Identity and Contact as exemplified by the Late Neolithic site of Çavi Tarlasi (Turkey)

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Starting point for the project presented in this application are excavations undertaken in the 1980s at Cavi Tarlasi, a Late Neolithic site that was subsequently inundated by the rising waters of the Atatürk reservoir. Although the genesis of this site is commonly linked to the "Halaf-Expansion" around the middle of the 6th millennium calBC, unpublished ceramics from the settlement instead imply that the Halaf Culture was already well established in the Turkish middle Euphrates region as early as the incipient 6th millennium calBC. Therefore, and in contrast to earlier assumptions. this region should actually be assigned to the core area of the Halaf Culture, from whence it later dispersed. Cavi Tarlasi is unique in that it is so far the only site in the Turkish middle Euphrates region to have provided a long stratigraphical sequence spanning most of the Halaf period. In the frame of this project a final publication for this important site will be produced which will include a cultural-historical evaluation of its stratigraphy, architecture, burials, pottery, small finds and stone tool industries. The focus of the study will lie, however, on a re-evaluation of the regional and chronological subdivision of the Halaf Culture, which we find dispersed over large parts of northern Mesopotamia between c. 6000 and 5300 calBC. Here it should be noted that an increase in archaeological fieldwork over the last 30 years in various parts of northern Mesopotamia has resulted in a considerable rise in the number of investigated and published Halaf sites, thus paving the way for new regional synchronic and diachronic comparisons. In the context of a newly emerging and more differentiated picture of the Halaf culture, questions must be pursued relating to local and regional identities, regional interaction and the social significance of pottery. In addition to the aforementioned aims, different pottery types from Cavi Tarlasi and from selected sites in northern Syria and northern Iraq will be examined using X-ray fluorescence, mineralogical and petrographical analyses. These scientific studies will allow key conclusions to be drawn concerning production technologies and their geographical distribution, as well as transfer and exchange relations.