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Prehistory

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?

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Prehistory

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  1. Prehistory Ancient History Prof. Marc Cooper

  2. Prehistory Cayonu, one of the earliest Neolithic sites

  3. 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?

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. Carbon 14 Dating 100% 50% 25% 12.5% Age 0 Age 5,730 Age 11,460 Age 17,190

  10. 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?

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. Çatal Höyük

  15. 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

  16. Vulture Shrine

  17. Hassuna Culture 6000 – 5250 BCE • Small villages in northern Mesopotamia • Populations probably did not exceed 500 • Dry farming • Pottery • Red, cream slip • Linear decorations

  18. Halaf Culture 5500 – 4500 BCE • Northern Mesopotamia • Arpachiya • Tepe Gawra • Finely painted naturalistic polychrome pottery

  19. Halaf figurines

  20. Halaf polychrome

  21. Halaf stamp seal

  22. 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

  23. Tell-es-Sawwan • Large fortified village near Samarra • Irrigation technology • Late period shows forerunners of Ubaid architecture

  24. Tell El-Ubaid

  25. 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

  26. 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

  27. Sequence of Eridu Temple plans

  28. Stamp seals

  29. 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.

  30. Ubaid in Persian Gulf

  31. 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

  32. 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

  33. 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

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