Search results for "Chalcolithic"
showing 10 items of 45 documents
Investigating Jubaniyah. A Late Chalcolithic site on the Upper Tigris River, Iraqi Kurdistan. Preliminary report
2021
Jubaniyah is a blufftop settlement of 4 hectares set on a terrace overlooking the River Tigris in northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan) demonstrating a significant and almost exclusive occupation during the Late Chalcolithic period (ca. 4800-3000 BC). Besides an agricultural-pastoral orientation, the site presumably also functioned as a central hub in riverine communication and exchange with the hinterland during most of this long period. Set within the catchment area of the Mosul Dam reservoir, Jubaniyah is also one among more than 150 flooded sites which periodically resurface due to the reservoir’s annual or cyclical water fluctuation, thus intermittingly revealing the spolia of their past. Th…
Pots and places in the Late Chalcolithic period. A view from the Eastern Ḫabur Region
2019
This paper attempts to contextualise the preliminary results of a survey (EHAS) and excavation (KUGAMID) projects recently undertaken by a team of the University of Tübingen in the uppermost region of Iraqi Kurdistan as far as the Late Chalcolithic period is concerned. Settlement patterns and land use, stratigraphic sequences and pottery assemblages are considered here in order to shed light on the dynamics of the emergence of social complexity and the establishment of proto-urban trajectories along the river banks, riverine plains, foothills and mountain valleys of the foothills of Zagros. Preliminary results suggest that the process of urbanisation in this area seems to be connected with …
Late Chalcolithic Northern Mesopotamia in Context. Papers from the Workshop held at the 11th ICAANE, MUnich, April 5th 2018
2022
Many of the debates that have until recently driven research into Mesopotamia's proto-urban phase (5th- 4th millennia BCE) have now been reassessed thanks to new fieldwork in Iraqi Kurdistan and new data into the relationships between the north and south of the Alluvium from hitherto poorly-documented regions. These debates were re-examined in the light of this new material during a workshop held at the ICAANE in 2018 in Munich, leading to unprecedented perspectives on the patterns of early urbanization, social mobility, and the organization of Late Chalcolithic communities. Drawing on research first presented at ICAANE, and building on the most recent data from surveys and excavations, thi…
Introduction: The Late Chalcolithic of Northern Mesopotamia in Context. Building on a Long and Eventful Debate
2022
Many of the debates that have until recently driven research into Mesopotamia’s proto-urban phase (5th– 4th millennia BCE) have now been reassessed thanks to new fieldwork in Iraqi Kurdistan and new data into the relationships between the north and south of the Alluvium from hitherto poorly-documented regions. These debates were re-examined in the light of this new material during a workshop held at the ICAANE in 2018 in Munich, leading to unprecedented perspectives on the patterns of early urbanization, social mobility, and the organization of Late Chalcolithic communities. Drawing on research first presented at ICAANE, and building on the most recent data from surveys and excavations, thi…
Beyond subsistence? Settlement strategies of the Late Chalcolithic period in the Selevani Plain (Upper Iraqi Tigris)
2022
The aim of this paper is to provide an integrated overview of the settlement and social dynamics present in the upper sector of the Iraqi Tigris River Valley and its immediate hinterland during the Late Chalcolithic period. This has been achieved by processing and interpreting the results of two extensive regional survey projects, namely the Eastern Ḫabur Archaeological Survey (EHAS) and the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project (LoNAP), recently undertaken along the eastern bank of the river. These results mark a significant advancement in the study of settlement patterns and cultural history compared to what was previously known of this region, which was mostly terra incognita prior to t…
The beaker phenomenon and the Genomic transformations of Northwest Europe
2018
Bell Beaker pottery spread across western and central Europe beginning around 2750 BCE before disappearing between 2200–1800 BCE. The mechanism of its expansion is a topic of long-standing debate, with support for both cultural diffusion and human migration. We present new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 170 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 100 Beaker-associated individuals. In contrast to the Corded Ware Complex, which has previously been identified as arriving in central Europe following migration from the east, we observe limited genetic affinity between Iberian and central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals, and thus exclude migration as a signific…
The Bronze Age burials from Cova Dels Blaus (Vall d′Uixó, Castelló, Spain): An approach to palaeodietary reconstruction through dental pathology, occ…
2005
This paper reports a palaeodietary investigation of the human remains found in the collective Bronze Age burial cave from Vall d'Uixó (Castelló, Spain). Dental pathology, tooth wear as well as buccal dental microwear were analysed. Percentages of dental pathologies were compared with Chalcolithic and Bronze Age sites from the same territory. Dental caries, ante-mortem tooth loss, periodontal disease and abscess frequencies indicate a diet rich in carbohydrate foods. However, dental calculus percentages and macroscopic wear patterns suggest a diet not exclusively relying on agricultural resources. In addition, buccal dental microwear density and length by orientation recorded on micrographs …
Socio-Ecological Contingencies with Climate Changes over the Prehistory in the Mediterranean Iberia
2020
International audience; We conducted palynological, sedimentological, and chronological analyses of a coastal sediment sequence to investigate landscape evolution and agropastoral practices in the Nao Cap region (Spain, Western Mediterranean) since the Holocene. The results allowed for a reconstruction of vegetation, fire, and erosion dynamics in the area, implicating the role of fire in vegetation turnover at 5300 (mesophilous forests replaced by sclerophyllous scrubs) and at 3200 calibrated before present (cal. BP) (more xerophytics). Cereal cultivation was apparent from the beginning of the record, during the Mid-Neolithic period. From 5300 to 3800 cal. BP, long-lasting soil erosion was …
Report on the first season of German-Kurdish excavations at Muqable in 2015
2017
In 2015, a new excavation project entitled “Kurdish-German Archaeological Mission in Dohuk” (KUGAMID) was launched. It is organized as a joint project between the University of Tübingen and the Department of Antiquities of Dohuk and is jointly directed by Peter Pfälzner (Tübingen) and Hassan Ahmad Qasim (Dohuk). Three sites were selected for excavation: Bassetki, Muqable I and Muqable III. The following report will summarize the results of the first season of excavations at the two neighbouring mounds of Muqable I and Muqable III, located approximately 5 km southeast of Bassetki and 23 km west of Dohuk in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in Iraq. The first season of excavations at Muqable…
Early pastoral communities in the mountains of Sicily. Prehistoric evidence from Vallone Inferno (Scillato) in the palaeoenvironmental framework of t…
2021
Abstract This paper discusses the Middle Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age phases of the occupation of a rock shelter at Vallone Inferno (Scillato, Palermo) in Sicily. Vallone Inferno is a key site for studying the early establishment and development of pastoralism in the prehistoric mountainous environments of Sicily. Seasonal use of the site as a shelter is documented for the earliest pastoral communities that exploited the Madonie mountain range. The results of the analysis of pottery and lithic assemblages contribute to the definition of two chronocultural frameworks that were linked by the same economic subsistence base. The special role of obsidian emerges, while the mobility pattern…