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An Alternative Interpretation for the Material Imagery of the Yarmukian, a

Neolithic Culture of the Sixth Millennium BC in the Southern Levant

Article  in  Cambridge Archaeological Journal · October 1996

DOI: 10.1017/S0959774300001736

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 Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6:2 (1996), pp. 255-79

An Alternative Interpretation for the Material Imagery of

the Yarmukian, a Neolithic Culture of the Sixth Millennium
BC in the Southern Levant

Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

This study describes material imagery portraying anthropomorphic subjects executed in

stone and clay which appear on sites of the Yarmukian culture in the Southern Levant
during the sixth millennium BC. Speculations are made and interpretations offered for the
incised stone and clay images of persons and genitals as artefacts recording encoded
information. It is suggested that some kinds of imagery are associated with age and
reproductive status and relate to gender categorization, and yet other kinds could be
related to socio-political discussion.

T w o prominent features of the material remains of
the Yarmukian culture of the sixth millennium BC
(uncalibrated C14 years) are the appearance of the
earliest pottery assemblage in the Southern Levant,
and a rich assemblage of both stone and clay items
of material imagery.1
Imagery items include two major groups —
incised pebbles and clay figurines. In this article, we
offer possible cultural explanations for the meaning
and function of these items. We suggest that the
incised stone pebbles encode information which
records reproductive status of women at various
stages. These stone items could be a manifestation of
a social mechanism for exercising control over (fe-
male) reproduction and this might indicate that a
change in the role of females in society took place in
a new socio-economic order. The clay items, appar-
ently of steatopygous women, men, and androgy-
nous persons are constructed in most cases of combined
representations of male and female genitalia. The
use of mixed gender symbols in one image may
suggest that an element of mutable gender existed.
While the appearance of these two imagery
groups in the Yarmukian culture is innovative, they
both contain certain elements of earlier concepts
which appear in the Neolithic world of the Levant.
Basing our comments on some of the data available
to us at present, our aim is not to investigate the full
inventory of Yarmukian imagery items or the details
of this assemblage, but rather to propose alternative
observations, speculations and interpretations for this
group of artefacts that have traditionally been given
a rather general 'sympathetic magic', 'fertility' inter-
pretation. We shall concentrate on possible mean-
ings of images and their role in society. While we
suspect that the suggested interpretations may have
relevance of a cross-cultural nature, we concentrate
here on their relevance to the Yarmukian culture.
Background
Single examples of Palaeolithic mobile imagery have
been described from the southern Levant (Lower
Palaeolithic: Goren-Inbar 1986; Upper Palaeolithic:
Belfer-Cohen & Bar-Yosef 1981; and Epipalaeolithic:
Hovers 1990). Imagery items are abundant in the
Natufian culture of the mid-eleventh to mid-ninth
millennium BC, representing mostly animals, but a
few human figures are present (for summaries see
Valla 1975; Bar-Yosef & Belfer-Cohen 1989b; Henry
1989, chap. 7).
The early Neolithic inventory of the late ninth
to mid-eighth millennium BC — the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic A (PPNA) — is mostly comprised of

255
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

5cm.

Figure 1. Group IA incised pebbles from Munhata (1,2,4& 5: courtesy of]. Perrot) and Sha'ar Hagolan (3, 6,7,8 & 9:
after Stekelis 1972).

