Jordan: The mysterious Stone Age village

The Neolithic village of Ba'ja in Jordan is a famous archaeological site. It was one of the world's first known settlements, founded some 9,000 years ago. The site has produced magnificent finds including an ancient necklace made of 2,500 beads.

What prompted our Neolithic ancestors to settle down? Why did they change their nomadic, hunter-gatherer lives so radically? As is so often the case in archaeology, it is tombs that tell us the most, while also raising new questions.

One of the most magnificent finds at the Ba'ja archaeological site is the richly furnished tomb of a young girl. In 2018, as the excavation team was about to depart, beads emerged from beneath the slab of a nondescript tomb. The team kept working until they finally recovered around 2,500 beads. Further research showed the beads belonged to an elaborately crafted necklace that had been buried with the girl. The team affectionately christened her Jamila, "the beautiful one."

Jamila's necklace is a sensation, and has been put on display at the new Petra Museum. There, the entire history of the country is presented, beginning with Ba'ja and humankind’s decision to leave behind the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Along with other finds from Ba'ja, Jamila's finely wrought necklace calls into question much of what we thought we knew about the Stone Age. In recent decades, the burial site in Jordan has helped us see Neolithic people through different eyes. One thing seems clear: They were able to invest time in aesthetics, jewelry and furnishings because their food supply was secure.

