Making spaces amongst the rocks: The construction, purpose and meaning of Late epipalaeolithic and PPNA buildings in the Harrat ash-Sham

The Late Pleistocene and early Holocene inhabitants of the Qa’ Shubayqa in northeast Jordan's Harrat ash-Sham basalt desert constructed a remarkable array of buildings over the course of nearly 6000 years. We present the architectural evidence from two excavated archaeological sites in the area: Shubayqa 1 and 6 and reflect on the nature of Epipalaeolithic and Early Neolithic constructions, and the purpose and meaning of the uncovered buildings. The Shubayqa sites afford a rare opportunity to examine changes in architecture from the beginning of the Natufian to the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) in one confined area. We argue that construction at Shubayqa 1 and 6 followed different rhythms and that the materiality of stone used as a building material does not directly correlate with permanent or impermanent modes of inhabiting these places. This prompts a rethinking of how we analyse and understand architecture during the transition from the Epipalaeolithic to the Neolithic in southwest Asia.