256
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian
anthropomorphic representations (Bar-Yosef 1980;
Cauvin 1979; Echegaray 1966; Stekelis & Yizraeli 1963;
Noy 1979; 1985; Kenyon & Holland 1982) with very
few, if any, zoomorphic, and some incised stones.
Clay figures of seated women here make their first
appearance (Bar Yosef et al. 1991).
In the second half of the eighth and in the sev-
enth millennium BC — the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
period (PPNB) — a wealth of imagery items appear
including both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic
stone and clay objects (e.g. Beidha: Kirkbride 1966;
Munhata: Perrot 1968; Jericho: Kenyon & Holland
1982; Abu Gosh: Lechevallier 1978; Tel Ali: Prausnitz
1970; 1975; Tel Ramad: de Contenson 1971; and Nahal
Hemar: Bar-Yosef & Alon 1985; 1988; and Ain Ghazal:
RoUefson 1983; 1986; Rollefson et al. 1992). New PPNB
elements include stone masks, plastered-modelled
skulls /faces and large clay built figures (Rollefson
1983).
The Yarmukian culture
The Yarmukian was recognized as a cultural entity
in the early 1950s following excavations at Sha'ar
Hagolan (Stekelis 1950-51; 1972). Yarmukian layers
on various sites were excavated during the 1950s
and 1960s (Perrot 1964; 1966; 1968; Kaplan 1958; 1965;
1978) and during the past decade both in Israel
(Garfinkel 1992a; 1993; Gopher & Tsuk 1990) and in
Jordan (Kafafi 1985; 1986; 1988; Muheisen et al. 1988;
Simmons et al. 1989; Rollefson et al. 1992). Most of
these sites yielded imagery items of the kinds men-
tioned above. This new wave of research enabled a
better acquaintance with this cultural entity and a
few summaries appeared (Garfinkel 1993; Gopher &
Gophna 1993; Gopher 1995; Kafafi 1987; 1993) in
which it became clear that the Yarmukian is a very
distinct entity of the Southern Levant dated to the
last two thirds of the sixth millennium BC. Innova-
tions included the production of pottery. A rich sym-
bolic array appeared represented both on the pottery
as decoration, and in imagery items.
These imagery items are unique to the Yar-
mukian. The following Wadi Raba culture of the
fifth millennium BC (Kaplan 1972; Gopher & Gophna
1993; Gopher 1995) yielded a different inventory of
animal figures in clay and new forms of anthropo-
morphous representations (Kaplan 1969; 1972). The
typical Yarmukian clay and stone imagery is thus
unique to this entity, restricted in time to some 600
C14 years and to a specific area of c. 10,000 sq. km
(see Gopher & Gophna 1993), with no precedents or
successors.
257
The inventory of Yarmukian imagery
As a basis for our study we use the Sha'ar Hagolan
data (Stekelis 1966; 1972; Garfinkel 1992; 1993), the
Munhata stone items given to us for study by J.
Perrot (Gopher & Orrelle 1995a), and the published
Munhata clay items (Garfinkel 1992a; 1993). The 'port-
able imagery' of the Yarmukian culture was divided
as follows. We allow ourselves, at the description
stage, to incorporate speculation in group names,
which we deal with at a later stage.
Incised pebbles
Group I - Representations of women
Type A. Items made both on narrow elongated or
oval pebbles, sometimes polished, bearing usually
only the two horizontal slits at one end which could
represent eyes (Figs. 1 & 10:1-3) (Stekelis 1972). Some
of these (from Sha'ar Hagolan only) have a single
drilled hole. Red painted areas appear on many of
these items (Stekelis 1972).
Type B. Items made on oval rounded pebbles which
carry incisions of various depths. The deep incisions
indicate emphasized hips and groins, thighs and but-
tocks, and shallower incisions delineate hair, eyes,
necks, hands and possibly garments (Figs. 2 & 10:4-
5) (Stekelis 1972; Perrot 1968; Gopher & Orrelle 1995a).
Group II - Representations of vulvae
Type A. Oval or rounded, basalt or limestone pebbles
bearing a slit or groove (Figs. 3:1-7 & 12:l-2)2 were
interpreted as female vulvae (Stekelis 1972, pis. 56-
8). Many bear red paint marks and some of them are
polished (Stekelis 1972; Garfinkel 1992a).
Type B. Flat wadi pebbles, of limestone or basalt with
parallel incisions (Stekelis 1972; and here Figs. 3:8-
10 & 12:3,6) running in a horizontal or vertical direc-
tion when holding the pebble upright on the
longitudinal axis.
Type C. Pebbles with a central deep incision and a
number of horizontal incisions on one or both sides
(Figs. 3:11,12 & 12:4).
Type D. Pebbles with both vertical and horizontal
combined incisions on the face of the pebble forming
a chequered/net pattern in the shape of a rectangle
or rhomboid on the pebble's long axis (Figs. 4:1-3 &
12:5,10-11).
Group II items vary in size and some bear drilled
holes together with incised lines.
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

CMS.

CMS.

Figure 2. Group IB incised pebbles from Munhata (1 & 2: courtesy of]. Perrot) and Sha'ar Hagolan (3 & 4: after Stekelis
1972).

258
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian

10 cm

10

5cm.
8 11 12

Figure 3. Incised pebbles of Group IIAfrom Munhata (1 & 2: courtesy of]. Perrot) and Sha'ar Hagolan (3-7), Group IIB
(8-9) and Group IIC (10-12: after Stekelis 1972).

259
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

CMS. I

•>:

J
8 10

Figure 4. Grow;? J/D: 1-3 and Group III phallic objects from Munhata (1-8: courtesy ofj. Perrot) and Sha'ar Hagolan
(9: after Stekelis 1972).

