
Heavy Neolithic (alternatively, Gigantolithic) is a style of large stone and flint tools (or industry) associated primarily with the Qaraoun culture in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon, dating to the Epipaleolithic or early Pre-Pottery Neolithic at t ...
zone of the south
Beqaa Valley could also not be clearly defined but was suggested to be in the area around
Douris and
Qalaat Tannour. Not enough exploration had been carried out to conclude whether the bands of Neolithic surface sites continues south into the areas around
Zahle and
Rayak
Rayaq - Haouch Hala ( ar, رياق), also romanized Rayak, is a Lebanese town in the Beqaa Governorate near the city of Zahlé. In the early 20th century and up to 1975 and the outbreak of the civil war, it was Lebanon's most important railway ...
.
Sites
The type sites of the Shepherd Neolithic are at
Qaa and
Maqne I, with other sites with Shepherd Neolithic finds include
Douris,
Hermel II,
Hermel III,
Kamouh el Hermel
Kamouh el Hermel, the Pyramid of Hermel (also known as God's Pyramid, House of El, the Funnel of Hermel or Needle of Hermel) is an ancient pyramid located south of Hermel in Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, Lebanon.
Location, description
The pyramid ...
,
Qalaat Tannour,
Wadi Boura I and possibly at
Rayak North,
Riha Station and
Serain.
References
{{Shepherd Neolithic sites
Archaeological cultures of West Asia
Neolithic cultures of Asia
Archaeological cultures in Lebanon
Lithics