Tracing human–fire relations in early sedentary communities: Fire installations and micromorphological insights from combustion-related deposits at pre-pottery Neolithic B tell Halula (Syria)

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Fire installations are key in archaeology for understanding the organisation of social spaces in past societies, as they provide valuable insights into domestic activities, production and consumption practices, and the creation of spaces of belonging. During the transition from mobile hunting-gathering to sedentary agricultural strategies, concepts of space changed, with buildings shifting to rectilinear, multi-roomed structures. In this context, combustion structures were less frequently placed in communal and external areas and were instead incorporated within individual architectural units. This shift suggests that fire-related activities became more segregated within distinct social units, which, along with other socioeconomic transformations, emphasised the household as a central unit of production and consumption. This study explores the technology of fire installations and interrelations between fire use, waste management and cultural practices at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Tell Halula (Syria). The analysis integrates excavation data reporting on distinct morphotypes of combustion structures with a high-resolution micromorphological study of midden deposits. By combining these datasets, the research explores how the emergence of more permanent and densely populated settlements affected the design, management, and spatial organisation of fire installations; how choices of fuel and combustion technology were shaped by evolving economic strategies; and how the use of fire contributed to the definition of household and community within early sedentary lifeways. Together, these lines of evidence provide new insights into human–fire relations in the earliest farming societies.