Petr Charvát - Mesopotamia Before History (2008, Routledge)

The neolithic 21

probably Iranian turquoise (see Crawford 1972; Ismail and Tosi 1976, esp. pp. 106–107). From the Ib layer the local inhabitants built houses with trampled-earth floors from clay blocks. Among their interior furnishings the grain silos coated with bitumen outside, sunk into floors and sometimes gypsumplastered inside, attracted the greatest amount of archaeological attention. Kilns and furnaces, originally represented by pottery vessels in secondary use, were increasingly built of raw clay. The buildings made up loose clusters around courtyards, one of which, belonging to layer V, was drained by means of a conduit piercing the enclosure wall and lined with stones. Layer Ic has yielded a plan of a round structure used, according to the accompanying finds, for habitation. Of the natural resources treated on the site, clay undoubtedly merits most of our attention. It served both for building purposes and for pottery-making. In layers Ib, Ic and II, the ‘Archaic’ (polished and painted with geometrical patterns) and ‘Standard’ (incised in layers II–V, incised and painted later on) wares turn up. Conspicuous Samarran wares with painted concentric ornaments accompany the domestic pottery from layer III up to the beginning of layer VI (Bernbeck 1994, 126–127 and 142–152). In addition to pottery building, the local population used clay for the fashioning of ‘slingshot’, spindle whorls as well as for figurines, including a large female statuette with a body of red clay and head of green clay, displaying an elaborate hairdo, originally perhaps with horns on the head. The inhabitants of the site trimmed stone into chipped industry (especially scrapers, blades, including sickle components, fewer borers and burins), sometimes on the spot (room 17 of layer II) and turned out ground and polished items. These include heavy stone hoes, axes, disc-shaped objects or grinding-stone sets and also bracelets, pendants and vessels of stone. The first seal of stone appeared in layer II (von Wickede 1990, 81–82, Table 43). Awls and spatulae, at least some of which were hafted into their handles by bitumen, were made of bone. Local craftsmen and craftswomen experimented with metals, as is proved by the presence of raw antimony and malachite (copper ore); red pigment turned up as well. A number of child burials in pots (twins in one case) were interred below the house floors and some rooms or their furnishings even provided the last refuge for deceased community members (two bodies, one of them headless, in a layer III silo). The excavators found an isolated human skull in a layer IV pit.

Layers VI–XV belong to subsequent periods of time. Halaf culture predominates in strata VI–XI, with walls in layers VII (a round structure) and X. Layers XI–XII are characterized by Ubaid culture pottery while strata XIII–XV have yielded mixed Halaf, Ubaid and later Assyrian materials (Lloyd and Safar 1945; de Contenson 1971; Munchaev and Merpert 1981, passim, see the register on pp. 317–318; Bernbeck 1994, 126–127 and 142–152; Danti 1997).

Yarimtepe I

A tell above a watercourse 7 km south-west of Tell Afar, a USSR excavation of 1969– 1976 directed by R.M. Munchaev. C-14 dates: layer VII—c.5300–5000 BC, 6470–5525 BC (Annex 735). The life of this site may be roughly divided into three major segments: features preceding layer XII and layer XII itself, layers XII–VII and layers VII–I. All these strata belong to the Hassuna and Samarra cultures. The subsistence activities of the local population are treated in a summary fashion by the final publication and it is thus difficult to submit a detailed historical sequence. Agriculture is present from layer XII

Mesopotamia before history 22

(two-row and six-row wheats, Triticum dicoccum and T. durum Desf, T. aestivum, T. spelta; cultivated barleys, Hordeum distichum and H. vulgare nudum, but also a transitional form between wild and cultivated barley, H. lagunculiforme Bacht; peas and other Leguminosae) but evidence of collection of wild grasses (Gramineae) appears as well. In the same manner, animal husbandry (sheep, goat, cattle, pig, dog) is accompanied by a wide range of game hunted with the aid of dogs and including wild boar, mouflon, gazelle, onager, wild goat, roe deer, leopard and jackal. Hunting activities are also borne out by analyses of working traces on chipped industry (Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 122—cutting of meat and cleaning of hides). Treatment of natural resources will be discussed below. Overland contacts are elucidated by the occurrence of imported obsidian, the quantity of which gradually decreases. Turquoise, probably of Iranian origin, turns up first in layer X and its volume grows in layers IX and VIII.

