The uniform construction standard 7,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley

Throughout history, including that of the 20th century, in settlements that were built of mud bricks there were always several different "recipes" for making the bricks - a different "recipe" for several families; And here, in Tel Tsef, from 7,000 years ago, the researchers of the University of Haifa found a unique phenomenon: one and the same "recipe" for hundreds of years. "We are now examining all the elements to try and answer whether what we see at Tel Tsef marks the beginning of the development of a social elite, an important family or a group of people who managed to accumulate enough economic power and translated it into social influence," said the researchers

For about 600 hundred years, starting from 5,200 BC to about 4,600 BC, our ancestors in the Jordan Valley carried out a unique and uncharacteristic process for the period: they instituted a uniform construction standard for the settlement's buildings, according to a new study led by researchers from the Zinman Institute at the University of Haifa together with Partners from several universities in the world published in the prestigious journal PLoS ONE. "Most of the research done in the Middle East and in other parts of the world on sites from prehistoric times and later periods, showed that in every settlement that was based on building with mud bricks, there were several centers of brick production that operated at the same time and each had its own 'recipe' for making bricks. And here at Tel Zef, for such a long period of time, all the mud bricks were prepared in the same way and according to the same recipe. Our explanation is that this is further evidence that a society existed at Tel Tsef that was characterized by a higher social complexity than we knew, perhaps the beginning of the formation of some ruling stratum that dictated some of the 'conventions' in various aspects of daily life at the site," said Prof. Danny Rosenberg, head of the archeology department and a researcher at the institute Zinman for Archeology at the University of Haifa, who has been leading the international research project at Tel Tsef since 2013 together with Dr. Florian Klimsch from the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin as part of a multidisciplinary project that includes an international team of various experts and advanced scientific methods that focuses on a careful reconstruction of the site's economy and its ancient environment.

The uniqueness of Tel Zaf lies in the fact that it is one of the few settlements in our region from the period of 7,200 years ago. This is a period of transition between agricultural societies that inhabited villages that were mostly not large and between societies where you can see the buds of the transition to urban societies, where the complexity of the social and economic organization is high. Since almost no returns from this period have been preserved, very little is known about this transition period and the characteristics of the change that culminates in the great empires of the early period in the Fertile Crescent region. Indeed, the excavations at Tel Tsef reveal additional findings every season that make up the picture and testify to the development of a society that is becoming more and more complex. "Our project focuses on understanding the transition to complex societies in our region and the establishment of what we know as the 'Mediterranean diet,'" said Prof. Rosenberg. "Basically, we look at Tel Tsef as a laboratory for human behavior and for understanding human-environment relationships and we look at the different layers on the site and the findings in high resolution, that is, we try to decipher the smallest components that we uncover in order to reassemble the broad archaeological picture afterwards."

In the current study, the researchers focused on the mud bricks that made up the buildings of Tel Zef. Thousands of them have been preserved in the walls of buildings, rooms, various installations and silos, and of various organic materials inside the mud bricks, which include remains of trees as well as seeds and fruits, which were usually not so well preserved in contemporary sites. According to the researchers, in other places in the world where mud bricks have been preserved, including in settlements from the 20th century, it was common for each nucleus of families to have their own "recipe" for making mud bricks, so that in each settlement you can find several types of mud bricks. Certainly, as we progress through the different periods, more and more changes are discovered in the "recipes" of the mud bricks.

However, at Tel Tsef, from chemical and microscopic tests that examined the chemical and mineralogical composition of over 100 mud bricks from various buildings in the settlement and a period of about 600 years, starting from 5,200 BC to about 4,600 BC, it became clear that all the bricks were produced with exactly the same recipe and that all They were dried in the sun, meaning they were not burned in a furnace, and most of the walls were built using similar methods and covered with light plaster. "The ancient inhabitants made sure to plaster the buildings again and again, thus keeping the mud bricks sensitive to the elements and various animals such as small rodents, birds and insects. "We think that when people approached Tel Tsef 7,000 years ago, they already saw from afar a white settlement, shining on the horizon, somewhat similar to the villages in Greece" say the researchers.

Now the researchers are working hard to try and understand the reason that caused the unusual architectural behavior of Tel-Zeff. "The excavations at Tel-Zef reveal more and more evidence of a complex social and economic organization and trade with distant regions from Egypt and eastern Jordan to Iraq and Anatolia. We are now examining all the elements to try and answer whether what we see in Tel Tsef marks the beginning of the development of a social elite, an important family or a group of people who managed to accumulate enough economic power and translated it into social influence, or whether it is actually a settlement that chose to organize its communal life and its economy in a more collaborative way. In any case, this is a phenomenon that deviates from what we are familiar with from most sites where the main construction is made of mud bricks, and it is possible that together with other phenomena that have been identified until now only at Tel Tsef, we are seeing the beginnings of a fundamental change that very possibly led eventually to the appearance of the urban settlements in the area, hundreds of years later More", Prof. Rosenberg concluded.