Khiamien

The Khiamien is one period of the Neolithic of the Middle East, marking the transition between the Natoufien and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic has. It goes back to approximately 10 000 with 9 500 av. J. - C.

Khiamien owes its name with the site of El Khiam, located on banks of the Dead Sea, where were found the oldest arrowheads out of flint found, with notch side, called “points of el Khiam”. They were used to identify the sites of this period, which are in Israel, but also in Jordan (Azraq), with the the Sinai (Abu Madi), and in north until on the Means Euphrate (Mureybet).

Apart from the appearance of the arrowheads of el Khiam, Khiamien is placed in the continuity of Natoufien, without major technical innovation. It is noted however that the houses are for the first time built on the ground even, and not with half buried like previously. For the remainder, the carriers of the culture of el Khiam are always hunters-gatherers, and agriculture still is then not developed, within sight of what the sites of this period reported.

Khiamien also sees occurring of the changes from the symbolic system point of view, attested by the appearance of small female statuettes, like by the cranium hiding of aurochs. According to J.Cauvin, it is the beginning of the worship of the Woman and the Bull, attested during the following time of the close relation-Eastern Neolithic era.

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