A Study on the Administration Objects in West Asian Prehistory.

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The final goal of the project was to further understanding of the development of farming societies in West Asia. To achieve this goal, objects related to the administration of goods, such as seals, sealings, tokens and weights, were chosen and studied. The project aim was to reconstruct the process of social complexity based on these administration objects. The project began with the making of a catalogue of administration objects discovered from Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in West Asia. I went to the British Museum, Archaeological Institute of the University of London, Raqqa National Museum, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Idlib National Museum, Latakia National Museum, University Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Damascus National Museum, etc. which possess the related objects, and I drew and took a photograph of each object. All of the drawings and photographs were put into a database, and each drawing was digitized. In 2007, all of the stamp seals and sealings excavated from Tell el-Kerkh in northwest Syria, the most fundamental objects for this study project, were catalogued and published as a final report in English. Papers, concerning Neolithic human groups based on the study of stamp seals and sealings, were also published.