Much as at Hassuna, the most ancient settlement remains of Yarimtepe I (features preceding layer XII and layer XII itself) differ from the rest of the finds. Most of the prelayer XII evidence comes from pits which may have been left after excavation of building materials and filled in by clayey and ashy refuse strata. The local inhabitants left behind a remarkable architectural creation, a massive square platform of which one side measures 3 m, revetted by clay walls and composed of blocks of red and black clay. There may be a connection with some of the extraordinary architectures of the East Anatolian site of Çayönü Tepesi on the upper Tigris (Schirmer 1990). On the other hand, rectangular and round buildings of layer XII display so many irregularities that the authors of the final publication hesitate to assign habitation functions to them. For instance, a round building or tholos 333 contained dispersed bones of adult humans, though this layer contains most frequently baby burials, but also a pot with sheep bones. In addition to pottery sherds, such objects as a fragment of a marble vessel, a goat jaw, obsidian fragments, numerous ochre stains as well as an exquisite necklace of sixty-eight colourful beads (grey, greyyellow, greygreen, green, red, yellow, white, blue—chalcedony, shell, carnelian, mother- of-pearl, rock crystal, lazurite?) turned up here. In addition to this exceedingly rich array of decorative stones, material culture of this most ancient Yarimtepe phase features a higher frequency of stone arrowheads, suggesting the significance of hunting. Hassuna Archaic’ ware with painted geometrical patterns occurs from layer XII (Figure 3.3).

Houses of layers XI–VIII are built of clay blocks on artificially levelled areas on foundation layers of reed matting. Clay tempered with cut straw or gypsum served for floors. Doors could revolve on pivot stones and the interiors were heated by means of hearths or clay-built kilns. Layer X yielded a fragment of a kiln plaque with apertures attesting to the presence of twocompartment vertical-updraught kilns on the site. Housewives used storage jars and perhaps also the features attested to by elevated platforms enclosed by post-holes with grinding stones nearby. The evidence gathered by S.A.Jasim (1989, 86) on the much later Ubaid culture site of Tell Abada may suggest that these be interpreted as remains of intramural granaries. House walls usually bear clay plaster, and roofing was done by means of timber baulks covered by matting and insulating layers of clay or gypsum. Some structures of layers X and IX display foundations consisting of complex systems of parallel screen walls, clearly comparable with those of Cayönü Tepesi (Schirmer 1990, 365, Fig. 1; 368, Fig. 3; 371, Fig. 5; 377, Fig. 10).

The neolithic 23

Figure 3.3 Painted and appliqué designs on Hassuna culture Neolithic pottery from Yarimtepe I (after Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 94, Fig. 19 and 96, Fig. 21)

Figure 3.4 Forms of Neolithic pottery of the Hassuna culture from Yarimtepe I (after Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 95, Fig. 20)

In layer VIII, this architectural type does not occur any more, having been replaced by buildings consisting of a series of rectangular chambers leaning on one another, quite like the above-mentioned East Anatolian site in its later phases.

Among the natural resources treated at the site, clay occupies a primary position in the archaeological perspective, both as a building material and for pottery making (Figure 3.4). Hassuna ‘Archaic Painted’ and coarse wares predominate from layer XII to layer VII (for a detailed analysis of the local pottery see Bernbeck 1994, 100–115). Clay was also used to fashion spindle whorls and ‘slingshot’. Rather surprisingly, clay statuettes are missing though they do turn up from layer V of the site upwards (Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 265). The local masters trimmed both local quartz stone and imported obsidian into chipped tools. Quartz refuse indicates that tools of this material took shape on the spot while most of the obsidian tools were brought in ready-made. The proportion

