Neba'a Faour, Tell Neba'a Faour, Mashna'et el Faour, Neba Faour or Nebaa Faour is a large, low-lying archaeological tell mound in the

Bekaa Valley The Beqaa Valley ( ar, links=no, وادي البقاع, ', Lebanese ), also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ, and Becaa and known in classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanon's most importan ...

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 ...

inhabited in the late 7th and early 6th millennium BC. It was initially discovered by

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 in 1965 near the road from

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

to Damascus, 5 miles from the border with Syria. The site was mainly composed of soil and pebbles on limestone bedrock, the site showed heavy erosion since it was abandoned and recent damage from modern construction in the area. It has been suggested as an example of an aceramic stage following the

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon durin ...

(PPNB) that is called the

Pre-Pottery Neolithic C The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent, dating to years ago, (10000 – 6500 BCE).Richard, Suzanne ''Near Eastern archaeology'' Eisenbrauns; il ...

(PPNC); sites of comparable culture are

Tell Ramad Tell Ramad ( ar, تل رماد) is a prehistoric, Neolithic tell at the foot of Mount Hermon, about southwest of Damascus in Syria. The tell was the site of a small village of , which was first settled in the late 8th millennium BC. The tell ...

Labwe Labweh ( ar, اللبوة), Laboué, Labwe or Al-Labweh is a village at an elevation of on a foothill of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Baalbek District, Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, Lebanon. History The Neolithic settlements represented at Labwe ...

and others in the

Byblos Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 8 ...

region. It is generally dated between the second half of the 7th millennium and the beginning of the 6th millennium BC.

Materials recovered

Most of the material recovered from this open cast site came from surface finds along with a to core of Neolithic deposits.

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 ...

levels revealed evidence of stone-wall footings and a series of distinctive cream, lime-plaster floors. Black, beige or brown flint was knapped at the site, and tools recovered included numerous scrapers, cores for blades, Byblos- and Amouq-point

arrowhead An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as sign ...

javelins A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon, but today predominantly for sport. The javelin is almost always thrown by hand, unlike the sling, bow, and crossbow, which launch projectiles with the ...

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...

blade elements, burins and borers. Lebanese sites of this date usually reveal heavy tools, but only two

hand axe A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or ch ...

s were recovered at this site. A stone bowl with a fine bead rim was also found. The site is notable for finds of a type of precursor to

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

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 ...

called "

White Ware White Ware or "Vaisselle Blanche", effectively a form of limestone plaster used to make vessels, is the first precursor to clay pottery developed in the Levant that appeared in the 9th millennium BC, during the pre-pottery (aceramic) neolithic per ...

", or "Vaisselle Blanche". This was made with a type of

lime plaster Lime plaster is a type of plaster composed of sand, water, and lime, usually non-hydraulic hydrated lime (also known as slaked lime, high calcium lime or air lime). Ancient lime plaster often contained horse hair for reinforcement and pozzolan ...

mixed with grey ashes, which when fired it turned into a hardened, white material that resembles

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

. Vessels were formed by coiling the plaster around

baskets A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehai ...

. Fragments of large vessels were found that are thought to have been used like "portable silos".Evin, Jacques & Hours, Francis, ''Chronologies du Proche Orient'', Parts 1-2, pp. 405 & 424, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France), B.A.R., 1987.
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References

{{Portal, Lebanon, History, Asia Populated places established in the 7th millennium BC Populated places disestablished in the 6th millennium BC 1965 archaeological discoveries Neolithic settlements Archaeological sites in Lebanon Great Rift Valley Pre-Pottery Neolithic B