Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (350 page)

A settlement near Kish at the northern end of the Mesopotamian alluvial plain. Excavations by Stephen Langdon in the 1920s revealed a series of deposits containing a distinctive style of painted pottery (black and red paint over buff fabric) that has come to define the Jemdet Nasr Phase in the southern Mesopotamian sequence and dates to the late 4th millennium
bc
. It is equivalent to
URUK
III and has evidence for writing, the use of fine sculpture, increasing trade, and craft specialization. Jemdet Nasr was occupied from late Uruk through to early Dynastic I times and serves to demonstrate the essential continuity of the period. A substantial structure uncovered at Jemdet Nasr may prove to be the earliest known palace in southern Mesopotamia.
[Rep.: E. J. H. Mackay , 1931,
Report on excavations at Jemdet Nasr, Iraq
. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History]

 
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Jenness , Diamond
(1886–1969)
[Bi].

Canadian ethnographer and archaeologist who worked extensively in the Arctic. In 1925 he first described the
DORSET TRADITION
.
[Obit.:
American Anthropologist
73 (1971), 248–51]

 
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A massive tell mound in the Jordan Valley of Israel, just north of Wadi el-Mafjar. Excavated at various intervals since the late 19th century
ad
, notably by J. Garstang in 1930–6 and Kathleen Kenyon in 1952–8, the site shows a long and uninterrupted sequence from the Natufian through to the late Bronze Age. The Natufian levels date to about 8000 bc and seem to represent a hunter-gatherer campsite, although Kenyon discovered a rectangular stone platform that may have been some kind of shrine. These are followed by the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A levels (PPNA) at about 7500 bc: a settlement of 4ha was enclosed by a fortification wall that includes a large tower against its inner face. It is one of the earliest permanent settlements known. The houses are round and of mud brick. Subsistence here included cereal cultivation and hunting animals. The succeeding PPNB, dated to
c.
6500 bc, had rectangular houses with plastered floors. An increased range of crops was cultivated, and it is possible than domesticated sheep were exploited. Evidence of an ancestor cult was found in the form of plastered skulls with cowrie shell eyes. There was a break in occupation after the PPNB, but the site was reoccupied in late Neolithic and Chalcolithic times. This was the Proto-Urban phase dating to about 3200 bc, and it is from here the site begins takes on a distinctively city-like character, the earliest in Palestine. The middle Bronze Age town was defended by a
GLACIS
and occupied by the Hyksos; it was destroyed by the Egyptians in 1580 bc. The Late Bronze Age town of about 1400 bc has been correlated with the city destroyed, in Biblical accounts, by Joshua and the
ISRAELITES
.
[Rep.: K. M. Kenyon , 1957,
Digging up Jericho
. London: Ernest Benn; K. M. Kenyon , 1981,
Excavations at Jericho
, volume III. London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem]

 
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Laurel-leaf points, flaked completely on one side but bifacially only on the lower part of the blade and on the bulb of percussion. Characteristic of the Upper Palaeolithic Jermanovice Culture in Poland.

 
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Church Father and saint, born in Dalmatia
c.
ad 348 and already following an official career when he entered religious life. The life of asceticism appealed to him and he travelled in the eastern deserts. A short stay in Rome (ad 382–5) led to a commission to correct the variant texts of the Bible then current, and the years from 389 to his death were spent in theology and commentary writing. His principal works are the revised Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, and his
Chronicle
which provides a key source for the events of the years around ad 400, but his correspondence preserves much curious detail. Died
c.
ad 420.

 
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