The first in a series of monographs on the lengthy (1975–1996) excavations at Tell Nebi Mend (ancient Qadesh) on Syria's upper Orontes, this vol- ume focuses on the background of the site and excavations, as well as its Neolithic levels.

After a brief geographic overview, early portions of the volume provide an excellent history of research at the site, from its early European visitors and French excavations in 1921–1922, through evaluation of textual sources referring to the site, to the beginnings of the University of London's excavations. Description of the research strategy of the most recent fieldwork, predominantly characterised as “chronological reconnaissance” (p. 22), is commendable for its candour about weaknesses. There is also a brief but interesting ethnography of the modern village at the site by the project's Syrian Antiquities representative, Majed Moussli, which is particularly valuable for its information on households and domestic architecture.

Excavations into the Neolithic levels were modest—restricted to about 70m² at the bottom of trench VIII—while the Neolithic deposits themselves were not especially thick and had suffered considerably from subsequent disturbances, such as pit-digging. Despite these drawbacks, the results give us a glimpse into the nature of the Late (or Pottery) Neolithic in central-western Syria, much of it a lacuna between the better-known Late Neolithic contexts of the southern Levant and north-Syrian and Euphrates regions. Consequently, the volume will be of considerable interest to Neolithic scholars.

Weaknesses include, somewhat oddly, the lack of layer numbers on maps or section drawings, which makes it more difficult for readers to follow some of the stratigraphic arguments. The volume also makes no use of the Harris matrix; this absence is probably a reflection of the time when the majority of the fieldwork was undertaken, but it could have been very helpful for justifying the grouping of contexts into phases, and it would not have been especially difficult to construct.

Regrettably, there are only four radiocarbon dates available from these Neolithic layers, mostly on ‘short-lived’ charred branch fragments of oak, pistachio and possibly willow. They appear to be from ‘good’ contexts, such as a hearth in phase 2 and beneath a plaster floor in phase 3. The description of the dating evidence, however, makes no mention of the fact that the dates are in reverse stratigraphic order (i.e. youngest at the bottom, oldest on top). Thus, they probably date to phase 2 (7000–6500 cal BC at 95% confidence, or 6750–6600 at 68%), but contribute nothing to our understanding of the date of phases 3 and 4, where the charcoal fragments are probably residual. A constraint on the upper end of the Late Neolithic level comes from short-lived materials (olive pit and palm-stem fragment) from a hearth belonging to the earliest reoccupation of area VIII in phase 6. These reportedly have calibrated dates of 4045–3960 and 3950–3770 cal BC (presumably at 95%), leaving an unhelpful gap of some two millennia in which to place phases 3–5. A table of radiocarbon determinations from comparable sites is helpful, if somewhat out of date.

Virginia Mathias and Theya Molleson make the most of the four burials and a scattering of other human remains belonging to the Late Neolithic phases. One of the two flexed primary burials shows some evidence for funerary ritual, but the sample is too small to provide much insight into burial practice. The buried individuals show good dental health, and the remains of a young woman presents squatting facets and a healed fracture of her left ulna, probably suffered while warding off a blow to the head.

The lengthy Chapter 4, by Mathias, details the Late Neolithic pottery. She offers a description of the main fabrics (including petrology in an appendix) and methods of manufacture, and then uses a series of bar graphs to highlight the discussion of changes in the distribution of major form categories and surface treatments, following with comparisons to pottery from elsewhere in the Levant. Quantities are by sherd count, but are transformed to percentages in the graphs. Given the differences in sample size from phase to phase, and uncertainty about the length of each phase, the graphs do not make it very clear whether the differences in the distributions are significant or not, and a simple statistical analysis would have been welcome. The bulk of the chapter is a fairly exhaustive illustrated catalogue of sherds organised by form and phase. The plates are clear and very useful for comparison, although the convention for showing burnish (solid black) could obscure details in some cases; there are two colour plates at the end. The assemblages have strong connections to the ‘dark-faced burnished’ tradition in the northern Levant, but also to the tradition of cord-marking, found in high proportions at sites of the central Levant.

Lorraine Copeland's chapter on flint and obsidian tools is rather brief but outlines the main tool types and discusses raw materials and knapping technology. These tools place it well within the second or ‘ceramic’ phase of the “Big Arrowhead Industry” (p. 268), which typically continues the tradition of producing large, tanged projectile points (especially ‘Byblos’ and ‘Amuq’ points). As might be expected, there is also a substantial component of agricultural tools, notably sickle elements, which have denticulated edges and were probably mounted in curved sickles. Although Copeland suggests the possibility that these may have been for cutting reeds, the fact that denticulation was a widespread trait in the later Neolithic, unaccompanied by any major tradition of unretouched sickle edges, makes it highly probable that they were also used for harvesting grains. The presence of obsidian ‘corner-thinned blades’, usually considered to be restricted to northern Syria, is interesting this far south, but may simply reflect the routes by which Tell Nebi Mend obtained its obsidian, always a rare raw material in the central and southern Levant.

Caroline Grigson's chapter on the evidence for animal husbandry and the chapter on plant remains by Katherine Smith and Lisa Moffett provide insights into subsistence economy and land use, showing the typical strong reliance on domestic sheep and goat, probably domesticated pig and cattle, a smaller component of hunting, and a focus on cereal cultivation, probably under arable conditions rather than gardens. The final chapter by Peter Parr on the ‘Enclosure’ surrounding the site is fascinating but, as it dates to the second millennium BC, seems out of place in a volume mostly devoted to the Neolithic.

Overall, this volume will be very useful to Neolithic scholars, notwithstanding the occasional poor print quality (at least in my copy).