Transcript
0:05 Here, in a sparse rocky landscape in Jordan, a mysterious grave has been discovered...
0:13 The 9,000 year-old resting place of a young girl who was buried below the floor of a house in a Stone Age settlement.
0:24 The girl was buried alongside valuable, elaborate grave goods which were most likely symbols of a great sense of love
0:32 and loss. As humans settled, the dead became part of everyday life.
0:37 People increasingly related to those they had lost and to their ancestors.
0:43 The archaeologists who uncovered the remains of the eight-year-old child named her Jamila "the Beautiful".
0:58 What happened, all those thousands of years ago? And what does the grave reveal about life in Ba'ja,
1:04 this Neolithic settlement?
1:31 The 26th of June 2018. In Ba'ja, the year's excavations are drawing to a close,
1:38 and the archaeologists are carefully recovering the final artefacts from the site.
1:43 It is business as usual until the team suddenly comes across Jamila's grave.
1:49 They are amazed by their discovery:
1:57 The grave was extremely elaborate. As are the grave goods alongside Jamila's remains.
2:07 I would say that the necklace of this child is outstanding.
2:14 It is a fascinating piece of jewellery.
2:19 It gives you goose bumps. It is incredible, even compared to ancient Petra.
2:27 The buried treasure is taken to Germany for further examination. The restoration experts Andrea Fischer and Alice Burkhardt prepare
2:35 the beads so that the archaeologist Hala Alarashi can reconstruct the necklace...
2:45 ...which will then be returned to Jordan.
2:53 Suddenly, the modern world is brought to a standstill by a virus.
2:58 International travel largely ceases and national borders are closed.
3:05 Finally, in autumn of 2021, the experts from the Freie Universität Berlin's ex oriente scientific association
3:12 are able to return, with Jamila's restored necklace.
3:19 The Stone Age artwork is to receive a special place in the new Petra Museum, near the Ba'ja excavation site.
3:27 Archaeological discoveries are only allowed to be taken out of Jordan for research purposes, but they remain the country's property.
3:35 Before Jamila's necklace is mounted in the museum, the restoration experts and archaeologists make another visit
3:41 to the discovery site. What will they uncover this time?
3:49 Hans Georg K. Gebel came to Ba'ja in 1984 and has overseen the excavations ever since.
3:58 Kahlid, Ra’ed, Ziad, Ali, Faysal and Mohamad are members of the Ammarin tribe.
4:08 Some of them have spent decades assisting with the excavations along with their families.
4:19 Many of the local Bedouins once lived in and around neighbouring Petra. As tourism became increasingly important,
4:26 the Jordanian government moved them into a purpose-built village, Al-Baydha.
4:38 The village is also the base camp for the Ba'ja archaeologists. The necessary equipment is stored in one of Al-Baydha's simple houses.
4:47 The team only ever take what they really need with them, as getting to the site is extremely difficult.
5:01 The pick-ups make their way through the dusty, rocky landscape to the entrance into the deep Ba'ja gorge.
5:10 The sparse vegetation here requires irrigation to grow.
5:17 These large trees, on the other hand, grew without human interference. They mark the beginning of a gorge shaped by masses
5:24 of water over thousands of years, known locally as a "Siq".
5:33 From here, the team has to continue on foot. The luggage makes the climb even more challenging.
5:40 Multiple journeys are required to transport everything to the site.
5:48 Despite the difficulties, the siq remains the easiest way to access the well-hidden location.
5:53 It is safe to assume that people took the same route to the settlement 9,000 years ago.
6:01 Somewhat unsurprisingly, Ba'ja was first discovered by a mountaineer. More than 30 years ago,
6:07 the Austrian climber came across some Stone Age tools at the foot of one of the rock walls.
6:12 Hans Georg K. Gebel learned of the discovery and set out to investigate, guided by curiosity
6:19 and luck.
6:28 In 1984, Gebel had to navigate the gorge without equipment.
6:33 These days, three ladders remain in place in the siq during the excavations, while the others are required at the site itself.
6:45 The remote, hidden location of the Stone Age village protected the artefacts from grave robbers and from
6:51 later human expansion and construction.
6:58 Towards the top the siq opens up to reveal the high plateau the archaeologists have named Ba'ja
7:03 after the surrounding mountains.
7:10 Marion Benz and Hans Georg K. Gebel find themselves in familiar surroundings,
7:15 but it is the first time Andrea Fischer and Alice Burkhardt have laid eyes on the excavation site where Jamila's grave
7:22 and the beads the two restoration experts have now been working on for almost two years were found.
7:32 For thousands of years, the only visitors to this place consisted of occasional goat herders.
7:38 The 9,000-year-old village was discovered during the removal of the first layer of earth.
7:46 Archaeologists can only base their conclusions on materials able to survive for millennia, such as rock, horn, bone or shell.
7:55 The Jordanian archaeologist and art historian Sereen al-Shoubaki uses the scientific results of her colleagues,
8:02 as well as her knowledge and her imagination, to bring the village back to life.
8:09 Al-Shoubaki was part of the excavation team in 2018 and has developed a strong bond with the ancient site.
8:18 It is the fifth time Marion Benz has visited Ba'ja. In 2018, she and Hala Alarashi uncovered Jamila's grave.
8:33 For me, Ba'ja is like winning the lottery. I was able to excavate a number of graves that told me a lot
8:39 about ancient social structures. That is my specialist field: the transition from nomadic to sedentary ways of life
