Dolmens in the Levant

Abstract

This thesis challenges the long-standing view that dolmens represent part of a pan- Levantine megalithic phenomenon that endured through the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. It is argued that this view has entrenched in the literature unsubstantiated assumptions concerning dolmen typology, chronology and distribution that have prevented us from placing these tombs within their true cultural contexts. By constraining the term dolmen to a group of comparable trilithon structures, it is shown that most dolmens in the Levant are found in the east Jordan Valley escarpment, principally between the Jaulan plateau and the Madaba Plains. Drawing on a comparanda of historical, archaeological and geological sources, it is proposed that the distribution of dolmens within this zone correlates with the distribution of EB I settlement sites, but only in areas dominated by particular geological formations. The relationship between dolmens, settlement and geology is examined in detail in the Wadi ar-Rayyan (el- Yabis), drawing on fieldwork undertaken by the North Jordan Tomb Project in an extensive dolmen field at Tell er-Ras. By restricting dolmens to these typological, chronological and geographic parameters, it is possible to bring these “mysterious” monuments (Scheltema 2008, 11) into sharper focus. It is argued that dolmens in the Levant served as stone-built charnel houses for family groups in the EB I. As such, dolmens helped promote the heterarchically organised, kin-based corporate identities that underlay the increasingly more integrated social and economic institutions of the southern Levant in the midlate 4th millennium BC.