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KRAKÓW, POLAND—Science in Poland reports that Piotr Kołodziejczyk of Jagiellonian University led a team of researchers who discovered traces of a Neolithic settlement in a remote mountain valley in southern Jordan. The settlement, organized around a central building that may have been a temple or a chief’s dwelling, was surrounded by stone walls. Grinders, grindstones, arrowheads, and ceramics that may have been used to store food were found outside the wall. Kołodziejczyk suggests the early farmers cultivated plants on flat patches of ground among the rocks and kept flocks of animals. To read about “Big Circles,” large manmade features found in Jordan and Syria that may date back as far as the Neolithic, go to “Squaring the Circles.”