Mesopotamia before history 24

of obsidian tools decreases in layers IX and VIII. Among the shapes, blades including sickle components (the number of which grows steadily) predominate, followed by scrapers and borers. It has already been mentioned that layer X saw the first ornaments of turquoise and that the volume of this material grows throughout layers IX and VIII. Heavier ground and polished stone items include axes, perforated discs (digging-stick weights?), hollowed-out stone receptacles, perhaps used for crushing softer substances, grinding-stone sets, a whetstone, stone vessels and grinding plates or palettes; hoes are conspicuously absent. The quantity of coarse stone industry increases in layer VIII where stone spindle whorls turn up for the first time and where the first traces of ‘tool cults’ are discernible (a miniature greenstone axe, a perforated stone disc of exquisite marble). Layers IX, VIII and VI have yielded finds of stone seals with incised net patterns and suspension loops on their rear sides. As usual, bone served for the manufacture of awls and spatulae. Malachite (copper ore) turned up in layers XII–V while copper products, pendants of cold-hammered metal, occurred in layers XI, X and VII. A lead bracelet was found in layer XII. Handling of organic matter is attested to by finds of reed matting. The universal and mixed character of local production activities is eloquently illustrated by the contents of the rectangular space 234 of layer VIII, well comparable to room 17 of Hassuna layer II. This features pottery sherds, a mortar of stone, quartz (produced on the spot) and obsidian chipped industry, a number of marble and limestone palettes, grinding stones and ochre stains.

Among the deceased inhabitants of the site, babies and children were usually laid to rest in pots and interred below the floors of living quarters or, in some cases, in rooms of which some may have been erected as tombs, sometimes provided with wall and floor gypsum plasterings. Treatment of dead adults included the exposure of a dismembered(?) body in a living room (Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 49, grave 134, layer XI), deposition of dispersed remains in a separate closed chamber (ibid., room 282, layer XI) or in a burial pit (ibid., grave 126, layer XI). It is worth noting that animals sometimes received the same postmortal treatment as humans (pieces of carcasses below the floor of room 363, ibid. 51). Deceased children received grave goods for the first time: a baby of grave 129, layer X, pottery sherds and a spindle whorl (ibid. 82), and another one of grave 144, layer IX, quartz and obsidian flakes (ibid. 83). A find of a large storage jar containing a part of a marble palette, a grinding stone (mano) and fragments of other storage jars below the enclosure wall of the courtyard of homestead XXXIII of layer X (ibid. 52) may represent a building sacrifice or ritual deposit. More light on the spiritual life of the site’s inhabitants is shed by finds of bones with a series of short vertical strokes, obviously counting devices of a sort (seven examples, 9–28 strokes, from layer X upwards; Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 130, with ref.), and by a change in the character of later necklaces. The chequered collier of layer XII is succeeded by ornaments composed of a single kind of stone in layers X (ten disc-shaped carnelian beads found among the walls of a ‘grille-plan’ structure, Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 138) and IX (nine cylindrical pendants and five tripartite ‘spacer beads’ of turquoise found by a kiln orifice, ibid.). The site is supposed to have yielded a small clay whistle or ocarina (Rashid 1996, 20).

Layers VII–I in the central part of the site did not yield any architectural remains. Hassuna ‘Standard’ ware predominates in them. The excavators’ trench may have probed an ancient space free of buildings. Layers VII and VIII have yielded two uncalibrated C-

The neolithic 25

14 dates of 5200 and 5090 BC (Bernbeck 1994, 346; on the site Munchaev and Merpert 1981; Yoffee and Clark 1993, 73–114; Bernbeck 1994, 100–115).

