Territories, Boundaries and Cultures in the Neolithic Near East 9781841718071, 9781407327938

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Project Supporters
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1. ANALYSIS OF THE MATERIAL
CHAPTER 2. TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS AND BOUNDARIES TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER 3. TERRITORIES BOUNDARIES AND CULTURES
GENERAL CONCLUSION
LIST OF THE MAPS INCLUDED IN THE TEXT
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANNEX

Citation preview

BAR S1362 2005 KOZLOWSKI & AURENCHE TERRITORIES, BOUNDARIES AND CULTURES

B A R

Territories, Boundaries and Cultures in the Neolithic Near East S. K. Kozlowski O. Aurenche Preface by

F. Hole

BAR International Series 1362 2005

Territories, Boundaries and Cultures in the Neolithic Near East S. K. Kozlowski O. Aurenche Preface by

F. Hole

BAR International Series 1362 2005

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 1362 Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée – Jean Pouilloux Territories, Boundaries and Cultures in the Neolithic Near East © The authors individually and the Publisher 2005 The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781841718071 paperback ISBN 9781407327938 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841718071 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2005. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

BAR

PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from:

E MAIL P HONE F AX

BAR Publishing 122 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX2 7BP, UK [email protected] +44 (0)1865 310431 +44 (0)1865 316916 www.barpublishing.com

To the memory of Robert J Braidwood and of Jacques Cauvin

The project of this book was supported by the FrenchPolish Research Program Polonium (20002002) the Universities of Warsaw and Lyon (LumièreLyon 2) and the Polish Science Foundation in Warsaw (FNP)

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We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the following persons who helped us during the preparation of this book In Lyon (MOM)

Olivier Barge and Christine Chataigner for the cartography Yvon Montmessin for the drawings Agnès Piedimonte for the text Elizabeth Willcox for the translation the Service des Publications for the preparation of the printing process and last but not least Emmanuelle RégagnonCaroline for the cartography the drawings and the preparation of the printing process In Warsaw

Magdalena Rozycka for the drawings Iwona Zych for the translation We also thank all the colleagues and friends who gave us access to unpublished material and information Collections Ali Kosh (Prehistoric Museum Moesgaard Denmark) Ali Kosh (Yale University New Haven USA) Asiab (Prehistoric Museum Moesgaard Denmark) Bir Jili Balagha (Yale University New Haven USA) Choga Sefid (Yale University New Haven USA) Choga Mami (Prehistoric Museum Moesgaard Denmark) Ganj Dareh (Prehistoric Museum Moesgaard Denmark) Gilgal I (Hebrew Museum Jerusalem Israel) Nachcharini (University of Toronto Canada) Mureybet (Institute of Oriental Prehistory Jalès France) Qermez Dere (British Expedition Tel Afar Iraq) Sabz (Yale University New Haven USA) Seh Gabi C (Royal Ontario Museum Toronto Canada) Umm Dabaghiah (Prehistoric Museum Moesgaard Denmark) Zawi Chemi (Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History Washington DC USA) Unpublished PhD and MA Theses F Abbès (middle Euphrates flint industries) M Arimura (Kerkh) C Escutenaire (Levant) N GoringMorris (Sinai and Negev sites) F Hole (Jarmo) M McDonald (Sarab Seh Gabi C) A Moore (Abu Hureyra) D Nadel (Netiv Hagdud) T Noy (Nahal Oren) B Peasnall (Hallan Çemi Demirköy)  J Pullar (Abdul Hossein Asiab Sarab Ganj Dareh and other central Zagros sites) K Wright (Beidha Jilat Azraq) Personnal Information F Abbès (Qdeir Jerf el Ahmar El Kowm 2 Sheikh Hassan) M Arimura (Kerkh) NO Bader (Magzalia) A Betts (Qermez Dere) S Campbell (Ginnig) I Caneva (Çayönü) L Copeland (Lebanon sites) E Coqueugniot (Djande Halula) G Coskunsu (Mezraz Thalailat) P Edwards (Zahrat adh Drha) HGK Gebel (Baaja Basta EsSiffiya) A Gopher (Ain Darat Southern Levantine flint industries) N GoringMorris (Sinai sites) MC Cauvin (Mureybet El Kowm 2 Aswad Cafer Sheikh Hassan) F Hole (Asiab Jarmo Deh Luran) S Kadowaki (Ain Abu Nekheileh) Z Kafafi (Ain Ghazal EsSiffiya) P Mortensen (Guran Shimshara Genil Kala Kamand Bagh Qazemi) I Kuijt (Drha) M Le Mière (early ceramics) C Maréchal (Aswad Mureybet) RF Mazurowski (Qaramel Qermez Dere) A Moore (Abu Hureyra) B MüllerNeuhof (Lebanon) Y Nishiaki (Aarbid Seker al Ahmeir Thalathat III)  T Noy (Gilgal I and III) B Peasnall (Demirköy) J Roodenberg (Buqras) M Rosenberg (Demirköy Hallan Çemi Khirbet Selim High Valleys flint industry) K Schmidt (Nevalı Çori Göbekli Gürçü Southeastern Anatolia) B Schroeder (Nachcharini) D Stordeur (Aswad Jerf el Ahmar Mureybet Sheikh Hassan bone industry) T Watkins (Qermez Dere) C Yazbeck (Lebanon)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PREFACE