8:46 and the resulting social changes. In Ba'ja, one of the oldest villages discovered to date,
8:54 this transition occurred around 9,000 years ago.
9:00 Along with Jericho, 'Ain Ghazal, Basta and other places, Ba'ja is part of the so-called "mega-site phenomenon"
9:07 along the Jordan Rift Valley, which introduced new socio-economic patterns to the area.
9:15 Initial settlements were founded here around 8,000 years B.C. These settlements expanded, covering areas of up to 16 hectares,
9:25 then vanished again. Ba'ja lies approximately halfway between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea,
9:32 at the edge of Wadi Araba. The Dead Sea region acts as a form of natural archive
9:40 for geologists and hydrologists. The "strata" or layers of rock and soil reflect the climatic conditions
9:47 of the past. A warmer period began around 12,000 years ago,
9:54 causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. The changing climate resulted in cool,
9:59 damp winters and hot summer months ideal conditions for growing grain and legumes.
10:11 These changes, along with the fertile soils, allowed previously nomadic peoples to settle in one place.
10:19 Villages sprung up and then expanded. Their inhabitants farmed the land and enjoyed their
10:26 new-found leisure opportunities.
10:33 At the time, the landscape between Amman and Aqaba probably looked similar to the north of modern-day Jordan, where re-forestation efforts
10:42 are now proving successful.
10:50 To date, it is not known how the people who lived on the plateau gained access to water.
10:56 There is no indication that there was a spring in the vicinity. Did the villagers perhaps use the siq as a reservoir?
11:05 And what did this remote plateau look like at the time? Life is changing from past until now and now we have many things
11:14 that make high-temperature in the world. Before in the site, they have like a water source around the site,
11:23 Indicate from the tools, the tools also, when you find some tools and they use it for grinding like seeds.
11:33 And this indicates that they used it for plants and it was green.
11:43 The people of Ba'ja lived off farming and their livestock. They primarily grew legumes,
11:50 and we have found conclusive proof that they farmed peas.
11:55 Animal protein was provided by sheep and goats. We assume that the fields stretched out towards Wadi Araba
12:04 and were also located up here, towards the east of the Arabian plateau.
12:10 At the time, this marked the beginning of the vast steppes which are now desert.
12:24 Population numbers increased rapidly. Carbohydrates were now readily available,
12:30 which was not the case for hunter-gatherer societies. Women were therefore able to give birth every two years,
12:36 rather than every four to five years.
12:43 But why would people choose to settle in such a constricted area?
12:50 There would have been a limited amount of land available for farming, and access to water was as problematic then as it is now.
13:08 One of the advantages of this location is that it is quite remote.
13:14 In addition, once it was settled, there was little chance of territorial dispute.
13:20 The people may have argued amongst themselves over land, but there was no outside threat.
13:32 Because space was limited, dwellings were built close together.
13:39 Layer by layer, the workers advance further into the past.
13:44 Some of the walls reach depths of around four metres, which suggests the buildings had at least two storeys.
13:54 The rooms are small and have little or no daylight. The excavations confirm that they were largely
14:00 used for food preparation and storage.
14:06 As yet, there is no indication of any paths or lanes between the buildings.
14:16 We can say with some confidence that the settlement was very densely constructed. Wherever we dug, we uncovered walls.
14:24 It is increasingly clear that the little rooms we excavated in the initial phases were too small for people to live in.
14:31 We therefore assume that much of the village's life took place on the roofs and in nature.
14:40 As hunters and gatherers, small numbers of humans had spread out across vast territories.
14:46 Now, hundreds lived close together. For Marion Benz, this raises a number of questions.
14:55 The people lived in houses built side-by-side for at least 500 years
15:00 largely without any apparent conflict. It is hard to imagine. The neighbour wasn't 500 metres or a kilometre away, but right next door.
15:11 That is extremely socially challenging.
15:18 Little is known of how the people of the time organised their lives, what rules were established to protect social cohesion
15:25 and which familial constellations made use of the buildings and how.
15:32 Julia Gresky of the German Archaeological Institute examines the bones found during the excavation
15:37 to learn more about how the people were related to each other, their ages and the causes of death.
15:44 The bones are very fragile. When you brush the dirt away you can see them very clearly,
15:50 but as soon as you pick them up they fall apart. We have to reconstruct them in the laboratory,
15:55 and are therefore unable to obtain the results we can get from well-preserved skeletons.
16:03 None-the-less, Gresky is able to come to some initial conclusions.
16:10 This is a child's skull. It is facing in my direction. Part of it is still concealed in the earth under the wall, unfortunately.
16:17 There are at least two people here, one adult and one child. There might be more children...
16:26 At the time, people were buried under the floors inside the buildings, rather than some distance from the village.
16:36 I think that our modern burial practices would be as much of a mystery to them as theirs are to us.
16:42 We try to keep our distance from death. Of course, our burial sites are not located in our houses.