Choga Mami

A tell 125 km north-east of Baghdad by the town of Mandali at a point where a minor watercourse flows out of a hilly range into a plain. A British excavation of 1967–1968 directed by J. Oates. Available C-14 dates for the Transitional phase (i.e. transition of the Samarra and Hajji Muhammad=Ubaid 1 cultures): 6200–5325 cal. BC (Annex 708) and 4896 BC, (uncalibrated Bernbeck 1994, 346). Of the five layers of the local settlement four belong to the classic and late Samarra culture while the uppermost one constitutes the above-mentioned Transitional phase with some later revivals (an Ubaid culture well). Among the subsistence activities attested to by the site, agriculture is amply documented. The local farmers grew especially emmer and einkorn, as well as bread wheat, naked barley, both two-row and six-row, and large-grained oats; the samples contain admixtures of rye-grass as well as wild grass seeds. Other cultivated plants include clover, pea, lentil, blue vetchling and linseed. Wild flax and oats were not cultivated in the ancient Near East but occur as weeds, especially in winter cereal fields (Oates 1969, 143). The size of the flax seeds as well as the presence of a number of plants demanding water converge to indicate artificial irrigation of the local fields, which is borne out by the archaeological documentation of a water conduit channel, one of a series by which the local inhabitants conveyed water flowing down the conical deposit of materials eroded by the upper part of the watercourse and deposited at its entrance into the plain to their fields (Figure 3.5). The site has yielded wild plants exhibiting seed sizes indicating that at least some of these must also have grown on irrigated land. All the seeds but especially the naked barley ones display evidence for the diminishing of their size, indicating certain agrotechnical problems which may perhaps have been caused by salinization of the local arable soil. On the other hand, the growing quantity of sickle blades indicates that the ancient population did not lack the vegetable component of their diet but was rather harvesting wild plants. That the locals were able to procure these over considerable distances is borne out by the presence of pistachio nuts which had to be brought from highland woods. The dovetailing of agriculture and food-gathering on the site is matched by evidence for cooperation among the local shepherds and hunters. Of the usual sequence of Neolithic domestic animals—sheep, goat, cattle, pig and dog—the last one confirms the presence of hunting strategies which brought to the site such game as deer, fox, gazelle, wild boar, wild sheep and goat, wolf and onager. The increasing number of gazelle remains may have resulted from complications in the local agricultural production (salinization?). The local settlement consisted of free-standing house clusters of the usual Neolithic character built of large elongated clay blocks and including small rectangular spaces (granaries?). Treatment of natural resources at Choga Mami fits in with evidence offered by other Neolithic sites. Clay served both for building and for pottery making and within the local Samarra wares a particularly interesting position is occupied by the creations of the last, Transitional phase. This is now assumed to display connections both with Halaf culture and with the earliest phases of Ubaid culture (Tell Awayli, see Bernbeck 1994, 228–233). Among other clay products the female statuettes and a quantity of pendants of varying shapes, some bearing painted decoration, are striking. Stone-trimming provided the local

Mesopotamia before history 26

users with such chipped industry items as blades, especially sickle blades, the quantity of which gradually grows but ultimately falls, but also scrapers, borers and microliths; a number of these were apparently

Figure 3.5 An irrigated field in southern Mesopotamia. Water is conveyed by means of the central conduit branching off into series of parallel corollary channels running perpendicular to it and taking the irrigation water among the furrows directly to the individual plant beds. The Sumerian sign GÁNA depicts exactly one half of such a field, pointing to the antiquity of this kind of arrangement.

made on the spot. The overwhelming majority of chipped stone tools (97.1 per cent) were manufactured from local raw quartz. Imported obsidian accounted for a very limited quantity of implements (2.9 per cent) which kept constantly diminishing (from 5.7 per cent in the lowermost layer via the 2.6 per cent of the last Samarra culture stratum up to the 0.9 per cent in the Ubaid well). The usual types of ground and polished stone industry include the markedly traditional stone bracelets and the group of bone industry contains a less frequent needle with an eyelet (Helbaek 1972; Hijara et al. 1980, 151, 154; Meadow

The neolithic 27

1971, l40f.; Mortensen 1973; Munchaev and Merpert 1981, passim, see the register on p. 318; Oates 1969, 1972 and 1982; Oates and Oates 1976).

