Marine Shells from Tor Fawaz, Southern Jordan, and Their Implications for Behavioral Changes from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in the Levant

Abstract

Marine shells from archaeological sites have been widely studied as records of food resources, symbolic objects, and remote resources. The latter aspect can provide evidence about mobility patterns or social networks, which are among key aspects in human behavioral evolution and factors related to intergroup relationship and cultural transmissions. This paper reports marine shells newly recovered at Tor Fawaz, a rock-shelter site in southwest Jordan, and examines their chrono-cultural context by using radiocarbon dates of the shells and analyzing techno-typological characteristics of associated lithic artifacts. The identification of three taxa, Conus sp. or Conomurex sp., Naria sp., and Pecten sp. cf. jacobaeus, indicates transport of marine shells to Tor Fawaz from the Red Sea (55 km away) and possibly the Mediterranean (185 km away). We discuss the shell transport from a viewpoint of resource procurement and suggest a slight range expansion in procurement strategies from the late MP to the IUP in the study area. Whether this range expansion was realized by changes in mobility or intergroup interactions, it probably worked as a means for risk mitigation in the marginal environments and had possible relevance to cultural transmission in the IUP.