The first phase of the project led to the production of a comprehensive review, performed at an unprecedented scale, of both archaeological and environmental data covering the second half of the neolithization process in arid regions of the Levant. It includes data, both published and unpublished, from two dozens of international fieldwork programs implemented in inland Syria and north-eastern Jordan from the 1960s onwards. The resulting database is the cornerstone of the project. It contains 90% of the data used for the analyses, with the remaining 10% linked to environmental components being included in a GIS. I have defined 61 criteria to describe the 152 archaeological sites inventoried and their close context. The database is divided into two main tables. One table describes each site as a whole and the other table describes, when relevant, chronological phases per site.
Taking advantage of being part of the University of Chicago academia, where exploration of anthropological concepts and theoretical knowledge is strongly promoted, combined with an invitation to present a paper at the international conference held in Veracruz (Mexico) Frentes Pioneros: conquista de territorios a través de los siglos (Frontiers: territorial conquest through ages), I deeply explored conceptual aspects of the project such as ‘margins’ and ‘marginality’ in Prehistory and added the concept of ‘frontier’ that I proved to be applicable to the ‘conquest’ phenomenon of new arid lands in the Levant at the end of the neolithization process. The serendipitous timing of MARGINS and the Frentes Pioneros Conference provided a stimulating opportunity to rethink and discuss the analysis of the ‘colonization’ in light of the ‘frontier’ concept. Theorized and mainly used in geography for describing pre-modern and modern colonization process, it also found acceptance in historical studies for describing phenomena as old as the neolithization process in France (6th mill. cal. BCE; Manen & Amon 2018). By confronting archaeological data with the definition of the concept, I questioned the fact that the nine-millennium-old settlement expansion that occurred in the arid margins of the Fertile Crescent could also be qualified as a ‘frontier’. I investigated this question by revisiting the following aspects of the ‘conquest’: its origins and motivations; the possibility/difficulty of distinguishing between indigenous populations and newcomers; the origin(s) of the ‘pioneers’; the settlement’s spatial progression and organization; and the sociocultural and economic aspects specific to these lands. I concluded that the Neolithic expansion in the arid margins of the Fertile Crescent can indeed qualified as a frontier, the following aspects of the expansion falling into its definition:
◦ a colonization of (almost) inhabited territories;
◦ a progress along favored circulation axes (streams);
◦ an archipelago-like occupation;
◦ the coexistence of two different types of land-use (sedentary farmers vs. mobile herders-hunters).
In addition, early hypotheses that sought to explain the late Neolithic settlement shift posited that population movements reflected climatic deterioration, demographic pressure, and overgrazing that resulted in the collapse of the ‘megasites’ (Bocquet-Appel & Bar-Yosef 2008; Rollefson & Köhler-Rollefson 1989; Rollefson 2019). This presupposes a ‘colonization’ triggered by a constraining context, on the path to becoming unsustainable. I argue on the contrary in favor of a timely alignment combination of seized or provoked opportunities, with high levels of technical achievement in some fields, and attractiveness of resources from the Badia, related to fauna and minerals exploitation. Moreover, while acknowledging indisputable constraints, these regions were conducive for innovations and, following Rollefson (2011), the sustainable conquest of harsh environment should be considered as an achievement of the neolithization process and not a marginal phenomenon.
