Prehistory

Ancient History

Prof. Marc Cooper

Prehistory

Cayonu, one of the earliest Neolithic sites

Problems

• Where and when do we find the earliest agriculture?

• What mechanisms produced plant and animal domestication?

• Are the domestication of plants and animals related, and if so, how?

• Why did hunter/gatherers give up their ways for a sedentary agricultural economy?

Genesis on early agriculture• History begins with paradise

• All creatures vegetarians• Gathering vegetables and fruit• Agriculture explained as the consequence of disobedience

• Agriculture and herding (Cain and Abel) occurs after “the Fall”

• Nimrod the hunter creates first cities in Mesopotamia after agriculture and herding already established

• Violence and hunting associated with cities

Hobbes 1588-1679

• Hunter-gatherer people, had: "No culture of the earth; No navigation ... no account of time; No arts; No letters; No society; And which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

• View held until 19th century

Engel’s speculation on early agriculture (1876, 1884)

• Argues that the issue is economic transformation from barbarism (primitive communism) to farming

• Farming produced:• Private ownership• Oppression of women• Food surplus• Hierarchical government

Gordon Childe – Oasis theory (1928)

• Idea of “Fertile Crescent”• “Neolithic Revolution” occurred at oases in the

Fertile Crescent• Testable through archaeology• Kathleen Kenyon excavated Jericho, in part, to

confirm Oasis Theory• Jericho produced pre-pottery Neolithic

Robert Braidwood – Hilly Flanks theory (1948)

• Agriculture began in the hilly flanks of the Taurus and Zagros mountains

• Agriculture developed from intensive focused grain gathering

• Testable through scientific dating – Carbon 14 developed after WW II

• Jarmo (excavated during the 1950s) and Cayonu (excavated during the 1970s) seemed to produce earlier evidence for agriculture than Jericho

Carbon 14 Dating

Age 0 Age 5,730

Age 11,460

Age 17,190

100% 50% 25% 12.5%

Results of C-14 testing• Jarmo earlier than Jericho• Early sites found in both oases and hilly flanks areas• Murebet and Jericho earliest agricultural sites ca. 9000

BCE • dry farming sites • derived from Mesolithic Natufian culture

• New questions considered during the 1960s and 1970s• How is plant domestication related to wild varieties?• How is animal domestication related to plant domestication?

Which comes first?• When was pottery invented?• When was irrigation discovered?

Natufian Hunter-Gatherers

• From 11,000-8,000 BCE, hunter-gatherers known as Natufian culture collected wild wheat and barley for food

• Mobile settlement, using wild plant resources seasonally (not focused on any resource though)

• Shift from simple to complex foraging, focused on a few plant and animal species

Pre-pottery Neolithic 9000 BCE

• Jericho and Murebit, type sites• Early dry farming rather than

irrigation• Domesticated barley and wheat• Cult of the dead• Extensive use of flint blades and

other microlithic tools

Early Pottery

• Cayonu is one of the few sites in which the PPN town is immediately below the ceramic town

• Earliest pottery is made to resemble baskets

• Early ceramic figurines

Çatal Höyük

Çatal Höyük

• Flourished from ca. 6500 – 5500 BCE• Town may have had a population of 10,000• Obsidian trade may have been the source of the

town’s wealth• Salt deposits may have been worked as well• Trade connections with Jericho, 1500 miles south

Vulture Shrine

Hassuna Culture 6000 – 5250 BCE

• Small villages in northern Mesopotamia

• Populations probably did not exceed 500

• Dry farming

• Pottery• Red, cream slip• Linear decorations

Halaf Culture 5500 – 4500 BCE

• Northern Mesopotamia• Arpachiya• Tepe Gawra

• Finely painted naturalistic polychrome pottery

Halaf figurines

Halaf polychrome

Halaf stamp seal

Samarra Culture 5500 – 4800 BCE

• Found in central and eastern Mesopotamia

• Often found together with Halaf pottery

• Associated with early irrigation• Use of linseed oil in dry area shows irrigation• Irrigation ditches found at Tell-es-Sawwan

• Link between Halaf and Ubaid cultures

Tell-es-Sawwan

• Large fortified village near Samarra

• Irrigation technology• Late period shows

forerunners of Ubaid architecture

Tell El-UbaidTell El-Ubaid

Ubaid Culture 5500 – 4000 BCE• Large village settlements• First temples• Stamp seals very common• Replaced Halaf culture in northern

Mesopotamia• Employed irrigation to settle south• Eridu/Ur among earliest Ubaid

settlements• Spread along the Tigris and

Euphrates rivers

Ubaid Temples• Built of mud-brick on

stone foundations, new technology

• Crenellation in regular use

• Painted walls• Much like large

versions of contemporary houses

• At Eridu, temple built on a mud-brick platform

Sequence of Eridu Temple plans

Stamp seals

Ubaid in the far south

• Ubaid pottery found in Persian Gulf at about 70 sites mainly on the western shore

• About 50% of the pottery made in Sumer according to clay analysis

• Suggests large-scale sea borne Ubaidian trade

• Dilmun, identified with Bahrein, becomes something like the Garden of Eden in later Sumerian mythology

• Ubaidian trade may have linked Mesopotamia and India

• No evidence for oceanic trade to the west.

Ubaid in Persian Gulf

Late Ubaid• Southern Mesopotamian sites show a mix of large and

small buildings suggesting the development of an elite• Contemporary Halaf sites in the north remained socially

homogenous• As Ubaid culture replaced Halaf culture in the north, the

new social differentiations arrived there as well.• Small finds indicate that there were strong trade

connections among far flung Ubaid settlements.• By 4500 BCE, the southern Ubaid sites show a distinct

hierarchical pattern suggesting that some towns were subordinate to others.

• Stamp seals come to be ubiquitous suggesting the development of property

Summary of Near Eastern prehistory

• Earliest Neolithic villages ca. 9000 BCE• Neolithic technology and culture predominant

by 7000 BCE• Agricultural developments

• Plant domestication• Animal domestication

• Irrigation before 5500 BCE• Settlement of Babylonia by Halaf/Samarra

pioneers 5500 BCE• Ubaidian society develops distinct social and

religious hierarchies • First cities by 3500 BCE

Conclusions• Neolithic spread from several centers

• Near East• Southeast Asia• North Africa (Sudan and Morocco)

• By 5000 BCE agriculture spread to the Mediterranean, China, India• DNA studies suggest that as neolithic people increased in

population, they displaced local populations• There does not appear to be a relationship between language and

the spread of agriculture• Complex societies developed everywhere favorable

environments allowed• Near East was home of the first cities