16:48 In fact, we try to establish them outside population centres so we can stay as far away from death as possible.
16:56 Maybe this would have been considered inappropriate back then. It may even be the complete opposite of what they believed.
17:11 Jamila was also buried below the floor of a house where she would have remained close to the living.
17:20 The upper layer was sealed and whitewashed to resemble the rest of the floor. Below that was a layer of stone chips,
17:28 then intentionally shattered sandstone tiles that glitter like mother-of-pearl in the sunlight when they are broken.
17:36 Below that was the large slab. Raising that was very exciting.
17:41 We lifted it up and all we saw was sand. So we brushed, and brushed, and brushed.
17:50 The team feared that the grave was empty and was close to resealing it.
17:58 And then we saw the beads. At first, we numbered each one individually. Then we began numbering groups.
18:04 Eventually, we were just taking photos and making small sketches before we removed whole bundles.
18:10 There were 2,500 beads in all.
18:17 2,500 beads more than had ever been found in one place in this area.
18:23 Where did they come from, and what was their purpose?
18:28 In the spring of 2019, the valuable objects are sent to the Academy of Art and Design in Stuttgart,
18:34 which specialises in conserving historical cultural discoveries.
18:42 Alice Burckhardt is responsible for restoring each individual element of the artefact, while the archaeologist Hala Alarashi
18:49 is tasked with reconstructing the entire piece. By evaluating traces left during the production process and in use,
18:56 Alarashi is able to determine what purpose certain beads served.
19:07 The Ba'ja treasure is kept safely in a small back room on the third floor.
19:12 Alice Burkhardt knows every inch of it in incredible detail.
19:19 Initially, when the objects were collected in bags, it was impossible to determine what condition the individual beads were in.
19:27 Of course, the archaeologists expressed their wish that we would produce an exhibition piece, but we had to evaluate everything first.
19:36 Whether this would be possible depended on the condition of the beads and how many could actually be exhibited.
19:51 Alice Burkhardt examines every single one of the 2,500 beads, checking the deposits on the surface and carefully removing them
19:59 under the microscope. Using a variety of methods, Burkhardt attempts to restore
20:05 each valuable bead to as close to its original state as possible.
20:11 She then uses synthetic resins to conserve the beads and prepare them for the process of reconstructing the entire piece.
20:18 This treatment can be reversed if future generations of scientists have access to new technical processes
20:25 and wish to re-examine the original beads.
20:33 Incredibly, the restoration experts are eventually able to pass around 80% of the 9,000-year-old beads on to Hala Alarashi.
20:45 First of all, we tried to understand the position of all these beads
20:50 without saying that this is a necklace or this is a belt or a diadem.
20:56 We just tried to understand the relation of the beads with the bones. And we saw during the excavation that these beads
21:03 were concentrated on the neck of a child. After considering the archaeological data,
21:11 we started to concentrate exclusively on the beads and tried to understand their initial position.
21:20 One discovery, in particular, proves useful in reconstructing the ancient jewellery.
21:28 One of the first things that we found during the excavation was the ring.
21:34 As it was completely in a vertical position, we started by excavating the edge of the ring, which was very,
21:42 very fragile and we had to go down very, very carefully. After I think three days, we finally got the entire ring,
21:51 but it was fragmented, of course. And during the excavation we found that we still have small beads
21:57 stuck to these perforations. So we knew, since the beginning that the ring had a very important role
22:07 in this necklace. The mother-of-pearl ring is the centrepiece
22:14 of the necklace and ties it all together.
22:22 The ring itself is produced from a single large shell.
22:31 In order to gain a deeper understanding of the methods and abilities of the people at the time, the archaeo-technician Wulf Hein attempts to create
22:39 an accurate replica of the original. This may not be a rigorously scientific experiment,
22:45 but it provides some indication of what tools and techniques were used 9,000 years ago.
22:54 From the moment I heard about the Ba'ja bead necklace, I hoped to recreate it using original Stone Age tools.
23:03 First, I had to find a large shell.
23:09 The outline of the ring is etched onto the shell using a burin made by splitting a section off a piece of flint with a single, well-aimed blow.
23:22 That worked. This edge here is what we will work with.
23:38 This method was probably used to carve the entire ring out of the shell.
23:44 You have to be very careful when drilling. You have to turn a lot and exert very little pressure,
23:50 otherwise the drill bit or the shell may break. The shell may have been somewhat exotic,
23:57 but the people of Ba'ja most likely found the raw materials for the sandstone beads on their doorstep.
24:04 They were probably produced using the same methods we have seen elsewhere. I've tried it several times.
24:10 It takes a lot of patience and care. Every fifth bead or so breaks.
24:21 These small stones are ground smooth.
24:35 The edges of the stones are sanded down to produce the necessary curves.
24:44 The next step is particularly risky: Wulf Hein carefully uses a flint bit to drill a tiny hole through the bead.
24:57 Now the hole is completed. We could sand down each bead individually,
25:03 but there is also another possibility: we can place several beads on a stick...
25:14 then run the entire row over the slab together.
25:29 By turning the stick back and forth I can ensure that all the beads end up the same size.
25:36 It is quite a fast process. The corners and edges are already gone. If I continue doing this for half an hour or an hour,
25:44 then the beads will all look fairly similar. The beads were unbelievably small and intricate.
25:51 The people must have been very skilled and have had sensitive hands in order to produce something so fragile.
26:02 The necklace is proof of the exceptional workmanship and the aesthetic sensibilities the early sedentary humans were capable of,
26:10 and in no way conforms to familiar clichés about primitive Stone Age people.
26:16 Inspired by the necklace, the team named the girl in the grave Jamila - "the beautiful".
26:26 Imagine that's this importance of this child, that they took this whole
26:35 masterpiece and put it, hide it, in the Earth after all this work. So yes, it's yeah, it has a lot of dimensions,
26:44 that we are only starting to understand.
26:50 Every element of the necklace has several stories to tell: about the raw materials, the production techniques,
26:58 its place within the greater whole and about the dead girl herself.
27:12 Jamila has made history by changing accepted preconceptions of the Neolithic Age.
27:18 The New Stone Age is often depicted as crude and simple, but the jewellery and the construction of the grave suggest
27:25 that people had special skill sets, and that there was a far-ranging trade network.
27:30 The necklace's turquoise stones came from Sinai, while the shells were from the Red Sea.
27:36 The way it was threaded suggests it was something very special.
27:45 The discovery of other delicate pieces of jewellery, including fragile pendants and apparently mass-produced rings
27:51 made of red sandstone, reveals that the people of the age devoted a lot of time to producing hand-crafted luxury goods.
28:01 The artefacts uncovered by the archaeologists confirm that they were made in almost every single house.
28:14 The renowned Ba'ja sandstone rings were made from coarse disks that were more or less round.
28:21 They were then hollowed out by scraping a deep groove which eventually allowed the centrepiece to be removed.
28:32 The experimental archaeologist reveals the next steps in the production process.
28:41 After the centre is removed, there are two ways of working on the ring. We can either use our burin to achieve the shape we want,
28:49 or we sand it down until it is the right size.
29:05 The sound of sanding and grinding would have been audible to anyone approaching a Neolithic settlement from a long way away.
29:13 The fragile sandstone rings remain something of a mystery.
29:19 We don't know quite what they were used for. We assume that quantity played an important role:
29:26 the more rings one had, the more prestigious one was. My theory is that they were used as coupons for trade,
29:34 that objects could be exchanged for certain services or favours. Such objects may also have included shells or rings
29:42 that were symbols of appreciation and helped to increase social cohesion. Interestingly, there was also a type of forgery at the time.
29:51 Similar rings with the same distinctive red colour were also produced using marl in nearby Basta.
29:58 It was much easier and faster to work with marl than with sandstone, and the rings were then simply dyed red.
30:06 These rings were produced in areas where there was no sandstone. Forgeries have been a part of life
30:11 ever since humans learned to make things.
30:20 The demand for certain goods and far-ranging trade networks came at a cost.
30:33 The village's existence increasingly depended on access to raw materials and market forces.
30:39 The exotic materials used to produce Jamila's necklace are just one example of the significance of valuable objects
30:47 objects which had to be paid for somehow.
30:53 A further challenge was maintaining a peaceful society in such a small space.
30:59 As yet, no indications of any form of hierarchical structure have been found.
31:12 Modern studies have revealed that, once a group consists of 150 people or more,
31:17 it becomes very difficult to maintain control and ensure that disagreements don't escalate.
31:23 Conflict management is essential. Up to five hundred people lived in Ba'ja,
31:29 a large settlement by the standards of the time. Social conflicts could have led to a rapid breakdown of the community.
31:35 This is just one of the possible factors that may have caused the inhabitants of Ba'ja to abandon their settlement forever around 6900 BC.
31:47 It is difficult to say whether this development was a result of collapse or simply change.
31:53 Perhaps a greater differentiation set in among the later settlers. Some began to move about and returned to the nomadic lifestyle,
32:01 while others settled in smaller villages. Perhaps this was a better model that was both
32:07 more sustainable and more socially compatible.
32:13 Much of Ba'ja has been preserved as a result of the settlement's remote location. Jamila's grave and her necklace are the most significant artefacts
32:22 found at the excavation site to date and will now be put on display in the New Petra Museum.
32:34 The country's entire history is on display here with Ba'ja appearing almost at the very beginning.
32:41 Ba'ja also marked the beginning of a development which changed human lives far more than industrialization
32:46 did in the 19th century or digitalisation is today.
32:52 Cultures came and went, settlements rose and fell, people moved on but humans never returned to their former hunter-gatherer existence.
33:02 These ground-breaking developments are preserved at Jamila's burial site. Hussein Al Sababha is therefore determined to ensure
33:10 that the grave is reconstructed as accurately as possible. My part is to rebuild the grave in the museum,