260
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian
Group III - Representations of phalli
These objects portray male genitalia — phalli. They
include both naturalistic items and schematic por-
trayals and differ in size (Figs. 4:4-10 & 12:5,10-11).
One feature common to almost all Group III items is
a single wavy horizontal line indicating the glans
penis. This feature may appear in another group of
incised pebbles to symbolize the phallus (Fig. 5:2).
Schematic pointed phalli representations appear in
stone and clay (Fig. 4:6,8-10), some having a groove
running vertically along their length.
Group IV - Spheroids and pebbles with incised motifs
Spherical-shaped pebbles and stone balls bearing in-
cisions (Fig. 5). These items are rather small, with
linear incisions creating motifs — vertical and hori-
zontal lines forming a cross, or as in Figure 5:2,
where a horizontal line cuts two converging lines.
The vertical and converging lines are central fea-
tures on the pebble items symbolizing vulvae and
groins (Groups I & II). The horizontal line appears
on the group of phallic representations (Group III).
In this group of items these lines appear superim-
posed, one upon the other.
Clay figures
Group V - Androgynous persons
This group includes items made of clay, sometimes
red slipped and burnished or polished. The tech-
nique of manufacture consists of applying short rolls
of clay to a central core to form a human-like figure
(Figs. 6-8 & 13). The hindquarters and legs of some
of the figures are constructed from a series of clay
rolls which form steatopygous buttocks and thighs
which taper towards the extremities (Fig. 6). Some of
the figures appear to be sitting (e.g. Fig. 6); some
have an elongated pointed head or headdress and
two puffy elliptical applications set diagonally on
either side of the head, slit down their length, which
give an appearance of eyes (Figs. 7:1-2 & 8:1-5). The
eyes have been dubbed 'coffee bean' eyes, and it has
been pointed out that they are reminiscent too of
other forms found in nature such as date pits and
grains of wheat or barley (Noy 1985). On some of the
items a smaller such application is placed lower down
horizontally and forms a prominent pouting 'mouth'-
like feature (Fig. 7:1). An eliptic shaped pellet set
between the two 'eyes' gives the appearance of a
nose. Small spherical applications below the 'eyes'
look like fat 'cheeks' (Fig. 7:1). The torsos made from
clay applications appear to be arranged in segments
and short thin clay rolls form 'arms' — in a number
of examples, one lies alongside the body while the
261
other supports a breast or rests across the stomach
area (Figs. 6 & 7:2). While similar in general appear-
ance, each figure or fragment appears to be slightly
different in sexual characteristic detail. Some have
enlarged breasts, some phalli and some have both
(e.g. Fig. 8.5).
Group VI - Male images
This group includes 'stick-like' (cylindrical?) torsos
made of clay with prominent buttocks and testicles
attached. They are all fragments (Fig. 9).
Early interpretations
Since its first appearance, this Yarmukian imagery
has been interpreted with only general cursory ref-
erence to the circumstances of the context of the
Yarmukian culture. An early interpretation of Stekelis
declares that 'It is the opinion of most scholars that
Neolithic figurines served as idols and that they were
made specifically for the purpose of primitive magic'
(Stekelis 1950-51).
In a later interpretation, he queried whether
they were merely 'art' or domestic fertility symbols.
He quoted the role of female figurines in the ritual of
prehistoric societies of western Europe (as described
by Gordon Childe) and in contemporary 'primitive'
societies where magical powers are attributed to the
female body. While noting that the female figurines
of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods have in
common an exaggerated representation of genitals,
breasts and hips, he suggested that the significance
of their reappearance in the Neolithic period was
connected with the society, being an agricultural one,
desiring fertility not only for humans and animals
but also for the soil and its fruits. He also raised the
possibility that Neolithic female figurines are the
prototype of the Mother-Goddess, that 'Neolithic
figurines like the Yarmukian were also, it may be
surmised, used as amulets and sacred objects for
fertility, protection against evil, relief in child-bear-
ing and in the cult of the dead' (Stekelis 1972, 27).
Wreschner (1976) saw in the slanted 'eyes' of the
Type IA women pebbles ideograms of cloud lines
with shallow incised parallel 'rain lines' similar to
those appearing in the Bushman rock art of south-
western Africa. He associated these with images of
water symbolism characteristic of dry areas.
Yeivin & Mozel (1977), as well as Stekelis (1972),
saw in the incised pebbles, schematized versions of
the clay steatopygous seated female figurines found
both at Sha'ar Hagolan and at Munhata. Yeivin &
Mozel concentrate on descriptive decipherment. The
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

3cm.

Figure 5. Groi/p /V pebbles with multiple symbol incisions from Munhata (1 & 3: courtesy of]. Perrot) and Sha'ar
Hagolan (4: after Stekelis 1972).

262
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian

Figure 6. Group V seated steatopygous clayfigurinesfrom Munhata. (Courtesy of]. Perrot.)

263
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

3cm.

Figure 7. Group V clay figurines from Munhata (1: courtesy of]. Perrot) and Sha'ar Hagolan (2 & 3: after Stekelis
1972).

264
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian

3cm.

Figure 8. Group V clayfigurines from Munhata (1,2 & 4: courtesy of]. Perrot),from Habashan Street Tel Aviv (3: after
Kaplan 1958), and from Byblos (5: after Cauvin 1972,85).

