Chapter 6: Neolithic 4 Naccache (Pages 424-425)

Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums

The village of Naccache lies between Dbaye and Antelias, just south of the monastery of Mar Jorgis. The surface station, or rather surface stations since it seems that there were several, of Naccache or Mar Jorgis, lie principally to the north and east of the village. They were first visited by Bergy in 1933 and subsequently by several other workers who collected much material, some of which is in the Universite Saint-Joseph in Beirut. The site or sites consisited of several concentrations of flint tools and waste over a wide area. Cauvin collected much material from one concentration which he believed had been missed by earlier workers. The most numerous tools from Cauvin's stations were arrowheads, sickle blades, borers, burins and notched pieces. The arrowheads were tanged and pressure-flaked Byblos points. The sickle blades were segmented and retouched in a variety of ways with fine or coarse denticulation, sometimes by pressure-flaking and either with or without backing. The borers included both small points on flakes or blades and also heavier flaked tools which one might classify as picks. The latter bore clear traces of wear on the intersections of the flake scars which showed that they had been used as borers or reamers. In addition to these tools there were a number of axes with either round or straight cutting edges and also some chisels. The other artifacts were end-srapers, side-scrapers and denticulated blades and flakes.

Cauvin believed that his station at Naccache was occupied during Byblos Neolithique Moyen on the basis of the typology of the arrowheads, sickle blades, axes and chisels and also because end-scrapers were present. These observations seem valid for his station and also apply to the material which I have seen from the other stations in the vicinity. These sites appear to represent the settlements of one or more groups who lived here during part of Neolithic 4. The settlements may in fact have been more long-lived than that since some of the tools could equally well have been used later in Neolithic 4 or even in Neolithic 3. Such stations in areas where flint was abundant were used by other groups in other phases and the surface collections usually include at least a few tools made by such visitors .....

The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium