Tell Ramad — Mount Hermon Piedmont Neolithic Village
Tell Ramad · Tell Ramad Hermon · Ramad Tell
PPNB to Late Neolithic (8200–5300 BCE)·PPNB → Pottery Neolithic Yaumoukian /Halaf·🇸🇾 Damascus Governorate, Mount Hermon piedmont, 20 km SW Damascus, Syria
About
About Tell Ramad — Mount Hermon Piedmont Neolithic Village
Tell Ramad is a 2 ha Pre-Pottery to Pottery Neolithic hill village (8200–5300 BCE) on Hermon piedmont excavated by Henri de Contenson (French, 1963–73). Superb Pottery Neolithic white ware (Vaisselle Blanche) plaster basins, deformed skulls cradle-board burials, and 7 phase stratigraphy showing wheat domestication ascent. Platform houses with corridor entries and terrazzo floors. Adjacent to Tell Aswad but upland adaptation.
Why it mattersImportant Pottery Neolithic hill complementary to Aswad oasis lowland, explaining early altitude-differentiated agro-economy.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Cranial deformation social marker vs aesthetic?
Theories
- 01Contenson: Hermon piedmont refugium during 8200 calBP cooling event
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.8200 BCE (PPNB)
- Period
- PPNB to Late Neolithic (8200–5300 BCE)
- Culture
- PPNB → Pottery Neolithic Yaumoukian /Halaf
- Builders
- Damascus piedmont farmers
- Purpose
- Hermon slope farming village exploiting altitudinal transect
- Abandoned
- c.5300 BCE (Chalcolithic hiatus)
- Rediscovered
- 1963 Contenson French mission
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
1963–1973
Contenson 7 campaigns; white ware layers
c.6500 BCE
White ware basin workshop production phase
On the ground
Structures & features
33.4000° N · 36.3200° E · 820 m · 3 mapped features
Ramad White Ware Basins
workshopLime-plaster basin vessels 1 m diameter (Veisselle Blanche)
33.4006° N · 36.3205° ERamad Corridor Platform House
habitationTripartite platform with corridor entrance
33.3993° N · 36.3208° ERamad Deformed Skull Burial
cemeteryInfant cradle-board elongated skull graves
33.4010° N · 36.3194° E