33:21 and that is what I am doing right now... And I think it looks good, what do you think?
33:28 In another room in the museum, Andrea Fischer, Alice Burkhardt and Hala Alarashi are similarly
33:34 excited to see their work finally come to fruition... So after all...
33:46 The necklace was broken down to its component parts for the journey from Germany to Jordan, to ensure that the ancient piece of jewellery arrived unscathed.
33:56 The strings of beads are now reattached to form the necklace that, 9,000 years earlier,
34:01 grieving parents had placed around the neck of their deceased daughter.
34:07 Hala Alarashi has produced a sketch to use as a guide.
34:13 The concepts they really thought before, uh, composing this necklace.
34:19 It was studied and not only in terms of beads. It was also, measured and conceptualized
34:26 in terms of strings and chords. And this means that other people were also involved not only bead makers,
34:35 but also probably people who were specialized in making chords or making strings.
34:44 Certain tasks were most likely performed by specialists, an early example of division of labour.
34:51 How the inhabitants of Ba'ja sourced the raw materials remains a mystery. If you want to have exotic materials,
34:58 it's better that you be in a very well-situated village where you can work your network and relationships in order to get a nice,
35:11 good quality of raw materials. And it's strange that they are almost hidden between the mountains.
35:19 So this is weird when you see the environment, when you see the village, when you see the location.
35:27 Despite the remote nature of their village, Ba'ja's inhabitants had close ties to their surroundings.
35:33 It is impossible to say just how extensive this network was, but the people were certainly part of the wider world.
35:41 While the experts in the museum are hard at work rebuilding Jamila's necklace, excavations continue on the plateau.
35:47 Marion Benz discovers a slab from a grave. Is history repeating itself?
35:53 Once again a burial site is found just as excavations draw to a close but Hans Georg K Gebel has his doubts.
36:02 After clearing the entire area, I now have a different idea. It's possible that the slab is simply lying on the floor,
36:10 and that there isn't actually a grave at all. I'm not sure. The plaster and the layer of ash would suggest that it is a grave,
36:19 but I can't be 100 percent sure. I would brush away some more of the dirt,
36:24 and then use the scraper to uncover more. Maybe lift it slightly.
36:30 And then check if there is anything underneath or not. There's a 90% chance of it being a grave with lots of bones.
36:36 You're very optimistic.
36:42 It sounds different here than it does here. Can you hear it?
36:48 There might just be a hole in one place. That's true.
36:55 I'm under it now. It's loose.
37:01 Pull it out horizontally, as we don't know where the fracture is.
37:13 Now it is more damaged than before. Careful.
37:20 Oh dear, lots of puzzle pieces. Fortunately, we have some restorers along.
37:29 Precisely. The slab has been removed and the tension mounts.
37:36 There are some larger stones here. Once again, Marion has to work quickly,
37:42 as the excavation is about to finish for the year.
37:49 Evening falls and work stops for the day. Ba'ja has a welcoming, mystical atmosphere
37:56 despite its remote location and the hard work of the excavations.
38:01 The archaeological team has been rewarded for its years of perseverance with the discovery of Jamila and her necklace.
38:13 At the Petra Museum, Hala Alarashi, Andrea Fischer and Alice Burkhardt are also about to be rewarded:
38:22 Jamila's necklace has been completed and is ready to be exhibited.
38:28 Finally... we've finally found the appropriate place for it.
38:37 That's how it should be. It looks good.
38:47 We have it here it is not only on paper, we have it really in the museum. So it is really great.
39:05 On the Ba'ja plateau, the last day of excavation has begun.
39:11 I removed thebut but there is nothing but sand underneath...
39:19 That's a shame. I thought there'd be more.
39:24 Nothing has been found below the stone slab but Julia Gretzky has discovered
39:29 and laid bare a child's skull in another room. A second skull remains stuck in the earth.
39:36 Despite the time pressure, Gretzky hopes she can extract it in one piece.
39:49 Marion, Hans Georg, look what I have found. What is it? The child's skull was here.
39:55 And here is the cervical spine and the ribs in situ. The upper arm is precisely where it should be,
40:01 and there is a beautiful necklace around the neck. A bead necklace?
40:06 Yes, with long beads and a beautiful red and green stone. You're fantastic!
40:13 And at the last possible moment. Hala has to see this.
40:20 The situation is reminiscent of 2018. Back then, Hala Alarashi had to stop what she was doing
40:26 in order to retrieve Jamila's sensational necklace. Now, in 2021, the same thing happens again.
40:33 Julia Gresky, who discovered the grave, has to catch her flight, and Hala Alarashi assumes responsibility
40:40 for retrieving the jewellery. It is as though the ancient graves of Ba'ja are telling the team:
40:45 "Make sure you come back, there is still much to discover."
40:57 Hala Alarashi has collected the beads and numbered them. She will remain in Al-Baydha for a time in order
41:03 to examine the artefact piece by piece. What will this discovery reveal about human existence 9,000 years ago?
41:14 In recent decades, Ba'ja has provided a wealth of information that has changed accepted wisdom about the people of the Neolithic Age.
41:22 Our distant ancestors were able to spend time engaged in creative, aesthetic and decorative pursuits because of an abundance of food.
41:32 Ba’ja has fundamentally altered our understanding of the past yet so much about the ancient settlement still remains a mystery
41:42 for now.