265
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle
3cm.
Figure 9. Group VI male clay images from Munhata (1-4: courtesy of}. Perrot).
various incisions on the stone items, and partitions
between the various segments on the torsos of the
clay items, were interpreted as delineating a 'sou-
tane' (a cassock-like garment), and the elongated
head as a mask with three sections on its back, while
the incisions separating the segments on the legs,
they suggest, were intended to emphasize their obes-
ity. They regard a variety in the details of 'soutane'
types as geographical indicators, differences in styles
or evidence of varying ability of the artists (Yeivin &
Mozel 1977).
In a summary paper on seated figurines from
the Neolithic period in Israel, Noy notes that seated
figurines made of clay are known from the begin-
ning of farming in the early Neolithic period. She
concludes that 'Their posture and the cultural con-
text of their appearance suggest their connection with
fertility cults. In the course of time the symbolic
266
language they exemplify became more elaborate'
(Noy 1985, 66). Like Cauvin (1994), Noy suggests an
early original 'Goddess' figurine. Garfinkel, in a re-
cent analysis of Yarmukian figurines (1992a; 1993;
1995), does not favour the fertility option. In his
opinion, reproductive organs are not emphasized at
all. He offers an interpretation relating these items to
'religious rituals', and sees the clay figures as repre-
senting deities shaped in the spirit of earlier (PPNB)
traditions (1993; 1995).
In her all-embracing work on Neolithic data
mostly from Europe, Gimbutas regards the motifs
found on figurines and pottery as a 'pictorial script
for the religion of the Old European Great Goddess
consisting of signs, symbols, and images of divini-
ties' (Gimbutas 1989, xv). She includes material from
the Near East, and specifically Yarmukian figures, in
her general interpretative scheme, seeing them as
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian
local manifestation of a world-wide religion of the
Goddess.
Alternative interpretations
This article attempts to offer meanings for these stone
and clay assemblages in their socio-economic per-
spective. We prefer to interpret them as evidence of
socio-cultural change as new economic demands
challenge older established systems and new ritual
forms contest those of the old regime. Following a
loose adaptation of Morphy's (1989, 3) stages for
interpreting 'art', we identify the images; locate them
in time and space; suggest how they encode mean-
ing; and speculate on the relationships between im-
ages, their meaning and what such meaning infers
for the wider cultural system. Having identified the
images we present further interpretative stages for
each group.
Group I
We suggest that Group I incised pebbles portray
women of different age groups. The elongated nar-
row or oval items of Type IA, may represent young
girls, perhaps at menarcheal rites, whose body lines
are completely concealed, only the eyes being vis-
ible. The larger rounded pebbles with fat contours
(Type IB) could represent older women. In various
ethnographic studies, initiation ceremonies of girls
during their first menses, include a period of seclu-
sion during which girls covered up, leaving only the
eyes visible. The suggestion of Wreschner (1976) that
the eyes resemble Bushman rock art rain clouds
would reinforce the menarcheal theory since strong
ethnographical evidence connecting menarcheal
maidens and rainfall exists (see Power 1994). If, too,
the 'soutane' suggestion of Yeivin & Mozel (1977) is
correct, then older women too were partially cov-
ered up. None of the stone figures displays any
breasts or overt sexual characteristics.3
A number have hair detail (Fig. 2:2-3) — the
gap in the fringe so common in female imagery later
in Mesopotamia (e.g. Amiet 1980,17). Hairstyles are
well-known means of broadcasting information
(Hallpike 1969, 261) and parting in particular has
ritual significance for change in the status of women
among many groups (e.g. Tapper 1991,166).
Group II
The incised pebbles of Group II we regard as repre-
sentations of female pudenda. Like the previous
group these represent women at different ages and
reproductive stages. If this interpretation is accepted,
267
then one might see all the marks as encoded infor-
mation. The single vertical slit-line (Type IIA) as
representing the genitals of girls; while a number of
parallel vertical or horizontal lines (Type IIB) may
represent the developed labia of older women. Other
incised patterns on these pebbles include one verti-
cal slit with various combinations of incised hori-
zontal or diagonal lines, sometimes only on one side
of the vertical line (Type IIC; Fig. 3:10-12). We sug-
gest that the horizontal or diagonal lines may por-
tray parturition scars, or even scarring from genital
mutilation (see Widstrand 1965, in Oldfield-Hayes
1975). Pebbles with a net pattern, combining the ver-
tical with the horizontal, therefore, take this idea one
step further, and may indicate the childbearing his-
tory of a woman. This image is not simply represen-
tational but rather could represent a symbolic idea.
Group II also includes items which bear one or
more central or off-centrally drilled holes; some have
incised lines raying out from these holes (Stekelis
1972, pis. 58, 60 & 61). Many pebbles have red col-
ouring. These suggest an even broader repertoire of
codes.
We suggest that these incised pebbles (Groups
I and II) encoded notations in concrete form on the
age and reproductive status of a woman, where
physical maturity, sexual events and childbearing
history and availability are recorded. They are a
record of passing time — advancing age and differ-
ent events and rites of passage from girlhood up to
perhaps menopause.
Linear representation and red colour could sym-
bolize any of the events in the reproductive life of
women which are usually accompanied by blood,
like the onset of menses or defloration, and which
leave linear evidence such as parturition or possibly
even genital mutilation. Scarification, which is in
fact incision, on the bodies of living women, as rec-
ognition of a permanent change in status, is found
throughout the world. In reality, this kind of infor-
mation about a woman would be invisible to all but
a very small and specific group of people, perhaps
mature women, mothers and female elders of her
kin. The net motif might be regarded as symbolizing
an advanced stage, recording the uterine family of an
older woman. In fact it figures in the sign language of
Gimbutas, signifying amongst other things, vulva,
uterus and life-giving power (Gimbutas 1989,81-7).
Our interpretation is based on a proposed iden-
tification of Group II artefacts as portrayals of women
and sexual organs and as such will raise questions
and expectations from the data which will have to be
answered. The difficulty of assigning these artefacts
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

3cm.

10cm.
4 5
Figute 10. Group I itemsfromSha'ar Hagolan. (After Stekelis 1972.)

268
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian

3cm.

Figure 11. Group IB items from Munhata. (Courtesy of]. Perrot.)

269
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle

8
Figure 12. Group IIA-IID items (1-4,6-9) and Group 111 items (5,10 & 11) from Munhata (4, 5,6,7 & 9: courtesy of
J. Perrot) and from Sha'ar Hagokn (1-3,8 & 10-11: after Stekelis 1972).