5



9

INTRODUCTION 

Geography  The potential settlement pattern  Miniterritories  Chronology  Methods  History of the research  State of the sources  Maps of the sources 

 3 3 5 5 5 6

20 20

CHAPTER  B ANALYSIS OF THE MATERIAL  2 Rare and common  2 Basic maps  2 Chipped lithic industry  22 Heavy stone industry  23 Light stone industry  24 Polished axes/celts  25 Stone vessel and white ware  25 Ornaments  26 Art 27 Themes  29 Style  30 Tokens  30 Bone industry  3 Miscellaneous  3 Architecture  32 Early pottery  32 Final observations  34

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 2 B TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS AND BOUNDARIES  37 Main divisions  37 Internal divisions  42 The Golden Triangle  46 Borders  48 First rank borders  48 Secund rank borders  54 Third rank borders  56 Border hierarchy  6 Conclusion  63 CHAPTER 3 B TERRITORIES  BOUNDARIES AND CULTURES  65 Introduction  65 Taxonomic entities or cultures in the Early Period  67 Taxonomic entities or cultures in the Late Period  73 Cultural evolution  80 Leading role of distinctive cultures  80 Duration and change  82 Crossing the borders  83 Rythm of development  84 Great changebut stable borders  84 GENERAL CONCLUSION  87 Borders trough the time  88 LIST OF THE MAPS INCLUDED IN THE TEXT  97 BIBLIOGRAPHY  99 ANNEX  03



35()$&(

It is a pleasure to write a short preface to this important work of synthesis for the Neolithic of the Near East This book results from many years of patient compilation of data by the authors and their colleagues Earlier works that provided some of the data and conception for this book include La maison orientale

lnarchitecture du Proche Orient ancien des origines au milieu du IVe millénaire by O Aurenche 98 Chronologies du Proche Orient 16 0004000 BP by O Aurenche J Évin and F Hours 987 Atlas des sites du Proche Orient by F Hours O Aurenche J and MC Cauvin L Copeland and P Sanlaville 994 The Eastern Wing of the Fertile Crescent by S Kozlowski 999 and La naissance du Néolithique au Proche Orient ou le paradis perdu by O Aurenche and S Kozlowski 999

Beyond these synthetic works are the countless reports and collections that were consulted by the authors in a determined effort to verify and consolidate all of the extant information on the occurrence and distribution of artifacts in the Neolithic At a time when the amount of new information on the Neolithic is becoming overwhelming for individuals whose fieldwork is confined to one of the geographic regions there is a tendency to restrict onens vision and expertise more and more narrowly to the sites and material one can personally visit and examine The present book is free from such restrictions because it starts from the premise that the regional picture and not the individual site is important The book makes clear that there is a great disparity in knowledge between the two major areas the western and eastern wings of the Fertile Crescent For nearly three decades there has been little archaeological research in Iran and with some important exceptions Iraq For the new generation of students and scholars who are renewing fieldwork in the eastern arm this book will open a world of comparative material and scholarship that has been largely inaccessible