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9,000-Year-Old Neolithic Shrine Unearthed in Jordan’s Desert
Tessa Solomon
February 23, 2022 2:09pm
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/neolithic-shrine-found-jordan-desert-1234619935/

Beautiful film and so amazing how they collected and restored the beads and reconstructed the necklace. I have for 15 or so years, since I visited Petra, been fascinated with that area. It is wondrous to see how people built and settled among that rocky barren mountain land.

Thanks for posting this.

They probably got lost chasing some goats, and couldn’t figure how to get back out until 2,000 years later.

“Oy ve! What are we to do now?”
“Here, grind this little stone, for me. It’ll keep you busy.”

btw, that flint stone worker dude is amazing! (Had to have water to spare for it, so they surely had ready water.)

2500 beads.
If we assume that the width of a bead is 1 millimeter then the total length of the necklace would be around 98 inches.

2500 mm = 250 cm, and 2.54 cm/in
Did I do the math correctly?

oops, I didn’t see the picture.
98 inches of total beads spread out on multiple chains.
Makes sense.

Brewing Beer!

Thanks for posting.

If 1 mm is the average, that would be two and a half meters, but it’s also on multiple parallel strings.

Reconstruction of the art of prehistoric beadmaking shows up in “Mysteries of the Ancient World”, a Questar vid that came out under the Reader’s Digest label. Lots of good stuff on it. Lucky for me, it was peeking out under a pile of debris right by the computer. :^)

Oh, hey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egMlotZ0Kzg

Oops, I didn’t read long enough. :^) The YT thumbnail picture looked to me, at first, like some kind of ruined megalithic structure.