270
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian
may be, we suggest, not so much the identification
of 'woman' or 'vulva', but rather the lack of any
theoretical basis to explain their appearance.
The oval, almond shapes appear, like their
Palaeolithic origins, in an imagery assemblage con-
taining naturalistic and schematic images. They bear
incisions which can be said to fit a category of 'repre-
sentational mark' (Davis 1986,201), and which work
biologically, as the marks of progressive age ex-
pressed linearly. A number of these vulva marks
appear in situ or 'in context' as Bahn would require
(Bahn 1986,101) on anthropomorphous figures with
female secondary sexual characteristics. See the stra-
tegically placed vulva mark superimposed on a peb-
ble with female hip/buttock lines (Fig. 2:2-4). In
other cases, the parallel lines of the mature women
may be incised on pebbles of the almond shape which
bear anthropomorphous characteristics (Garfinkel
1992a, pi. 124:8). We suggest that the almond shape,
like the V or triangle, is the 'Schematization which
involves reducing a figure to its essential traits . . .
abbreviated . . . Palaeolithic shorthand in which a
part stands for the whole (Bahn & Vertut 1988,117).
In the same way as Bahn applies this theory to
large hunted animals such as horse, bison or mam-
moth and allows identification by a single trait, we
similarly suggest that the almond or triangle are
schematized shorthand and they indicate too the
trait essential for their function in the framework of
the imagery set in which they appear. This, in both
the Neolithic and Palaeolithic is, we suggest con-
cerned with the regulation of access to women. To
put it crudely, the shorthand vulva, stands for the
point of access and as such is an 'essential trait'
indicating that structure. Some of these artefacts bear
red stains, and it does not require too great a leap of
the imagination to understand these as menstruat-
ing or bleeding vulvae, a state which has quite clear
historical and ethnographic bearing on rules regu-
lating access to women. The potency of menstrual
blood can be considered dangerous in some societies
(Buckley & Gottlieb 1988) and so a method of giving
notice of its arrival may need to exist. The vulva
shorthand would announce the presence of men-
struation in a society where taboos might have ex-
isted for menstruation, and for the timing of
conception. They would also indicate that a woman
was still of menstrual age. The red colour on so
many of the published Yarmukian 'vulvae pebbles'
(Stekelis 1972) (including those of the 'young woman'
type) may indicate that such information devices
have been at work.
For a preliterate society such as the Yarmukian,
271
the use of linear marks, too, is an apt shorthand to
express transformations of age. Taking an analogy
from ethnography, changes in status and transfor-
mations in the lives of women are sometimes marked
by linear body markings, as for example amongst
the Nuba of Sudan (Faris 1983).
When all is said and done, however, the identi-
fication rests too on a visual similarity, an interpre-
tation which Bednarik suggests Sigmund Freud
would have been interested in (Bednarik 1994, 1).
We agree with this to an extent and feel that some of
our responses lie in regions which belong in other
disciplines, outside the range of this article. Disa-
greements between observers can be reduced to the
degree of confidence which they assign to the dic-
tates of their subconscious in which shapes and as-
sociations have long been embodied. Some will join
the sceptics and critics poking fun at others who are
prepared to bridge the divide, but can call on no
hard evidence to support it. This would apply, for
example, to the identification of what Bahn describes
as 'the extremely interesting engraved pebbles' from
the cave of Kamikuoiwa. Some might easily identify
these as women — with breasts and a suspicion of a
'definite' vulva in situ on one of them; others like
Bahn might see only 'little pebbles with engravings
on them, some of which seem to represent breasts
and "skirts'" (Bahn & Vertut 1988,28).
When, however, such identifications are seen
as part of an imagery set which fits a model of social
co-operation involving the mutual needs of men's
access to women with women's need for provisioning
assistance (Knight et ah 1995) for herself and her
offspring their identification is greatly supported.
Group III
The assemblage of phalli of Group III show no clear
pattern of variation. In contrast to women, after ini-
tiation, age is less critical to the reproductive func-
tion of men. The male contribution to reproduction
does not leave marks. The appearance of this group
may belong rather to rituals connected with initia-
tion, perhaps a form of penile treatment such as
subincision (Lewis 1980; Knight 1987).
Group IV
The Group IV spherical incised items bear motifs
which appear to be combinations of symbols. Verti-
cal or converging 'groin' lines indicating female are
traversed by the single horizontal line symbolizing
male (Fig. 5:2). Weinstein-Evron & Belfer-Cohen
(1993,102) suggested seeing the horizontal marking
more as a female (waist?) symbol, but we agree with
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Or relle

1cm.

Figure 13. Group V clayfigurinmfromSha'ar Hagokn. (After Stekelis 1972.)

