The origins and development of the earliest farming society in Upper Mesopotamia

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This project investigated the origins and development of the early farming society in Upper Mesopotamia. The primary data for this research was obtained through the excavations at Tell Seker al-Aheimar in northeast Syria, which is one of the oldest farming settlements known in Upper Mesopotamia. The 2004-2007 excavations yielded stratified evidence on the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) to the Proto-Hassuna phase of the Pottery Neolithic, derived from the late 8th to the mid 7th millennium BC. Some of the major results of the research are as follows. (1) The architecture and the lithic technology indicate that the first, PPNB occupants at the site shared a cultural tradition with the PPNB communities of the southeast Anatolia. (2) Their subsistence was mainly based on cereal and animal domestication, along with additional hunting of medium-sized animals such as gazelles. (3) The abundant radiocarbon dates from the stratified deposits firmly dated the beginning of the pottery use in this … More region to ca. 6900/6800 BC. (4) The oldest pottery discovered at Seker al-Aheimar exhibited previously unknown features, which led to proposal of a new Pottery Neolithic entity in Upper Mesopotamia, or "Pre" Proto-Hassuna. The common use of mineral tempering and the very rare occurrences of the pottery in each level shed light on the functional role of pottery at the earliest stage of the Pottery Neolithic period. (5) One of the evidences indicating a change in symbolic aspects from the PPNB to the Pottery Neolithic was the rapid increase of clay female figurines. The clay objects from Tell Seker al-Aheimar included a gigantic, extremely sophisticated clay female figurine, which provided us with a new dimension to discuss the symbolic behaviors of the PPNB/ Pottery Neolithic interface period. (6) In order to reconstruct paleo-climate, a core-drilling investigation was conducted in a nearby swamp, Lake Hattonyieh. The results of diatom and pollen analyses for the early Holocene samples suggest a major climatic change in the 7th millennium BC, which might have triggered socio-economic change during the Pottery Neolithic. Less