Iraq ed-Dubb, or the Cave of the Bear, is an early

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

archeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology ...

site northwest of

Ajlun Ajloun (, ''‘Ajlūn''), also spelled Ajlun, is the capital town of the Ajloun Governorate, a hilly town in the north of Jordan, located 76 kilometers (around 47 miles) north west of Amman. It is noted for its impressive ruins of the 12th-centur ...

in the Jordan Valley, in modern-day

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

. The settlement existed before 8,000 BCE and experimented with the cultivation of

founder crops The founder crops or primary domesticates are a group of flowering plants that were domesticated by early farming communities in Southwest Asia and went on to form the basis of agricultural economies across Eurasia. As originally defined by Dan ...

, side by side with the harvesting of wild cereals. Along with Tell Aswad in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, the site shows the earliest reference to domestic hulled

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

between 10,000 and 8,800 BCE.Colledge, Sue, Conolly, James & Shennan, Stephen., Archaeobotanical Evidence for the Spread of Farming in the Eastern Mediterranean, Current Anthropology, The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Volume 45, Supplement, August - October 2004.
/ref> The site is located on a forested limestone escarpment above the Wadi el-Yabis in northwest Jordan. An oval-shaped stone structure was excavated along with two

burial Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

s and a variety of animal and plant remains.Kuijt I., Palumbo G., Mabry J., Early Neolithic use of upland areas of Wadi El-Yabis : preliminary evidence from the excavations of 'Iraq Ed-Dubb, Jordan, Paléorient, Volume 17, Issue 17-1, pp. 99-108, 1991.
/ref> The cave is above the wadi el-Yabis with a total area in the cave of around , with as much as on the surrounding terrace. The cave measures by with an oval structure inside measuring . It features mud floors overlaid on mud brick architecture along with a burned post and the two human burials found in bedrock depressions. The site was discovered in June 1989 when a few soundings were made with further excavations over three seasons, led by Ian Kuijt. The cave was covered in

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...

dung at the time of excavation, indicating it was used as an occasional animal holding pen until modern times. The stone tool assemblage was suggested to be similar to other early neolithic sites in the Jordan valley and included El Khiam points. The site has provided important information regarding the use of upland forested areas in the early neolithic period. Material remains at the site have been radiocarbon dated to around 7,950 BCE. Two periods of occupation were detected in the

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating to years ago, that is, 10,000–8800 BCE. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and U ...

(PPNA) period with one of them possibly being late

Natufian The Natufian culture ( ) is an archaeological culture of the late Epipalaeolithic Near East in West Asia from 15–11,500 Before Present. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentism, sedentary or semi-sedentary population even befor ...

. The later structure had upright stone walls, mud floors and remains from a hearth. The earlier construction was detected to have had mud bricks, several pit features in the bedrock and the burned post. The radiocarbon date of

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

suggested occupation earlier than the sites of

Netiv Hagdud Netiv HaGdud () is an Israeli settlement organized as a moshav in the West Bank.Netiv HaGdud
Bik'at HaYarden R ...

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

providing insight into different means of subsistence in upland areas during this transitional phase prior to the development of farming in the Jordan valley. At the time of excavation, it was the only known stratified cave site dating to the early neolithic period in Jordan. Sue Colledge has suggested that along with Tell Aswad, the site shows the earliest evidence for domesticated

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

, claiming the site has the ''"earliest dated evidence for the use of domestic cereals in southwestern Asia"'' with a date range from approximately 9600 to 9475 BCE. It was noted that the number of specimens reported was low and their preservation was poor. Colledge assumed finds of domesticated

(Hordeum vulgare) and

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

(likely Triticum turgidum dicoccum) were growing in secondary habitats. George Wilcox warned that the discovery of two grains of

einkorn Einkorn wheat (from German ''Einkorn'', literally "single grain") can refer to either a wild species of wheat (''Triticum'') or a domesticated form of wheat. The wild form is ''T. boeoticum'' (syn. ''T. m.'' subsp. ''boeoticum''), and the domes ...

wheat at the site should be treated cautiously as anomalies to the general assumption that

emmer Emmer is a hybrid species of wheat, producing edible seeds that have been used as food since ancient times. The domesticated types are ''Triticum turgidum'' subsp. ''dicoccum'' and ''T. t. ''conv.'' durum''. The wild plant is called ''T. t.'' s ...

was the only type of wheat used during the PPNA in the southern

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

. Graeme Barker has suggested that the

spikelet A spikelet, in botany, describes the typical arrangement of the inflorescences of grasses, sedges and some other monocots. Each spikelet has one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes. The part of the sp ...

forks and

glume In botany, a glume is a bract (leaf-like structure) below a spikelet in the inflorescence (flower cluster) of grass Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flow ...

bases of domesticated wheat found were likely emmer. Studies have also been carried out on the fauna remains over the period of time between the Natufian and PPNA periods when hunter-gatherer groups first experimented with farming.Martin, L., Edwards, Y. H., Fauna from the Natufian and PPNA Cave Site of Iraq ed-Dubb in Highland Jordan, Paléorient, Volume 33, Issue 33-1, pp. 143-174, 2007.
/ref>

References

External links

www.exoriente.org - Radiocarbon dates for Iraq ed-Dubb

Photos of Iraq ed-Dubb
at the American Center of Research {{Portal, Jordan, History, Asia 1989 archaeological discoveries Archaeological sites in Jordan Neolithic settlements Natufian sites Archaeological type sites Rock shelters Pre-Pottery Neolithic A