272
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian
Garrod & Bate (1937, 41) that it represents the fore-
skin and indicates male. The juxtaposition of both
symbols can be interpreted as either a dynamic event
of initiation or coitus.
Group V
The Group V clay figurines, when examined closely,
reveal that they are in fact composites of different
representations of male and female genitals. Some of
these items appear as whole figures, some as heads
and some as fragments of the body only. The 'mask'
can be seen to portray a fairly obvious representa-
tion of male and female genitalia — the so-called
pointed 'hairstyle' or 'hood' being rather phallic in
nature, the 'cheeks' resemble testicles, and the so
called 'coffee bean eyes' and pouting lips resembling
vulvae. Garfinkel follows Clarke, Mellaart and oth-
ers (Garfinkel 1995, 32) in describing these append-
ages as 'cowrie-shaped eyes' which, in view of the
symbolic associations of cowrie shells, supports a
vulva symbolism. A technique of body self-mimicry
seems to be used here where lips mimic labia, and
the nose may too represent a phallic element. The
three sections of the back of the 'phallic' head mimic
the underside of the penile shaft (the 'prepuce' as in
Weinstein-Evron & Belfer-Cohen 1993, fig. 3:2), and
this feature appears too in the stylized/schematic
phalli (Group III). The legs resemble portrayals of
phalli and the incisions are indicative of foreskin
folds and not obesity.
Another group of objects found in Sha'ar
Hagolan (Stekelis 1972) and in Byblos on the Leba-
nese coast (Dunand 1973), are a simpler combination
of male and female genitals (Stekelis 1972, pi. 50:1,
pi. 51:1,3; Figs. 7:3 & 13:1). The juxtaposition of op-
posing or complementary themes in the same visual
image is an old Palaeolithic technique, and these
androgynous, 'trickster' figures could represent con-
tradictory or negative behaviour, or by signalling
'wrong sex' signify illicit or non-available marital
sex (Power 1994; Knight 1994). They indicate inten-
tionally non-biological gender divisions. We take is-
sue here with the need in these early prehistoric
periods 'to determine with confidence whether the
recently discovered artistic objects do represent fe-
male and male genders' as felt by Weinstein-Evron
& Belfer Cohen (1993, 104), and suggest that ethno-
graphic research allows for a greater range (e.g. Meigs
1990).
Group VI
The images of males depicted in Group VI have the
characteristic morphology of adolescents. The 'stick-
273
like' torsos appear to reflect an age of adolescence
when boys spurt in height and begin to develop
secondary sexual characteristics. They could well be
at the age of initiation which seems to be accompa-
nied in many groups by the kind of physical mani-
festations described. Ethnographic reports confirm
that for boys, the date of puberty rites is fixed by
size, stature and the appearance of secondary sexual
characteristics (Lewis 1980,107).
Seen individually, incised stones as a medium
for communication of information, genitalia repre-
sentation, and clay figurines of steatopygous and
seated women are no innovation of the Yarmukian.
The combination, however, of all these elements in
some half-a-dozen different forms, appearing to-
gether repetitively as an assemblage, characteristic
of a particular culture restricted both in area and
time, indicates that something very specific was tak-
ing place in this society.
Suggested contexts for the objects
Assuming that the incised stone objects in our study
were part of an encoded system connected to the
recording of female reproduction, we must ask in
what context such objects operated — where would
a record of reproductive status be displayed or ex-
ploited? Presumably, events in the reproductive his-
tory of women were also marked by public events
such as initiations or ceremonies (after births, etc.)
Portable items in the form of small imagery items
appear frequently in the context of rites de passage of
individuals linked to the biological framework of
human life cycles; ethnographic examples for dis-
play of figurines include display on a wall (Adams
1983) or in a hairdress (Olbrecht 1959, in Adams
1983).
The Yarmukian incised pebbles may have been
used similarly or they may have featured in a house-
hold or kin context as an 'exhibition' of potential
availability of females arranged by status visible to
all, or to a selected few who might need this infor-
mation for decision-making.
Yarmukian imagery items were found in all
kinds of household contexts in Yarmukian sites — a
general domus context, but no sufficiently detailed
intra-site contexts. For example, in the two sites on
which our study was based, Munhata and Sha'ar
Hagolan, no clear micro-contextual patterns were
discerned. In Munhata, where only scant Yarmukian
architectural features were exposed, the imagery
items were found in a variety of contexts (many of
them secondary such as trash pits, fills, etc.)
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle
(Garfinkel 1993). At Sha'ar Hagolan, most of the im-
agery items were collected from the surface and only
very few were found in the early (Stekelis 1972) or
renewed (Garfinkel 1992a, 157) excavation. In the
earlier excavation, architecture was almost non-ex-
istent and in the more recent excavations only a
single incised pebble was recovered (Garfinkel pers.
comm). In the recently excavated site of Nahal Zehora
II (Gopher & Orrelle 1991), Yarmukian imagery items
were found in a variety of contexts sometimes re-
lated to architectural features and sometimes not.4
The main conclusions from this evidence appear to
be negative — as yet no clear association of imagery
items with specific archaeological contexts (burial,
caches, storage installation or repetitive specific house
context) was found. This discard practice of figu-
rines suggests, as in Meskell (1995, 82; and see also
Talalay 1987) that the imagery had a finite social
rather than sacred function. It may have, however, a
certain value for inter-site analysis since to date they
are found in their greatest concentrations in a spe-
cific limited area of the Yarmukian territory (the
Yarmuk-Jordan confluence). This distribution could
support a hypothesis of aggregation contexts, and
these might have included activities connected with
mating networks within the Yarmukian community.
Additional possible concentrations of similar arte-
facts do exist further away, for example in Byblos on
the Lebanese coast (Dunand 1973) in a cultural vari-
ant similar to the Yarmukian. If these artefacts relate
to mating activities, their range may have been quite
extensive. The picture, however, may change with
the exposure of more data on the Yarmukian.
Interpretations offered in the past for the
Yarmukian imagery system discussed in this article
refer to sympathetic magic, religion, deities and oth-
ers. We suggest rather that several elements were at
work here. Firstly, the internal code in these 'busi-
nesslike' notations on pebbles may hint at the work-