The central theme is that the cultures of the Neolithic reside in bounded territories which have persisted through the millennia despite economic environmental and historic changes The book demonstrates where these territories are using the distribution of artifacts as indicators of regions of similarity and dissimilarity Inevitably this raises the question whether these territories have oculturalp significance Were they the domain of a tribe or other polity? Did they have linguistic connotations? Did the people share religious customs? Because the historic and modern world is divided into territories that encompass separate polities languages and customs it is natural to think that the prehistoric world was divided similarly The question that must be asked however is whether types of arrowheads or pestles are truly indicative of broader social and cultural organizations While this work convincingly establishes territories that correspond with those that we know historically the evidence on which they are based is very narrow We know that people learn to do things such as make arrowheads in customary ways That is everyone has arrowheads but one group makes them one way and another does it differently In this sense we can compare the differences in lithics to dialects in language But many features of life that are archaeologically invisible are probably much more important to a sense of cultural identity than how to make an arrowhead These invisible features constitute most of what we think of as oculturep in the ethnographic sense Allowing for the fact that we can never recover much of prehistoric life still there are many tangible remains that are not included in this work such as faunal and plant remains Other aspects like architecture and ceramics are treated summarily here but more fully elsewhere and add important detail on boundaries Nevertheless like some of the lithic elements these may differ from one region to another because of local sources

PREFACE

sites incorporating new information from unpublished surveys and excavations or focusing on classifying the types that contributed to the maps A focus on intrasite and intersite variability within and outside the territories would help us understand more clearly what makes a territory distinct The use of historic information and maps of peoplesn movements for trade or transhumance may give clues to natural zones of exploitation as well as routes of movement through them These should then be explored for sites including an attempt to find special purpose sites Anthropologists use the number 500 as the size of a population that can be reliably selfsustaining over the generations Again using this as a hypothesis do the known sites within territories meet this expectation? If not was the territory truly occupied or was it just visited seasonally? Has the true geographic extent of the region been defined? Are there places that have not yet been explored where one might expect to find sites within a presumed territory? If there are too many sites are there signs of hierarchical organization such as ocentersp? Conversely are there too many equivalent sites? If so can they be divided among subterritories? Careful stylistic analysis may help here One can pose many such questions and further fieldwork will augment our information without necessarily providing conclusive evidence on the nature of the territories so defined In the end we have two overriding problems that hinder us from going very far into cultural interpretations First our chronological control is inadequate to confidently assess the number and kind of sites that were occupied at the same time Second there is a vast amount of oculturep that can never be recovered meaning that we can only define its poor proxy the style and distribution of artifacts The study of the emergence and development of Neolithic economies is advancing vibrantly in many directions with excavations across the region that are bringing forth new and unexpected information Specialists in the study of the agricultural economy are bringing new methods to bear on questions of domestication itself as well as on the place of origin of each of the species and on the nature of their spread Others are now finding new meaning in symbolic expressions and suggesting their importance in defining regions of interaction The present book gives a new and comprehensive structure that will help tie these multidisciplinary threads together as well as become a testing ground for theories they engender