Probably someone has already excavated the ancient pub and bawdy house, but they’re not allowed to publish it because, Jordan. ;^)

My pleasure.

Highlights Include:
* Follow the celebrated Silk Road across the Orient.
* Reconstruct the desert city of Petra's complex and secret underground water system.
* Journey to the awe-inspiring temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom in Cambodia, and learn about the regional relationships that existed between civilizations.
* Discover why the ancient Anatolian city of Catalhoyuk was so mysteriously prosperous.
Mysteries of the Ancient World
Ancient Journeys | March 3, 2016 | FamilyTime

The “strata” or layers of rock and soil reflect the climatic conditions
9:47 of the past. A warmer period began around 12,000 years ago,
9:54 causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. The changing climate resulted in cool,
9:59 damp winters and hot summer months ideal conditions for growing grain and legumes.
10:11 These changes, along with the fertile soils, allowed previously nomadic peoples to settle in one place.
10:19 Villages sprung up and then expanded. Their inhabitants farmed the land and enjoyed their
10:26 new-found leisure opportunities.

Preliminary results from a Smithsonian Institution project led by Scott Wing and Paul Huber, showing Earth's average surface temperature over the past 500 million years. For most of the time, global temperatures appear to have been too warm (red portions of line) for persistent polar ice caps. The most recent 50 million years are an exception. Image adapted from Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been

This episode has the segment on the Delphi ruins, I watch that from time to time, and the King Arthur segment mostly deals with the ruins at Tintagel, but I found the Stonehenge segment to be ridiculous.

Turns out, the link to their online store is a dead one, so, watch on YT, or figure out how to d/l it from there.

Highlights Include:
* Unravel secrets of the ancient Egyptian pyramids.
* Shed new light on the ancient, mythical Minoan civilization.
* Learn of the legend of King Arthur.
* Uncover fresh and vital clues to the original purpose of Stonehenge.
* Peer into the world of The Oracle of Delphi.
Mysteries of the Ancient World
Myths and Legends | March 13, 2016 | FamilyTime

This one I've rarely watched, it's about Precolumbian civilizations. Those are an interesting from an anthropological perspective, to figure out by analogy how mostly prehistoric "old world" cultures and civilizations lived and developed.

Highlights Include:
* Seek out the lost cities of the Incas.
* Who were the Anasazi?
* Experience the art and culture of the Moche people.
* Discover the remarkable story behind the collapse of the Mayan civilization.
Mysteries of the Ancient World
Vanished Civilizations | March 13, 2016 | FamilyTime

Not surprising, imho there's no gradualist model that can explain the ice ages, because conditions sufficient to keep the ice accumulating for centuries without melting in the summers would cause the hydrologic cycle to slow to zero or near zero, as it has in Antarctica, the dryest continent.

How to estimate the temperature

The two most common isotopes of oxygen in nature are oxygen-16 (8 neutrons) and oxygen-18 (10 neutrons). When the Earth cools down, the lighter, oxygen-16 found in seawater is locked away in the ice of high latitude glaciers due to evaporative processes, leaving behind relatively more oxygen-18 in the oceans. During warm global climates, melted ice returns oxygen-16-rich waters to the oceans. So the proportion of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 in the ocean reflects the Earth's climate even if we can't see the ice. Earth Scientists recognize this oxygen isotope pattern between glaciated and ice-free climates, referring to it as the “ice volume effect”, and have since used it to reconstruct ancient Earth climates.

Oxygen isotope records are also preserved in the shells of marine organisms and the proportion of oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 can be revealed by analyzing the chemistry of pristine fossils. The fossils of larger organisms like corals or clams can be especially informative for revealing annual and seasonal temperature variations because these marine animals live for multiple years secreting season growth bands in a similar fashion to tree rings.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2018/03/23/heres-how-scientists-reconstruct-earths-past-climates/

Are we heading to normal temperatures?

That’s the thing about temperature — it’s always normal. :^)