Tell es-Sawwan

A tell 100 km north of Baghdad and 10 km south of the modern town of Samarra, presently on the Tigris. An Iraqi excavation of 1964–1984 directed successively by B.A. as-Soof, F.Wailly, Kh. al-Adhami, Gh.Wahida, W.Y.al-Tikriti and D.G.Youkhana, followed by a French campaign of 1988–1989 directed by C.Breniquet. C-14 dates: nine, from levels I, II and III, from 6345–5490 cal. BC to 5349 BC (Annex 731, see also Bernbeck 1994, 346). The site consists of five settlement layers, the lower two of the Hassuna and the upper three of the Samarra cultures, as well as a cemetery underlying the lowest architectural layer. The cemetery entombed remains of children, adolescents and adults in crouched positions with heads to the south but frequently with faces to the west, occasionally wrapped in matting which may have been coated with bitumen, accompanied by stone ornaments (pendants and beads sown on clothing), alabaster vessels (bowls, pedestalled bowls) and figurines of females and animals as well as objects which have been interpreted as representing penises. A dominant feature of the local grave goods is the presence of semi-precious stones such as carnelian or turquoise (pendants), the latter probably of Iranian origin (Crawford 1972; Ismail and Tosi 1976, 106–107). In layers X–VIII of Yarimtepe I, the proportion of turquoise grows as that of obsidian diminishes. One of the graves has also yielded copper pendants. The new excavation has shown that beads could have decorated clothing items such as belts. C.Breniquet (1991b, 83) believes that the interments were sunk from the house floors belonging to the two earliest architectural layers (I and II). These are dated by the presence of painted and incised Hassuna ‘Standard’ wares and by a C-14 date of 5506 +/−73 BC. Evidence for the subsistence activities offered by the site falls again into the binary sets of agriculture-cum-gathering and shepherding-cum-hunting. Cultigens present on the site include the predominant emmer wheat, perhaps einkorn and a small quantity of bread wheat; the barley group is characterized by the prevalence of the twoand sixrow hulled variety with the six-row naked ranking second. The biggest flax seeds from here again imply artificial irrigation. Collected plant food is represented by fruit of the Caper and Prosopis shrubs. The local flocks were composed of sheep, goat and perhaps cattle, and guarded by dogs which also helped to hunt gazelle, onager, wild boar, roe deer and maybe wild cat. Fish and freshwater mussels complemented the diet. Treatment of natural resources is compatible with Neolithic usages: bone for awls and spatulae, clay for building and making pottery (Bernbeck 1994, 163–178) and various minor objects, metal for ornaments from graves below layer I; organic matters represented by matting and baskets, sometimes coated with bitumen, and stone for the chipped (blades), ground and polished industry, vessels and ornaments. Some interest has been aroused by the presence of clay female statuettes similar to the Jarmo examples and historians of technology and art alike admire a plaster cast of a seal impression bearing the image of two stylized human figures sitting back to back with contracted legs and raised hands found in layer II (von Wickede 1990, 84–85, Table 53). This find of unique artistic quality outlines a possible connection with the Neolithic cultures of the middle Euphrates region in present-day Syria (Tell Buqras, Tell al-Kaum).

Mesopotamia before history 28

Pottery finds date layers IIIA, IIIB, IV and V into the Samarra (C-14 date: 5349 +/−86 BC) and Halaf cultures (layer V: Breniquet 1991b, 81, 88). It is questionable whether the earliest fortification ditch present on the site dates to layer I (when it could have enclosed a more limited area,

Figure 3.6 Forms of Hassuna culture Neolithic pottery from Yarimtepe I (after Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 94, Fig. 19 and 96, Fig. 21)

Figure 3.7 The sun setting over the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia

see Breniquet 1991b, plan on Fig. 3 p. 80) or IIIA, but in any case, its depth reached 3 m and its width 2.5 m and having been sunk into the living rock, it enclosed the settlement together with a rampart with buttresses (on this see Bernbeck 1994, 243–246). Within the area delimited by the fortification stood at least seven large houses numbering 10–12

The neolithic 29

rooms each together with other rectangular constructions (granaries?). In the IIIB phase, the granaries(?) seem to represent a transformation of earlier buildings (Breniquet 1991b, 75–81, 87–88). The houses were built of clay bricks, sometimes formed in moulds, and their floors bore an occasional coating of bitumen or gypsum. Some of the village streets were paved. The defensive ditch seems to have gone out of function by the time of layer IV as one of the structures thus dated rests directly on the surface of its fillings (Breniquet 1991b, 75–81). The material culture of the site makes the common Neolithic impression. While the chipped industry of layer IV is characterized by a limited number of blades, scrapers and points, layer V ushers in some changes. The microlithic component of the industry (borers, points, backed bladelets, very few sickle blades) acquires more prominence while normal-size tools are represented by scrapers and cutting implements. This may also point to the increasing importance of hunting activities towards the end of the site’s life period. Layer III has yielded both seals and two round to oval plaster discs (diameters 8 and 21 cm), perhaps pot lids, bearing repeated impressions of a seal of the same pattern but of varying dimensions. These discs turned up in the context of buildings interpreted as granaries. Let us finally note that the last, fifth layer displays remains of a sizeable round structure of the Halaf culture period on stone foundations (Breniquet 1991b, 75–81, 88). On the site see Flannery and Wheeler 1967; Meadow 1971 132–134; Crawford 1972; Helbaek 1972, 44; Ismail and Tosi 1976 106–107; Munchaev and Merpert 1981, passim, see the register on p. 317; von Wickede 1990, 82–85; Breniquet 1991a and 1991b; Bernbeck 1994, 163–178.

