Excavations at Murayghat, a hilltop site near Madaba, Jordan, reveal a concentration of more than 95 Early Bronze Age dolmens, stone enclosures, carved bedrock and communal pottery that point to ritual gatherings rather than ordinary domestic life. The evidence suggests groups converged on the site for shared burial rites and feasting, possibly as a social response to climatic drying and disruption at the end of the Chalcolithic. Murayghat offers a rare window into how communities may have reorganized communal roles and identity during a period of weakened hierarchical structures.
5,500-Year-Old Murayghat Ritual Complex Reveals Social Upheaval at the Dawn of the Bronze Age
Excavations at Murayghat, a hilltop site near Madaba, Jordan, reveal a concentration of more than 95 Early Bronze Age dolmens, stone enclosures, carved bedrock and communal pottery that point to ritual gatherings rather than ordinary domestic life. The evidence suggests groups converged on the site for shared burial rites and feasting, possibly as a social response to climatic drying and disruption at the end of the Chalcolithic. Murayghat offers a rare window into how communities may have reorganized communal roles and identity during a period of weakened hierarchical structures.
04:28, 09.11.2025Science
Murayghat: A Hilltop of Monuments, Not Houses
The transition from the Copper (Chalcolithic) Age into the Early Bronze Age — roughly 5,500 years ago — appears to have been a period of major social reorganization across the southern Levant. New excavations at Murayghat, a hillsite near modern Madaba in present-day Jordan, suggest that some communities responded to environmental and social stress not by relocating to new villages but by transforming shared ritual landscapes.
Key Findings
Archaeologists led by Susanne Kerner of the University of Copenhagen recorded more than 95 dolmens at Murayghat, with detailed descriptions of over 70 examples. The site’s summit also contains stone enclosures, carved bedrock features and a variety of megalithic monuments. Notably, the excavators found scant evidence of domestic installations such as hearths or house remains, and none of the dolmens yielded clearly preserved human remains.
"Instead of the large domestic settlements with smaller shrines established during the Chalcolithic, our excavations at Early Bronze Age Murayghat show clusters of dolmens, standing stones, and large megalithic structures that point to ritual gatherings and communal burials rather than living quarters," Kerner writes.
Material Culture and Social Use
Pottery and small finds recovered at the site include large communal bowls and other vessels associated with shared feasting and ritual practice rather than individual household use. The architecture displays an unusual mix of styles, which the team interprets as possible evidence that distinct groups converged on Murayghat, each bringing their own ceremonial traditions.
Environmental and Social Context
Previous research points to a late Chalcolithic climate shift toward drier conditions and broader social disruption across the Levant. While some settlements shrank or were abandoned, the Murayghat evidence suggests alternative community responses: people may have invested in shared monuments and public ritual to reconfigure social ties in the absence of strong hierarchical institutions.
Interpretation and Limits
Kerner and colleagues propose that Murayghat functioned as a focal point for communal rites, commemoration and potentially collective memory—an adaptive strategy during a time when traditional social frameworks were breaking down. However, the precise meanings of the monuments and the social arrangements they supported remain difficult to reconstruct after millennia.
Publication
The study documenting these findings appears in Levant: The Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant.