Qarassa Dolmen Field and Tell Qarassa North
قراصة · Qarasa · Qarassa · Tell Qarassa
PPNB to Middle Bronze Age (8700–2000 BCE; dolmens EB I–MB)·PPNB (southern Syria) → Ghassulian → EBA Hauran megalithic·🇸🇾 As-Suwayda (Sweida) Governorate, Leja / Hauran, southern Syria, Syria
About
About Qarassa Dolmen Field and Tell Qarassa North
Early Neolithic ritual–funerary tell (late 9th millennium BCE) plus overlying Early–Middle Bronze megalithic dolmen necropolis (c.3700–2000 BCE) — Syria's largest basalt dolmen field with >200 corridor dolmens (houses of the dead) built from Leja lava boulders, some 4 m long with capstones 2 t. Tell Qarassa North below yielded PPNB square wood-and-stone houses, plastered floors, bone wands with double human faces, and ritual funerary area with diverse burial postures and obsidian imported from Anatolia. Links PPNA ritual (blueprint for Kfar HaHoresh) to EBA megalithic explosion.
Why it mattersConnects northern Levant PPNB ritual fumigation to southern Levant later megalithic; demonstrates megalithic ideology rooted in PPN funerary diversity.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why dolmen boom at 3700 BCE synchronously with Levantine urban collapse?
Theories
- 01Dolmens as territorial claims by pastoralists facing EBA aridity
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- Tell: c.8700 BCE (late 9th millennium PPNB) ; Dolmens: c.3700–2000 BCE (EB I–MB)
- Period
- PPNB to Middle Bronze Age (8700–2000 BCE; dolmens EB I–MB)
- Culture
- PPNB (southern Syria) → Ghassulian → EBA Hauran megalithic
- Builders
- PPNB villagers (tell); EBA pastoral–agrarian Hauran communities (dolmens)
- Purpose
- Ritual tell with communal funerary area; later gigantic dolmen necropolis for clan burials
- Abandoned
- c.2000 BCE (MB decline)
- Rediscovered
- 2007 Ibañez–Spanish–Syrian survey; excavated 2009–2010 Tell Qarassa
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
c.8700 BCE
PPNB square houses and ritual funerary pits built
c.3500 BCE
First corridor dolmens erected on lava plateau
2009
Bone double-face wand discovered
On the ground
Structures & features
32.8320° N · 36.6070° E · 780 m · 2 mapped features
Tell Qarassa North PPNB square house
houseSquare house with stone-and-wood walls and bone wand in fill
32.8322° N · 36.6075° ECorridor dolmen cluster
dolmenBasalt dolmen 4 m with capstone 2 t and cairn
32.8315° N · 36.6065° E