INTERPRETATION

Economy

Inhabitants of Neolithic Mesopotamia availed themselves of the experience and knowhow gathered by preceding generations to introduce fundamental changes in the subsistence sphere. Intimate knowledge of the biology of plants and animals helped them to create completely new economic sources, the nourishing qualities of which were improved by deliberate efforts resulting in genetic manipulation of the natural organisms. Nevertheless, even from this point of view the Neolithic period represents an ‘experimental laboratory’, in which the most talented members of communities living together in the traditional style only verified their theoretical conclusions and tested the range of possibilities of procuring better and more plentiful food sources for their fellow humans. Systematic exploitation of all the Neolithic discoveries, the full impact of which on human society would ultimately change the face of the earth, did not occur until later.

Let us at first take up the question of cultivation of domesticated plants (see Sherratt 1980b; Hopf 1988; Zohary and Hopf 1988; Maisels 1990, 65–67; Harlan 1994; Harris 1996; van Zeist and Bottema 1999). Their wild ancestors were not far away: montane valleys in the fringe areas of both the Zagros and the Taurus ranges, to which the early settlers could ascend up the streams of local watercourses, belong to the original biotopes of the predecessors of modern cultivated barleys and wheats. The same regions saw the emergence of the earliest cereal cultigens. Describing this process, we will do well to realize that cereals (i.e. annual grasses), cultivated by mankind for food, may be

Mesopotamia before history 30

cytogenetically divided according to the number of chromosome groups in the cell cores of the plants into two-row, four-row and six-row types. Two-row wild cereals include a number of species related to wheats. According to the currently held opinion, one of these wild grasses (Triticum aegilopoides, Aegylops squarrosa, most probably Triticum boeoticum) was transformed by cultivation into the two-row Triticum monococcum, or einkorn wheat. The ancestor of the recently cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare var. hexastichum) is now sought in the two-row wild barley Hordeum spontaneum. Neolithic peasants brought about the change of the four-row wild grass Triticum dicoccoides into the domesticated Triticum dicoccum, or emmer wheat. In this connection, a particular importance must be ascribed to the occurrence of six-row cultigens, namely wheats of the

Triticum aestivum type with variants T. a. vulgare, T. a. sphaerococcum, T. a. compactum and T. a. spelta and barley of the modern Hordeum vulgare var. hexastichum variety. Not having any wild ancestors, these species clearly represent artificial

Figure 3.8 Forms of Hassuna culture Neolithic pottery from Yarimtepe I (after Munchaev and Merpert 1981, 94, Fig. 19)

creations of prehistoric experimentators, most probably by cross-breeding T. dicoccum (emmer wheat) with one of the two—row wild grasses, for instance, the above-mentioned Aegylops squarrosa (see Tosi 1976, 174; Zohary and Hopf 1988, 17–18, Table 4 on p. 26; Maisels 1990, 65–67). Finds of six-row cultigens, of which the earliest example known to date comes from Umm Dabaghiyah, thus bear out beyond all doubts not only profound knowledge of natural processes on behalf of Neolithic cultivators but even their practical interference with plant genetic structures, serving thus as an example of the epoch-making discoveries of this period providing the base for human subsistence to this very day Practical measures adopted by Neolithic peasants seem to have been simple but efficient. We may envisage protection of plants, sowing them in specially conditioned plots of land, selection of sturdier and especially non-shattering individuals (because of the losses of shattering varieties releasing the grains easily in the cutting process) and, ultimately, crossbreeding (see Maisels 1990, 66). The most ancient evidence for artificial irrigation dating to this period (Choga Mami, see also Sherratt 1980c, esp. pp. 322ff.) points to the fact that not even this sophisticated agrotechnology remained hidden from our Neolithic ancestors. At Choga Mami, the local topography indicates that irrigated fields are likely to have been situated close to the village. Such layouts could have