The settlement at ʿAin Ghazal (‘Spring of the Gazelle’) first appeared in the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and is split into two phases. Phase I starts circa 10,300 Before Present (BP) and ends c. 9,950 BP, while phase II ends c. 9,550 BP.
The 9th millennium MPPNB period in the Levant represented a major transformation in prehistoric lifeways from small bands of mobile hunter–gatherers to large settled farming and herding villages in the Mediterranean zone, the process having been initiated some 2–3 millennia earlier.
It is situated in a relatively rich environmental setting immediately adjacent to the Zarqa River (Wadi Zarqa), the longest drainage system in highland Jordan. It is located at an elevation of about 720m within the ecotone between the oak-park woodland to the west and the open steppe-desert to the east.
