This dissertation demonstrates that the surprising iconography of human images in the archaeological assemblages of the Levantine Neolithic indicates that they were gods. An analysis of the iconography of the human-like artifacts of my data reveals genital shapes used metaphorically to portray androgynous images as well as elements of therianthropic imagery and red pigment. This iconography meets the predictions of the evolutionary anthropological hypothesis, the 'Female Cosmetic Coalition model' (FCC), which describes the first supernatural symbols as fused male: female, human: animal and red, and predicts that the iconography of early gods would bear this same symbolic syntax, y thesis shows that the material images of the Natufian and Neolithic in the Levant fit this model closely, confirming their identity as gods. The hunter-gatherer socio-economic structure established by the strategies of the FCC was expressed as the first social contract, by which humans lived for thousands of years. The FCC model provides an underlying unchanging syntax in the face of changing political-economy and sexual politics. I interpret my data as revealing a process of male ritual elites increasingly appropriating this syntax, incorporating it in a new social contract. At the end of the last Ice Age, I predict that in the Near East male elites competedto circumvent the onerous burden of the first social contract, to appropriate female ritual power and to establish hierarchical religion legitimizing a new social contract between humans and supernatural beings. This new contract bound gods and humans in a partnership of exchange. I suggest that this process can be identified in the increasingly elaborate ritual activity using costly signalling theory. This work contributes to the decipherment of the iconography of this assemblage of human images, and proposes a model for the origins of religion and social differentiation in the Levant.

‘Isaac went out to the field (Genesis 24:63)’ presents 28 articles honouring Professor Isaac Gilead on his 71st birthday. Papers on prehistoric and proto-historic archaeology reflect the focus of the honoree’s teaching and research, while other subjects including Biblical and Near Eastern studies explore Gilead’s other areas of interest.

This volume documents and evaluates the changing role of fibre crafts and their evolving techniques of manufacture and also their ever-increasing wider application in the lives of the inhabitants of the earliest villages of the Ancient Near East.

Lionel Sims has produced an influential body of work that has challenged existing narratives about British prehistoric monuments and provided innovative ways to approach and think about skyscapes. This book, in his honour, is divided into three parts: Anthropology and Human Origins, Prehistory and Megalithic Monuments, and Theory.

Antiguo Oriente (abbreviated as AntOr) is the annual, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal published by the Center of Studies of Ancient Near Eastern History (CEHAO), Catholic University of Argentina.

Quaternary of the Levant presents up-to-date research achievements from a region that displays unique interactions between the climate, the environment and human evolution. Focusing on southeast Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel, it brings together over eighty contributions from leading researchers to review 2.5 million years of environmental change and human cultural evolution. Information from prehistoric sites and palaeoanthropological studies contributing to our understanding of 'out of Africa' migrations, Neanderthals, cultures of modern humans, and the origins of agriculture are assessed within the context of glacial-interglacial cycles, marine isotope cycles, plate tectonics, geochronology, geomorphology, palaeoecology and genetics. Complemented by overview summaries that draw together the findings of each chapter, the resulting coverage is wide-ranging and cohesive. The cross-disciplinary nature of the volume makes it an invaluable resource for academics and advanced students of Quaternary science and human prehistory, as well as being an important reference for archaeologists working in the region.