Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T18:04:10.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

GURGA CHIYA AND TEPE MARANI: NEW EXCAVATIONS IN THE SHAHRIZOR PLAIN, IRAQI KURDISTAN1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

David Wengrow ,
Robert Carter ,
Gareth Brereton ,
Mary Shepperson ,
Sami Jamil Hamarashi ,
Saber Ahmed Saber ,
Andrew Bevan ,
Dorian Fuller ,
Helen Himmelman  and
Hanna Sosnowska
...Show all authors
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Gurga Chiya and Tepe Marani are small, adjacent mounds located close to the town of Halabja in the southern part of the Shahrizor Plain, one of the most fertile regions of Iraqi Kurdistan. Survey and excavation at these previously unexplored sites is beginning to produce evidence for human settlement spanning the sixth to the fourth millennia, c. 5600–3300 cal. b.c. In Mesopotamian chronology this corresponds to the Late Neolithic through to Chalcolithic periods; the Halaf, Ubaid, and Uruk phases of conventional culture history. In Iraqi Kurdistan, documentation of these periods—which witnessed many important transformations in prehistoric village life—is currently very thin. Here we offer a preliminary report on the emerging results from the Shahrizor Plain, with a particular focus on the description of material culture (ceramic and lithic assemblages), in order to establish a benchmark for further research. We also provide a detailed report on botanical remains and accompanying radiocarbon dates, which allow us to place this new evidence in a wider comparative framework. A further, brief account is given of Late Bronze Age material culture from the upper layers at Gurga Chiya. We conclude with observations on the significance of the Shahrizor Plain for wider research into the later prehistory of the Middle East, and the importance of preserving and investigating its archaeological record.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 78 , December 2016 , pp. 253 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

The Shahrizor Prehistory Project is funded by UCL Qatar and University College London, and was initiated through a grant awarded by the UCL Grand Challenge scheme for Intercultural Interaction. Our sincere thanks to Abubakir O. Zainadin (KRG Directorate General of Antiquities) and Hashim Hama Abdullah (Sulaimaniyah Museum) for their collaboration on this project; to Thilo Rehren, Stephen Shennan, Mark Altaweel, Eleanor Robson, and Hamish de Bretton Gordon for their support and expertise; to Abdlqadir Shadi for sharing his knowledge of local history in the Halabja area; and to the residents of Bakr Awa and Sirwan, without whose enthusiastic participation this project would not have been possible.

In addition to the named authors, core project staff for the seasons reported here included Nadia Knudsen (Finds Manager and Illustrator), Dr. Eleni Asouti (University of Liverpool) and Wioletta McGilvray (Environmental Archaeology), Flavia Ravaioli and Renata Peters (Conservation), Stephanie Emra, Laura Green, Lana Haddad, and Michael Lewis (Excavators and Finds Assistants). We are grateful to them all for their patience, good humour, and many hours of work. Our final thanks go to Simone Mühl, whose pioneering fieldwork and generous collegiality laid foundations for our project; to Karen Radner for the initial impetus to work in Iraqi Kurdistan; and above all to Kamal Rasheed Raheem, Director of Antiquities and Heritage, Sulaimaniyah, for his tireless efforts in support of our expedition, and for his warm hospitality.

References

Abu Jayyab, K. 2012. A ceramic chronology from Tell Hamoukar's southern extension. Pp. 87–123 in Marro, C. (ed.), After the Ubaid: Interpreting Change from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (4500–3500 BC). Paris: De Boccard.Google Scholar
Akkermans, P.M.M.G. 1988a. Chapter 7: The Period IV Pottery. Pp. 181–285 in van Loon, M. (ed.), Hammam Et-Turkman I. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Nabije Oosten.Google Scholar
Akkermans, P.M.M.G. 1988b. Chapter 8: The Period V Pottery. Pp. 287–349 in van Loon, M. (ed.) Hammam Et-Turkman I. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Nabije Oosten.Google Scholar
Algaze, G. 1993. The Uruk Expansion: the Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilisation. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Algaze, G. 2008. Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Altaweel, M., Marsh, A., Mühl, S., Nieuwenhuyse, O., Radner, K., Rasheed, K. and Saber, S.A.. 2012. New investigations in the environment, history, and archaeology of the Iraqi hilly flanks: Shahrizor Survey Project 2009–2011. Iraq 74: 1–35.Google Scholar