ings of a reproductive strategy mechanism. As above,
we suggest that it was concerned with recording the
resource of female reproduction. The main theme of
early interpretations of the 'fertility figures' is that
they played some role in 'fertility', that there was a
'concern for human fertility', or mat fertility needed
some kind of sympathetic magic to promote it. We
would say that the problem might well not have
been the function of fertility, but rather a need to
change attitudes towards childbearing, and encour-
age reproduction instead of restricting births.5 This
was probably part of a restructuring in society that
was expressed in other components too. Such is the
case of the appearance of a new burial form, that of
274
baby jar burials which continue to appear in the
context of the dwelling house, hinting at a change in
the place of children (including fetuses) in society
(Gopher & Orrelle 1995b; Gopher 1996; Gopher 1995).
The promotion of reproduction may have resulted
in the elevation of motherhood to a more desirable
(sacred?) state, and at the same time its placement
under some kind of control (through rituals, mar-
riage, or honour codes for example).
It may be that these Yarmukian pebble figu-
rines indicate the 'fertility' was being harnessed for
social objectives, and that this group of material im-
agery items may have been used in effecting changes
in control over the reproductive capacity of women,
virtually, the domestication of female reproduction
(Hodder 1987, 55; 1990).6 A record of the female
reproductive stages of the family/community which
produced them may be related to the exchange of
women for social-political reasons such as the for-
mation of alliances, or the resolution of feuds — a
practice which is known from modern ethnographic
examples (e.g. Tapper 1991,74-9; Talalay 19877). The
incised stone articles may represent tokens for the
present or future exchange of females, each token
bearing its 'value' in the form of a reproductive record
of the resource — woman.
The clay figurine groups of the Yarmukian play
a different role but in the same system and may have
had significance in the contention for ritual potency
between men and women which accompanied the
new demographic demands of the changed economy.
The status of women, female figurines and the
Yarmukian culture
The Yarmukian culture is thought to represent a
stage of settled agriculture with animal exploitation
that may in some regions have resembled a form of
pastoralism (e.g. Rollefson & Kohler-Rollefson 1989;
Simmons et al. 1988 and for general summaries see
Garfinkel 1993; Gopher 1995; Gopher & Gophna 1993).
The direct evidence for the Yarmukian economy
is scarce, comprising faunal and very few botanical
finds. It does not present any major innovation. In
the fauna the predominance of domesticated sheep/
goat continues, accompanied by pigs and cattle
(Simmons el al. 1988; Kohler-Rollefson et al 1988;
Kohler-Rollefson 1989) and agricultural products in-
clude cereals and pulses. Indirectly, however, the
Yarmukian settlement system and site characteris-
tics favour an interpretation of a changing economy
(Gopher & Gophna 1993 and references therein).
Animal management and agriculture are labour
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian
intensive, and one can assume that reproduction
would acquire importance. For agriculturalists, own-
ership of land would require the formation of rules
for devolution. For pastoralists, the formation of alli-
ances would be vital for access to resources such as
grazing land and water. Young men seeking wives
and land may no longer be able to do so through
their own efforts, as in a bride service society, but be
forced to bind themselves to older men on whom
they would depend for bride wealth to acquire the
rights to a woman's labour, sexuality or offspring.
The young man's quest for access to females may be
further frustrated by the practice of polygyny, where
older men had greater access to females, and this
would be a source of endemic conflict between age
groups. In their study of gender as a cultural system,
Collier & Rosaldo (1981) show how different kinds
of simple societies maintain different methods of
organizing marriage alliances. Hunters seem to or-
ganize marriage in a manner consistent with the
expectations of bride service; bride wealth by con-
trast seems to characterize most horticultural (agri-
cultural) groups. 'Bridewealth peoples, for instance,
tend in their rituals and cosmology to display a pre-
occupation with female reproductive capacities;
women are valued as mothers, but feared for their
polluting blood' (Collier & Rosaldo 1981,279). Since
these elements appear to be present in their sym-
bolic assemblages, the social change taking place in
the Yarmukian may well be a change in the form of
marriage alliance from bride service to equal bride
wealth (Collier 1988).
The scant evidence on the Yarmukian economy
would imply various economic activities involving
long absences by men (and non-reproductive women)
such as herding and maybe hunting too. This would
require the introduction of social devices to control
their resource — reproductive women. A model for
husband absence/socio-political status was sug-
gested for the PPNB (Bar-Yosef & Belfer-Cohen
1989a). However, it was specific to a system in which
hunting played a major economic role. In the rein-
stated agricultural economy of the Yarmukian, ac-
cess to a woman must have become difficult. A man
acquired status through having a wife and her re-
productive stages may have been delineated and
controlled by her family, kin group or society. As
she moved from stage to stage, and was transformed
from girl to woman, society used traditional means
to record the events. It is perhaps as an 'inventory of
transformations' that the function of the Group I and
II 'women' and 'vulva' pebbles can be regarded.
Such overt display of productive female potential
275
may indicate an increased value of women as repro-
ducers, and, on the other hand may also indicate a
possible reduction in their access to productive re-
sources (Sanday 1973). This may be evidence of a
shift in emphasis in women's role from production
to reproduction, a strategy adopted by society ac-
cording to changed needs especially in a period of
socio-economic change (Denham, in Sanday 1973).
Rollefson & Kohler-Rollefson (1989,80) saw the
rich visual imagery and evidence of ritual behaviour
from the PPNB at Ain Ghazal as a reflection of peri-
odic reaffirmation of social identity and security,
part of a generalized pattern of responses to com-
mon stresses and opportunities. Such a 'reaffirma-
tion' of social identity may have taken place too in
the Yarmukian, when new strategies required new
social organizations to be implemented. The stresses
to which this hypothesis would apply in our case
would be the need for re-establishment of social co-
hesion after the breakdown of the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic interaction system.
A certain cyclical pattern may be discerned fol-
lowing the collapse of what Rollefson called the
'faulty experimentation' of the PPNB at the end of
the seventh millennium BC.8 It appears to be fol-
lowed by a period of cultural diversification and of
new economic adaptations in the early sixth millen-
nium DC The following Yarmukian, appearing
around the mid-sixth millennium BC, may perhaps
be seen as a readjustment and recovery. This could
be supported by the plethora of imagery items whose
appearance in large quantities at different periods
characterizes a time of social change. Change invites
'loud' ritual which must convince and persuade
(Knight 1994; Sperber 1974; Peltenburg 1994) and
also intensifies ritual that defends and preserves the
status quo. It was suggested that such a concentration
appearing in the Natufian signalled social change
(Bar-Yosef & Belfer-Cohen 1989b).
The phalli group which appears alongside the
female genital imagery and the clay androgynous
images raises the suggestion that a form of blood
ritual for men was being practised. This has signifi-
cance for tracing a possible breakdown of traditional
female blood ritual where female rites may have be-
gun to be used ritually by men (Sanday 1981; Knight
1987; 1991). Conflicts of this nature could be behind
the variety of imagery types in the Yarmukian culture.
One must be wary of interpreting gender
signifiers as the ascendancy of one sex over the other,
and remember that these representations can operate
on several cognitive levels (Hodder 1987). While the
stone items seem to be concerned with biological
 Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle
gender categories, the clay items, made of soft pli-
able changeable material, seem to be concerned not
with reproduction but with an intentional mixing of
gender signifiers. This could indicate an aspect of a
ritual system which includes an element of non-avail-
able sexuality—genitalia are presented in hermaph-
rodite images, all different, quite opposed to the
rigid separate categories of the stone items. Perhaps
they personify a mythological trickster figure whose
contrariness belongs to the 'carnival' sexual context
(e.g. the androgynous ancestral being 'Afek', in Poole
1981). The ritual phalli represent yet another sexual
political challenge to the old order.
In sum, the imagery suggests that in this soci-
ety several facets of sexuality were operating along-
side each other—the encouragement of procreation,
an increasing male appropriation of female rituals,
and symbols of non-reproductive sexuality.
Recent work has recognized the existence of
multiple gender models and discourses and how
they can intersect in any given context (Sanday &
Goodenough 1990). Such an intersection or debate
seems to take place in the Yarmukian population
where several facets are represented in the imagery.
Gender and sex, however, stand in a relation-
ship with other discourses in many domains of cul-
ture. They must be integrated into the wider cultural
system and specific temporal context of the dynam-
ics of power, potency, cosmology, and death which
are also highly gendered.
We have no micro-contexts to assist our inter-
pretation of the artefacts, but perhaps it is the macro
context, the historical setting of the Yarmukian cul-
ture and the socio-economic changes taking place, in
which we can find an explanation for these images.
Avi Gopher & Estelle Orrelle
Institute of Archaeology
Tel Aviv University
P.O. Box 69978
Ramat Aviv
Tel Aviv
Israel
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jean Perrot for giving us the Munhata
stone collection to study, to Nurit Bird-David and
Steve Rosen who read an earlier version; for helpful
discussions with Chris Knight, Camilla Power, Lionel
Sims, Catherine Arthur and the late Marija Gimbutas;
and to Anna Belfer-Cohen for valuable suggestions
on the final draft.
276
Notes
1. The term material imagery is used to avoid the
assumption that these items are mere represen-
tational art.
2. We should like to clarify a problem in classifica-
tion encountered with the vulvae Group II Type
A — pebbles bearing a single slit, or groove. A
clear division can be traced in the literature be-
tween instances where they are described as rep-
resentations of female genitals, and where they
are described as sharpeners. In our typological
assignment of grooved stones, we made a dis-
tinction between those in which the groove ex-
tended to both extremities of the stone (assigned
to sharpeners) and those where the groove only
extended over part of the length Of the pebble
(vulvae). We do not, however, reject the possibil-
ity that some of these stones could have fulfilled
both functions, that of 'promissory' token (see
above) and an actual tool for sharpening, or
straightening. Interestingly, this may be related
to the survival of the word 'whetstone' in the
English language, defined in the Collins diction-
ary as Whet (hwet, wet) to sharpen by rubbing
against a whetstone — to stimulate, arouse, to
whet ones appetite. A number of synonyms for
female genitals reflect the connection with ar-
rows or sharpening such as quiver, sharp-and
blunt, grindstone and whetting-corn(e), and the
synonym 'amulet' may be a hint of how these
items were displayed (Ash & Higton 1987).
3. The near absence of sexual characteristics, of
breasts or genitalia 'in context' on the portrayals
of the 'older women' in the stone pebble items
suggest that they too were in ritual state.
4. Micro-contexts for figurines from Nahal Zehora
II. This is a new Yarmukian excavation carried
out with up-to-date control methods and full
sieving. It has produced a large assemblage of
imagery items which are in the process of being
studied. As far as can be ascertained to date, no
specific spatial or discard patterning could be
identified, but it is too early to make a definitive
statement.
5. This process may also have occurred in the Pre-
Pottery Neolithic period (8000-5600 DC) in light
of the economic change and may have contrib-
uted to the over-success and the collapse of the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic socio-economic system. If,
however, as we suggest, the second half of the
sixth millennium BC shows a reorganization of
society, then an encouragement of reproduction
 Material Imagery of the Yarmukian
would be a relevant part of that process.
6. As the imagery of domestication incorporates
domesticated animals in the place of wild hunted
animals, so the imagery of powerful female ritu-
als connected with hunting undergoes transfor-
mation in the process of its domestication.
7. A number of clay figurine legs resembling those
found from Neolithic Greece described in this
article were found very recently in the excava-
tion of Nahal Zehora II in conjunction with the
artefacts described in this article. They are as yet
unpublished, but they are to be included in a
similar study of material from south Levantine
sites.
8. Evidence of pastoralism was suggested for the
PPNC period by Rollefson et al. 1992 and
Rollefson & Kohler-Rollefson 1989.
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