of raw material climate and topography as well as because of ostylep or otraditionp One must wonder then whether they truly define a culture or just define a region of use Perhaps the question is irrelevant because people living in a territory will inevitably create their own version of the Neolithic that will differ somewhat from that of their surrounding neighbors We know that none of the regions of the Near East was isolated a fact that can be shown by the dispersion of artifacts and raw material Obsidian is the most obvious and most frequently encountered exotic material in the Neolithic but there are also the anomalous isolated findings of arrowheads hundreds of kilometers from their supposed center of production It is not a stretch of faith to presume that hunters may have exchanged arrows or picked up lost arrows and carried them far from their origin Information and techniques can spread similarly and with the need to find fresh pasture seasonally for sheep and goats the territories of exploitation must have been far wider than the presence of settled communities would indicate What is the value of this book? I see it as a series of hypotheses The authors have carefully presented the data for establishing territories and boundaries across the broad region of the Near East These boundaries have often been maintained throughout history strongly implying that they are onaturalp Having identified them it should become a focus of research to determine why they exist It is likely that the underlying rationale for each territory was somewhat different One boundary may be based on environmental circumscription another by a barrier such as the Euphrates River or a mountain another by an environmental gradient such as that traversed by mobile pastoralists another by the sheer density of population in a rich environment that encourages both clustering and emigration Such factors might persist throughout history barring the development of larger integrative polities The presence of buffer zones or oemptyp spaces between territories may have similar explanations As archaeologists we should treat the structure presented in this book as a point of departure from which the territories need to be verified and explained Specialists in each territory should exploit their expertise to further elaborate and refine the information What resources were used and where were they acquired? What were the routes by which the resources were distributed? Are the boundaries real or just artifacts of exploration? We should search buffer zones for traces of

Frank Hole Yale University 25 March 2004 

,1752'8&7,21

The purpose of this book is not to present the process of Neolithisation or the chronological sequence of Neolithic cultures in the Near East but to study their territorial or spatial distribution We set off with the hypothesis that it is possible to apply to the whole of Near Eastern prehistory the approach proposed at the end of the 960ns by the ethnologist Fredrik Barth in a collection of articles which he assembled entitled Ethnic

 The social organisation of culture difference (969 998) Our intention is not to reexamine the still current debate created mainly on the other side of the Atlantic by this seminal book as demonstrated by its unchanged 998 reedition and by a recent work which reviews the Théories de lnethnicité (Poutignat et SteiffFenart 995) but to otestp concepts groups

and

boundaries

brought into focus by ethnologists on prehistoric materials F Barthns approach is the following He begins with a generally accepted premise othere are aggregates of people who essentially share a common culture and interconnected differences that distinguish each such discrete culture from all othersp from which one may conclude othat there are discrete groups of people   ethnic units to correspond to each culturep and he adds othe differences between cultures and their historic boundaries and connections have been given much attention the constitution of ethnic groups and the nature of the boundaries between them have not been correspondingly investigatedp (Barth 998 p 9) To study these cultures he proposes oto investigate closely the empirical facts of a variety of cases and fit our concepts to these empirical facts so that they elucidate them as simply and adequately as possiblep and to shift i e





othe focus of investigation from internal constitution and

history of separate groups to ethnic boundaries and boundary maintenancep (Barth 998 p 0) Thus othe critical focus of investigation from this point of view becomes the ethnic that defines the group not the cultural stuff that it enclosesp And he states othe boundaries to which we must give our attention are of course social boundaries though they may have territorial counterpartsp (Barth 998 p 5)2 Impossible as it is for the prehistorian to trace these osocial boundariesp we will concentrate on the oterritorial boundariesp by attempting to define the cultures from outside as well as from within that is according to the boundaries which separate them The idea is to reveal oautomaticallyp the existence of these cultures based on their territorial extension each oterritoryp being defined by the boundaries which separate it from a neighbouring territory assuming that it is homogenous and corresponds to one and the same culture This is a first approach on the scale of the whole Near East in the knowledge that the reality was of course locally more complex A change of scale will always be possible but our choice for now is to test the model over as large a zone as possible Our intention is thus double to start with empirical data in an attempt to reveal not only cultures which every prehistorian wishes even if based on the only site on which he works but the territorial limits of these cultures—their border—and their possible interactions with time for the prehistorian unlike the ethnologist is concerned with long periods of time We follow that European tradition of prehistoric studies which has boundary

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

corridor as well as its western and eastern borders (plateaus) To the east of these zones lies the hinterland of desert or more exactly dry steppe with scattered oases (Azraq Palmyra El Kowm and several other small lakes/sebkhas which are dry today) The central part of the Fertile Crescent may be divided into three to the north the High Valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates to the south the Jezirah divided into western Jezirah and eastern Jezirah The eastern owingp of the Fertile Crescent consists of the Zagros which may be divided into the western Zagros and the central Zagros The Zagros foothills form the boundary with the Mesopotamian plain

always used cartographic methods for the spatial representation of cultures Our work may be placed in the same line of practice and on the same scale as the ASPRO (Hours et al 994) but pushes spatial analysis of distinctive elements further and concerns the creation of synthesizing maps which correspond to this analysis In fact the ASPRO is presented as a database and the team which worked on it did not have the opportunity to complete the synthesizing work which was initially envisaged In the modest form of a manual for students the two cosignatories have presented a preliminary attempt at synthesis (Aurenche and Kozlowski 999) The present work without reexamination of the general ophilosophyp of the latter work endeavors to take the cartographic approach much further Several attempts have already been made (O BarYosef 98 and more recently with a explicit anthropological approach 200 J Cauvin 997 and 2000 N GoringMorris 987 N GoringMorris and J Kuijt 2002 L Copeland and F Hours 986) on a scale which is regional and less efficient as it often concerns only a single category of material Thus we have begun by placing on the maps different series of artefacts of all types which are considered to be representative Then we have combined two or more of these basic maps to bring about the appearance of homogenous territorial entities and at the same time that of the borders between these territorial entities In the third stage we observed changes in these oterritoriesp and these obordersp thus confirming the probable existence over time of these oculturesp human groups which had in common a certain number of material or symbolic elements which were their own and distinguished them from their neighbours

The potential settlement pattern of the Fertile Crescent (map 0  1)

Of the major geographical determinants such as geomorphology river network and flora the first of the three (geomorphology) defines the potential passages and barriers which determine the greater or lesser oopennessp of the territory to outside contacts the second (river network) will define the lines along which settlement was organized and the ocorridorsp between various territories or miniterritories and the third (flora) will define the outside limits of the Fertile Crescent The arched shape of the narrow Fertile Crescent is bounded by natural borders both within and without The external border lies on the Mediterranean coast in the west (today this area is partly underwater) and in the north on the watershed line separating the Mediterranean catchment area from that of the Black and Caspian seas it runs for some 2000 km and ranges in height from 2000 m in the northwest (the Taurus with passages to Anatolia) to 3000 m and more in the east and north (Zagros ridges) In the east and the south the internal division of the Fertile Crescent separates the arid and semiarid interior from the more or less forested land This border could have changed somewhat over time depending on the current climatic conditions (more humid or less humid) These two lines delimit on either side a crescentshaped region running from Wadi Araba to the Central Zagros and further east This band is from 50 to 200 km wide and over 2000 km long While these borders are not entirely oimpermeablep (proof exists of contacts with Cyprus Egypt central Anatolia and Iran) they constitute significant barriers and it is mainly within these frames that the permanent Neolithic settlements are concentrated The specific obanded/elongatedp configuration of this macroregion must have determined its inner structure and model of communication lines contacts

Geography The zone covered by this study comprises the two branches of the geographical area known traditionally as the Fertile Crescent as well as the steppe/desert zone which they encompass (hinterland) We will make reference if necessary to the Anatolian or Iranian plateaus and the southern Caucasus We have already proposed (Aurenche and Kozlowski 999) a division of the Fertile Crescent into several units according to geographical criteria The divisions adopted here fall into the same pattern with several nuances A western owingp is thus distinguished including from south to north and west to east the southern desert (Negev Sinai) the southern Levant the central Levant and the northern Levant These four zones have in common the eastern coast of the Mediterranean the Levantine (Wadi Araba Jordan Orontes) and the Euphrates 

INTRODUCTION

separating them This region remains relatively open to outside contacts especially in a northwesterly direction and it also reaches through the Greater and Lesser Zab river valleys up to 50 km into the western Zagros

mainly along the lengthwise axis limited possibilities of contact along the chord of the arc (except in the Late Period for example through Wadi TadmorPalmyra and a chain of oases) This led especially in the Early Period to isolation phenomena which are well known for the previous Epipaleolithic period The shape of the Fertile Crescent and its limited settlement depth (5000 rarely 200 km) determined its specific internal segmentation which can be seen as a necklace of obeadsp or taxonomic units threaded one after the other along the axis The Western Wing of the Fertile Crescent (the Levant) extends to a width of 00 km (exceptionally up to 200 km for the oases) and to a length of 000 km along two axes running from north to south the Mediterranean coastal plain and the socalled Levantine Corridor (O Bar Yosef) which is a narrow depression that is relatively wellwatered (the rivers Jordan Orontes etc) or less so (Wadi Araba) Both these axes are flanked by mountain ridges (   the Lebanon and the anti Lebanon) or plateaus (   the Judean Desert) The distance separating the two axes is only about 50 km and there are transverse corridors that link them Village settlement concentrates mainly along these two lines while the short distances are responsible for the high oculturalp homogeneity of the region Three well watered shallow basins are located on the axis of the Levantine corridor (Damascus Homs and Aleppo) which are excellent settlement niches The settlement arrangement as described above can be designated as  for it ensures easy circulation along both the main axes as well as between them and beyond them (Azraq oasis and the desert hinterland with several osebkhasp) In contrast to the relatively open Levantine arrangement is the fragmented settlement pattern in the Eastern Wing of the Fertile Crescent This area is strongly differentiated morphologically as it includes the Mesopotamian plain (mainly the better surveyed Zagros foothills) and the Zagros mountains (with closed and deep intermontane valleys especially in the central part) The poorlystudied plain zone develops along the great Mesopotamian rivers (lower Tigris and Euphrates) and the left tributaries of the Tigris in their middle/lower courses It is limited by recent alluvial sediments to the steppe—like band of foothills—the socalled Assyrian steppe some 50 km wide with its fairly wellwatered valleys (Greater and Lesser Zab Diyala etc) shallow basins (Hamrin Deh Luran) and the Karkeh and Karun rivers which flow into the Gulf to the southeast The Neolithic settlement of the plain if it exists should be in relation to these rivers avoiding the desert regions

Clearly differentiated from this zone is the core of the Zagros mountains characterized by the considerable height of the ridges (30004000 m) substantial changes of altitude (deep closed intermontane valleys with flat bottoms and inaccessible highmountain Vshaped river valleys) and poor links by canyons and gorges with the abovedescribed foothill zone Thus this is a region quite isolated from the rest of the world relatively closed to intense outside contacts and the effects of innovations (Kozlowski 999) Between these two separate oworldsp lies the  This is a fairly flat steppe area called the Jezirah which becomes a plateau in the north and extends from the Syrian middle Euphrates to the lower course of the Greater Zab and from the foothills of the eastern Taurus to the mouth of the Khabur where it joins the Euphrates (northeast desert boundary) and the El Kowm oasis The communication axes here are the upper Tigris the upper and middle Euphrates and its tributaries the Balikh and the Khabur and finally the Wadi Tartar while the entire area is divided into three zones northern (High Valleys) western and eastern extending longitudinally along the mountain ridges of Karaca Dag Jebel Sinjar and Jebel Aziz The narrow river valleys in their uppermost courses constitute a poor link to the Taurus massif beyond (here altitudes exceed 3000 m) The Jezirah appears to be more open than the Zagros but the main settlement axes are more likely to run longitudinally than latitudinally and an important feature (the ogreat dry dividep between the Balikh and Khabur rivers) cuts it into two the dry steppe plateau beyond the fairly deep river corridors is almost oimpermeablep The Fertile Crescent proper has its own inner desert hinterland (Sinai Negev Arabian and Syrian deserts Mesopotamia beyond the great river valleys) settled more on a seasonal than a permanent basis mainly in the Late Period The few oases (Kowm Azraq) provide settlement facilities along the wadis or on the banks of now driedup sebkhas In those times it was more a steppe than a desert landscape open in the morphological sense but with clear limitations imposed on settlement by a specific hydrological system Thus the barriers/stimulators for settlement can be manifold Hydrology is the principal factor including the ocorridorsp arrangement and the ogreat dryp (or mountain) divides as well as the wellwatered inter central part of the Fertile Crescent

e g

e g

open



INTRODUCTION

In effect a territory is a complex structure which comprises a series of oorganizationallyp related but actually independent miniterritories each of which has its central village (obase campp) surrounded by a series of satellite structures as suggested by P Mortensen 972 for the Zagros mountains and recently described by HGK Gebel 2002 for the southern Levant

montane valleys Next is morphology including high mountains and the specific obandedp arrangement of the Fertile Crescent Finally there are the distances separating particular regions of the Fertile Crescent on the long axis (up to 2000 km) and the related difficulties in information flow To sum up even though the settlement arrangement was modified on a microscale over time (delocalization of settlements) no major changes occurred in the traditional macroscale arrangements This is because the change was more qualitative than quantitative and the single most spectacular settlement change on a macroscale was the occupation of the interior (desert) zone of the Fertile Crescent by seasonal settlers in the Late Period

Chronology In this work we take into consideration the periods 2 to 5 (0 500/0 2006400/6200 cal BC) of the ASPRO dating system (Hours et al 994) covering what we call the Protoneolithic in its final phase (PPNA and early PPNB in the conventional terminology) and the Neolithic in its initial phase i e from the middle PPNB onwards (Aurenche and Kozlowski 999) Mention may occasionally be made of periods immediately following (periods 6 to 7 from 6400 to 5400 cal BC) Nevertheless for the purpose of this book we will distinguish only two principal periods the oearlyp one (before 8000 cal BC) and the olatep one (after 8000 cal BC) This chronological watershed is clearly imposed by the essential changes occurring around 8000 cal BC in the subsistence models (agriculture animal domestication) the material culture and the settlement pattern

Miniterritories or the Near Eastern Neolithic settlement model

The abovedescribed settlement conditions were strong stimuli for the spatial organization of regular/village settlement through time reducing it territorially and environmentally into miniterritories of a certain kind The spatial relation of wellwatered areas to regions devoid of water leads to the development and maintenance of a ocheckerp pattern of sorts representing areas that were settled (watered) and those that were not (arid) including areas in the mountains highly isolated by formidable geographical barriers Thus the Fertile Crescent is broken up into a series of separate miniterritories mostly situated near a water source/course/basin separated from the other inhabited oworldsp by uninhabited areas (arid plateaus steppes deserts high mountains etc) Nevertheless some territories are wellconnected (Western Wing central part of the Fertile Crescent) or less wellconnected (Eastern Wing) by ocorridorsp running along the major water courses The miniterritories can also be defined/pclosed inp by deep intermontane valleys which can be large (Kermanshah) or small (Hulailan) or they may fill shallow basins (Salabiya Deh Luran Hamrin El Kowm Azraq Damascus basin) where one to three villages could have been located and consequently two to three miniterritories could have existed Very small territories could have existed in the onichesp of the great river valleys/great wadis (eg Cafer Hayaz) often where a tributary or wadi emptied into the great valley (Ain Ghazal Mnlefaat Nevalı Çori) Such villages are also encountered on the exposed plateaus (Jarmo) in small valleys (Nemrik Qermez Dere Ginnig) or directly on the terraces of the great rivers (Jerf el Ahmar Mureybet)

Methods The database upon which the evidence for oterritoriesp rests has first been transferred to analytical obasicp maps Each of these maps gives type by type according to available sources all elements of the material culture which seem to us pertinent The occurrences are indicated by different signs according to the chronology circles for the oearlyp period (that is before 8000 cal BC) lozenges for the olatep period (that is after 8000 cal BC) When overall quantitative information seems necessary and is available it is distinguished by signs of different thickness Although not exhaustive these maps 65 in number are intended to reflect a concrete reality Each map is accompanied by illustrations of original objects which are considered to be representative This is not in order to establish a theoretical typology but to compare existing objects A brief commentary accompanies each map containing information on morphology and chronology as well as a preliminary interpretation of the distribution and respective value of each class This series of maps grouped in an Annex at the end of the volume constitutes a first category of documents consultable as they are (infra p 105275 maps 111 to 144)



INTRODUCTION

than on changes in the material culture (olevel of incipient cultivation and domestication level of the primary villagefarming communitiesp etc) It was surprising that the final publication of the site of Jarmo in 983 did not take up this initial philosophy (Braidwood et al 983) F Hole then established for Deh Luran in the Zagros foothills at the edge of the Mesopotamian plain a particular sequence which made no reference to the two preceding attempts (Hole et al 969) More recent work carried out in the 980s in south eastern Anatolia has not so far given rise to a regional synthesis in spite of the propositions to extend Levantine terminology to this zone There have been few attempts to compare these four osystemsp (southern Levant central and northern Levant Zagros Deh Luran) The first was that of J Mellaart (975) based on the material then available for comparison and presentation of regional diversification On more theoretical bases C Redman (978) attempted to extend Braidwoodns system of periodization to the whole of the Near East without dismissing regionalisms (oIntensive Food Collectors First Village Farmers Early Villages of the Levant Anatolia Zagros Mountain Region and Adjacent Regionsp cf Aurenche and Kozlowski 999 p 3637) Along the same lines the collective endeavour carried out by researchers in Lyon was conducted in two stages The first purely analytical enabled the assemblage in the form of an Atlas (ASPRO consisting of a catalogue and a series of maps cf Hours et al 994) of nearly all the documentation available in the eighties A volume integrating all the information coordinated by F Hours should round off this attempt unfortunately his premature death has prevented the completion of this work A second attempt was effected in the more modest form of a handbook for students by the present authors (O Aurenche and S Kozlowski 999) The present work demonstrates the will to pursue this endeavour in a more abundantly documented and thorough form The main idea is to try to break down political and thus scientific barriers which by the fragmentation of knowledge which they impose prevent the acquisition of a balanced view of the late prehistory of the Near East Our study is based not only on the primary sources from excavations and surveys but also on synthesizing works in which cartography plays an essential role These studies are devoted either to regions O BarYosef (98 200) A Gopher (994) J Cauvin (997 and 2000) S Kozlowski (999) A Moore (98) F Hours and L Copeland (983) J and MC Cauvin (993) or to categories of material O Aurenche (98) for architecture A Gopher and R Gophna (993) for

A second series of maps more synthesizing are the result of the superimposition of two or more of these detailed basic maps These are intended to show the different zones of variable size where different types without regard to chronology are concentrated and present the same spatial distribution (chapter 2 maps 04 to 012) They are included in the text A third series conceived according to the same principle of superimposition but distinguishing the oearlyp period (before 8000 cal BC) and the olatep period (after 8000 cal BC) causes the borders between these zones to appear (maps 013 to 026) thus prefiguring oterritoriesp with their oboundariesp (chapter 2) They are also included in the text In the present state of the documentation this progressive method at three levels of analysis is in our opinion the only one which can fill the gaps and mask the disparities which come from sources of unequal value Finally there follow two synthesizing maps (chapter 3 maps 027 and 028) showing the cultures/territories with which we are dealing within the Neolithic Fertile Crescent History of the research In the overall history of research into prehistory the Near East remains behind Europe to a certain extent The results of excavations conducted at Jericho and presented by K Kenyon can be considered to be the real point of departure for research into the Near Eastern Neolithic K Kenyon established for the first time in the 960s a succession of cultures/periods (Protoneolithic Pre Pottery Neolithic A and B Pottery Neolithic A and B) which at least for the terminology are still in use today Long considered to be universal for the Near East (except for RJ Braidwood who was the first to put it in doubt) this terminology should now be limited to the southern Levant The work since carried out in this region particularly by O BarYosef (98) G Rollefson (989) A Gopher (994) and recently by HG Gebel (2002) or N Goring Morris and I Kuijt (2002) has led to refinement of the proposed outline without calling it into question The research carried out in the northern Levant since the 970s by J Cauvin (J Cauvin 997 2000) and his team confirmed for the most part the general succession proposed by K Kenyon but also introduced regional specificity (Mureybetian Aswadian regional facies of the PPNB as well as its chronological subdivisions) In the 960s RJ Braidwood following work conducted in the western Zagros proposed another model resting more on the development of a way of life 



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