Asouti, E. and Kubukcu, C.. 2014. Holocene semi-arid oak woodlands in the Irano-Anatolian region of Southwest Asia: natural or anthropogenic? Quaternary International 90: 158–82.Google Scholar
Baird, D. 2012. The Late Epipalaeolithic, Neolthic, and Chalcolithic of the Anatolian Plateau, 13,000–4000 bc . Pp. 431–65 in Potts, D.T. (ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Chichester: Wiley: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Baldi, J. 2012. Coba bowls, mass production and social change in Post-Ubaid times. Pp. 393–413 in Marro, C. (ed.), After the Ubaid: Interpreting Change from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (4500–3500 BC). Paris: De Boccard.Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1953. Principles of Social Organization in Southern Kurdistan. Oslo: Brødrene Jørgensen.Google Scholar
Boese, J. 1995. Ausgrabungen in Tell Sheikh Hassan I. Vorläufige Berichte über die Ausgrabungskampagnen 1984–90 und 1992–94. Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag.Google Scholar
Boivin, N., Fuller, D.Q. and Crowther, A.. 2012. Old World globalization and the Columbian exchange: comparison and contrast. World Archaeology 44(3): 452–69.Google Scholar
Campbell, S. 2007. Rethinking Halaf chronologies. Paléorient 33: 103–36.Google Scholar
Campbell, S. 2012. Northern Mesopotamia. Pp. 415–30 in Potts, D.T. (ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Chichester: Wiley: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Campbell, S., Carter, E., Healey, E., Anderson, S., Kennedy, A. and Whitcher, S.. 1999. Emerging complexity on the Kahramanmaraş Plain, Turkey: The Domuztepe Project 1995–1997. American Journal of Archaeology 103: 395–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, R. and Philip, G. (eds.). 2010. Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 63. Chicago, Ill.: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Copeland, L. 1989. The flint and obsidian artefacts at Tell Sabi Abyad. Pp. 81–119 in Akkermans, P.M.M. (ed.), Excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad. Prehistoric Investigations in the Balikh Valley, Northern Syria. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports International Series.Google Scholar
Edens, C. 1999. The chipped stone industry at Hacinebi: technological styles and social identity. Paléorient 25: 23–33.Google Scholar
Evershed, R.P., Payne, S., Sherratt, A.G., Copley, M.S., Coolidge, J.. 2008. Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and southeastern Europe linked to cattle herding. Nature 455: 528–31.Google Scholar
Fahmy, A.G., Friedman, R. and Fadl, M.A.. 2011. Economy and ecology of Predynastic Hierakonpolis, Egypt: archaeobotanical evidence from a trash mounds at HK11C. Pp. 91–118 in Fahmy, A.G., Kahlheber, S. and D'Andrea, A.C. (eds.), Windows on the African Past. Current Approaches to African Archaeobotany. Frankfurt: Africa Magna Verlag.Google Scholar
Fiorina, P. and Bulgarelli, G.M.. 1985. Tell Hassan. Pp. 28–36 in La terra tra I due fiumi. Venti anni de archeologia italiana in Medio Oriente. La Mesopotamia dei tesori. Exhibition catalogue. Turin: Alessandri.Google Scholar
Gopnick, H. and Rothman, M. (eds.) 2011. On the High Road: the History of Godin Tepe, Iran. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers.Google Scholar
Goulder, J. 2010. Administrators' bread: an experiment-based re-assessment of the functional and cultural role of the Uruk bevel-rim bowl. Antiquity 84: 351–62.Google Scholar
Gut, R. 1995. Das Prähistorische Ninive. Zur relative Chronologie der frühen Perioden Nordmesopotamiens. Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern.Google Scholar
Healey, E. 2000. The Role of Obsidian in the Late Halaf. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Manchester.Google Scholar
Henrickson, E.F. 1989. Stylistic similarity and cultural interaction between the ʿUbaid tradition and the Central Zagros highlands. Pp. 369–404 in Henrickson, E.F. and Thuesen, I. (eds.), Upon This Foundation. The ʿUbaid Reconsidered. Copenhagen: Carsten Niebuhr Institute.Google Scholar
Hijjara, I. 1997. The Halaf period in northern Mesopotamia. London: Nabu.Google Scholar
Jasim, S.A. 1985. The Ubaid Period in Iraq: Recent Excavations in the Hamrin Region. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Kansa, S.W., Kennedy, A., Campbell, S. and Carter, E.. 2009. Resource exploitation at Late Neolithic Domuztepe. Current Anthropology 50 (6): 897–914.Google Scholar
Kepinski, C. 2011. New evidence from Grai Resh, northern Iraq—the 2001 and 2002 seasons. A pre–Uruk expansion site from the Late Chalcolithic Period. Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 4: 46–101.Google Scholar
McCorriston, J. 1992. The Halaf environment and human activities in the Khabur drainage. Journal of Field Archaeology 19 (3): 315–33.Google Scholar
McCorriston, J. 1997. The fiber revolution: textile extensification, alienation, and social stratification in ancient Mesopotamia. Current Anthropology 38 (4): 517–35.Google Scholar
Maeda, O. 1998. Chipped and Ground Stone Artifacts. Pp. 86–108 in Tsuneki, A. and Miyake, Y. (eds.), Excavations at Tell Umm Qseir in Middle Khabur Valley, North Syria: Report of the 1996 Season. Department of Archaeology, University of Tsukuba.Google Scholar
Mallowan, M.E.L. and Rose, J.C.. 1935. Excavations at Tall Arpachiyah, 1933. Iraq 2(1): 1–178.Google Scholar
Marro, C. 2012. Is there a Post-Ubaid culture? Reflections on the transition from the Ubaid to the Uruk periods along the Fertile Crescent and beyond. Pp. 13–38 in Marro, C. (ed.), After the Ubaid: Interpreting Change from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (4500–3500 BC). Paris: De Boccard.Google Scholar
Matthews, R., Matthews, W. and Mohammadifar, Y. (eds.). 2013. The Earliest Neolithic of Iran: 2008 Excavations at Sheikh-e Abad and Jani. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Merpert, N.Y. and Munchaev, R.M.. 1993. Yarim Tepe II: The Halaf Levels. Pp. 129–62 in Yoffee, N. and Clark, J.J. (eds.), Early Stages in the Evolution of Mesopotamian Civilization. Soviet Excavations in Northern Iraq. Tuscon & London: The University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Miglus, P.A., Bürger, U., Heil, M., and Stepniowski, F.. 2011. Ausgrabung in Bakr Āwa 2010. Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 4: 136–74.Google Scholar
Miglus, P.A., Bürger, U., Fetner, R.A. and Mühl, S.. 2013. Excavation at Bakr Awa 2010 and 2011. Iraq 75: 43–88.Google Scholar
Miller, N.F. 1991. The Near East. Pp. 133–60 in Van Zeist, W.A., Wasylikowa, K. and Behre, K.-E. (eds.), Progress in Old World Palaeoethnobotany. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.Google Scholar
Moon, J. and Roaf, M.. 1984 The pottery from Tell Madhhur. Sumer 43: 108–67.Google Scholar
Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute, G., Staff, R.A., Hunt, H.V., Liu, X. and Jones, M.K.. 2013. The early chronology of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in Europe. Antiquity 87 (338): 1073–85.Google Scholar
Mühl, S. 2010. Durchs wilde Kurdistan. Neue Forschungen in der Provinz Sulaimaniya, Irak. Agora 1: 48–53 Google Scholar
Mühl, S. 2013. Siedlungsgeschichte im mittleren Osttigrisgebiet, Vom Neolithikum bis in die neuassyrische Zeit. Abhundlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 28. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.Google Scholar
Nieuwenhuyse, O., Berghuijs, K. and Mühl, S.. 2012. A late Neolithic “fishing net” from Kurdistan, northern Iraq? Paléorient 38: 141–47.Google Scholar
Nieuwenhuyse, O., Odaka, T., Kaneda, A., Mühl, S., Rasheed, K., Altaweel, M.. 2016. Revisiting Tell Begum: a prehistoric site in the Shahrizor Plain, Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraq 78: [ADD]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oates, D., Oates, J. and McDonald, H.. 1997. Excavations at Tell Brak. Vol. I: The Mitanni and Old Babylonian Periods. British School of Archaeology in Iraq: London.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 1993. Trade and power in the fifth and fourth millennia BC: new evidence from northern Mesopotamia. World Archaeology 24: 403–22.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 2012. The Terminal Ubaid (LC 1) level at Tell Brak. Pp. 66–86 in Marro, C. (ed.), After the Ubaid: Interpreting Change from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (4500–3500 BC). Paris: De Boccard.Google Scholar
Parker, B. and Foster, C.. 2009. An overview of the ceramic sequence at Kenan Tepe. Pp. 505–31 in Sağlatimur, H., Derin, Z. and Abay, E. (eds.), Studies in Honour of Altan Çilingiroglu: A Life Dedicated to Urartu on the Shores of the Upper Sea. Istanbul: Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yayinlari.Google Scholar
Potts, D.T. 2014. Nomadism in Iran: from Antiquity to the Modern Era. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Renette, S. forthcoming. Preliminary results from excavations at Kani Shaie, southern Bazyan Valley (Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan). In Kopanias, K. and MacGinnis, J. (eds.), Archaeological Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Adjacent Areas. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Roaf, M. 1989. Ubaid social organization and social activities as seen from Tell Madhhur. Pp. 91–146 in Henrickson, E.F. and Thuesen, I. (eds.), Upon This Foundation. The ʿUbaid Reconsidered. Copenhagen: Carsten Niebuhr Institute.Google Scholar
Rosen, S. 1983. The Canaanean Blade and the Early Bronze Age. Israel Exploration Journal 33: 15–29.Google Scholar
Rothman, M.S. 2001. The Tigris Piedmont, Eastern Jezira, and Highland Western Iran in the fourth millennium BC. pp. 349–402 in Rothman, M.S. (ed.), Uruk Mesopotamia and its Neighbours: Cross-Cultural Interactions in the Era of State Formation. Santa Fe, Oxford: School of American Research Press and James Currey.Google Scholar
Rothman, M.S. 2002a. Tepe Gawra: chronology and socio-economic change in the foothills of northern Iraq in the era of state formation. Pp. 49–77 in Postgate, N. (ed.), Artefacts of Complexity: Tracking the Uruk in the Near East. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.Google Scholar
Rothman, M.S. 2002b. Tepe Gawra: the Evolution of a Small, Prehistoric Center in Northern Iraq. (University Museum Monograph 112). Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Rothman, M.S. 2013. Interpreting the role of Godin Tepe in the “Uruk expansion”. Pp. 75–92 in Petrie, C. (ed.), Ancient Iran and its Neighbours: Local Developments and Long-Range Interactions in the Fourth Millennium BC. Oxford: Oxbow Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothman, M. and Badler, V.. 2011. Contact and development in Godin Period VI. Pp. 67–137 in Gopnick, H., H. and Rothman, M. (eds.), On the High Road: the History of Godin Tepe, Iran. Mazda Publishers Inc.: Costa Mesa.Google Scholar
Schwartz, G. and Akkermans, P.M.M.G.. 2003. The Archaeology of Syria: from Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c. 16,000–300 BC). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A.G. 1997. Economy and Society in Prehistory Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Spataro, M. and Fletcher, A.. 2010. Centralisation or regional identity in the Halaf period? Examining interactions within fine painted ware production. Paléorient 36: 91–116.Google Scholar
Starr, R.F.S. 1937–39. Nuzi. Report on the Excavation at Yorgan Tepe near Kirkuk, Iraq / Conducted by Harvard University in conjunction with the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University Museum of Philadelphia, 1927–1931. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tobler, A.J. 1950. Excavations at Tepe Gawra, Volume II: Levels IX–XX. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Valamoti, S.M. 2013. Millet, the latecomer: on the tracks of Panicum miliaceum in prehistoric Greece. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 1–13.Google Scholar
Van Zeist, W. and Bakker-Heeres, J.A.H.. 1984. Archaeobotanical studies in the Levant, 2. Neolithic and Halaf levels at Ras Shamra. Palaeohistoria 26: 151–70.Google Scholar
von Wickede, A. 1990. Prähistorische Stempelglyptik in Vorderasien. Munich: Profil Verlag.Google Scholar
Watson, P.J. 1983. The soundings at Banahilk. Pp. 545–613 in Braidwood, L.S., Braidwood, R., Howe, B., Reed, C.A., and Watson, P.J. (eds.), Prehistoric Archaeology along the Zagros Flanks. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Wengrow, D. 1998. ‘The changing face of clay’: continuity and change in the transition from village to urban life in the Near East. Antiquity 72 (278): 783–95.Google Scholar
Wengrow, D. 2001. The evolution of simplicity: aesthetic labour and social change in the Neolithic Near East. World Archaeology 33 (2): 168–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wengrow, D. 2010. What Makes Civilisation? The Ancient Near East and the Future of the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson., T.C. 2014. The Early Transcaucasian phenomenon in structural-systemic perspective: cuisine, craft, and economy. Paléorient 40 (2): 203–29.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, T.J. 2003. Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, T.J., Monahan, B.H. and Tucker, D.J.. 1996. Khanijdal East: a small Ubaid site in Northern Iraq. Iraq 58: 17–50.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, T.J. and Tucker, D.J.. 1995. Settlement Development in the North Jazira, Iraq: a Study of the Archaeological Landscape. Warminster: Published for the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the Department of Antiquities & Heritage, Baghdad, by Aris & Phillips.Google Scholar
Zeder, M.A. and Hesse, B.. 2000. The initial domestication of goats (Capra hircus) in the Zagros Mountains 10,000 years ago. Science 287: 2254–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zohary, D., Hopf, M., and Weiss, E.. 2012. Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of Domesticated Plants in Southwest Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar