Theme Organiser: Dr Claudia Glatz
Location: AV Hill Lecture Theatre, University College London.
This theme invited contributions on the landscapes of the ancient Near east and all aspects of human interaction with and within them. Papers include different aspects of landscape studies, environmental and geoarchaeological work, methodological and theoretical concerns in field survey, as well as computer-based modelling approaches to human-landscape interaction. Papers explore the movement and information flow between human settlements. They may include the origins, significance and transformations of major highways as well as local networks of exchange, the logistical concerns of ancient transport and communication systems, and the techniques and technological inventions to overcome them.
Please note that this is not a final time-table and may be subject to some change. If you wish to make any corrections, please use this form: CORRECTIONS FORM
As stated in your acceptance email, papers should be no more than 20 minutes long
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09.30 › Introduction | 09:20 › Donoghue | 09:20 › Rupley | 09:20 › Jones | |
| 09:55 › Deckers | 09:55 › Tonoike | 09:55 › Richter | 09:55 › Walker | |
| 10:20 › Braemer | 10:20 › Massa | 10:20 › Çelik | 10:20 › Tavernari | |
| 10:45 › COFFEE | 10:45 › COFFEE | 10:45 › COFFEE | 10:45 › COFFEE | |
| 11:15 › Bradbury | 11:15 › Weiss | 11:15 › Thomalsky | 11:15 › Onnis | |
| 11:40 › Casana | 11:40 › Lonnqvist | 11:40 › Bonzano | 11:40 › Weeden | |
| 12:15 › Keynote | 12:05 › Philip | 12:05 › Wilkinson | ||
| 12:30 › Ricci | 12:30 › McCall | |||
| 12:55 › LUNCH | 12:55 › LUNCH | |||
| 13:15 › LUNCH | 14:00 › Morandi | 14:00 › Ilan | ||
| 14:30 › Wilkinson | 14:30 › Leriou | |||
| 14:55 › Orchard | 14:55 › Kennedy | 14:55 › Hesse | ||
| 15:20 › Herrmann | 15:20 › Milevski | 15:20 › Shalev | ||
| 15:45 › COFFEE | 15:45 › COFFEE | 15:45 › COFFEE | ||
| 16:15 › Cerasetti | 16:15 › Cantrell | 16:15 › Harmansah | ||
| 16:40 › Kuehne | 16:40 › Oren | 16:40 › Fischer-Genz | ||
| 17:05 › Gavagnin | 17:05 › Nigro | 17:05 › Mazzilli | ||
| 17:30 › Lucke | 17:30 › Bramlett | 17:30 › Forstner-Müller |
Landscape, Transport & Communication Abstracts
Plenary Session: Landscape, Transport & Communication Keynote Lecture
Landscapes of Movement in the Ancient Near East
Dr Jason Ur (Harvard University)
The archaeological sites of the Near East are now static entities, but when they were inhabited people, animals, goods, and information moved within and between them. Farmers, herders, and their animals moved between settlement, field, and pasture. The political economy involved the movement of goods and specialists between political centers. Entrepreneurs and armies moved across these same spaces. Movement has often been reconstructed in a "connect the dots" manner, but in some cases, roads, tracks, bridges, milestones, and waystations do survive. This paper reviews recent landscape archaeological research in the ancient Near East, with particular attention to the challenges of reconstructing ancient movement and the approaches archaeologists have adopted to meet them. It concludes with a case study in Northern Mesopotamia, where a recently completed project has mapped the empirical remains of over 6,000 km of premodern trackways in northeastern Syria and northern Iraq, mostly datable to the mid-late 3rd millennium BC. I discuss the project's remote sensing and field methods, describe the landscape database, and draw some conclusions about society and economy at Brak, Hamoukar, Beydar, and other great cities of the northern Fertile Crescent.
The Syrian Desert and its Oases. Landscape, Settlement, and Communication in the Western Palmyrena from Prehistory to the Roman Period. Some selected case studies
Prof. Daniele Morandi Bonacossi (University of Udine)
Michel Al-Maqdissi (Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria), Mauro Cremaschi (University of Milan)
The paper presents the results of a Syro-Italian geoarchaeological survey in the semi-desert region west of the Palmyra oasis. The project aims to study regional cultural development by identifying archaeological sites and studying their natural surroundings and to investigate environmental changes in the region during the late Pleistocene and Holocene, reconstructing and dating the oscillations of the desert margins and oasis settlement and identifying possible environmental crisis periods and their relationship with the occupation of the region by human communities. The presentation concentrates on a preliminary reconstruction of settlement and landscape in the Western Palmyrena from prehistory to the Umayyad period and brings into focus the important interregional communication routes crossing the area from at least the second millennium BC and their significance for the economic and cultural development of this semi-arid region.
Local Social Systems on Lake Van: influence and legacy from Nairi to Medieval
Armenia
Mr Simone Bonzano (Freie Universitaet Berlin)
Throughout the history of eastern Anatolia, the relevance of localism in the formation of the regional socio-political pattern is known and studied mostly as part of a dialectic relationship with monarchic centralism. Said dialectic and its effects on the political and settlement patterns in the region has been the central purpose of this research, whose results are going to be presented in this paper. In the course of this research I have examined sample areas around the Lake Van, the cradle of all eastern Anatolian cultures. GIS has been used to relate sites to each other in the context of the vast literature on the subject. A comparison between the first period of Nairi-Urartu and the final of the Medieval Feudalism will be presented.
Landscapes of Burial: examining regional distributions and densities of cairns within Central Syria.
Miss Jennie Bradbury (Durham University)
The landscape of central Syria represents a complex palimpsest of activity, ranging in date from prehistory to the present day. One fragment of this is characterised by the burial tumuli or cairns, which are scattered throughout this region in stone rich areas. This paper shall attempt to illustrate trends in the distribution and density of these monuments throughout the Orontes Valley and surrounding areas. In addition, it shall begin to question the possible impetus behind their locations in terms of associated archaeological features, hydrology, geology and environmental locales. Through the use of satellite imagery (Corona and Ikonos), aerial photographs, geological and hydrological maps, in addition to survey work, the relationships between these different features and cairn monuments shall be demonstrated. Additionally, the applicability of interpreting wider patterns and relationships between features, based on sample survey work shall be considered. These landscapes are under substantial threat from modern bulldozing practices, with changes being clearly visible via comparison between 1960s Corona Imagery and Ikonos from the 2000s. With this in mind the necessity for considering both past and present land-use practices, which may have had a profound impact on the survival and visibility of these monuments will also be discussed. Ultimately, this paper aims to place the cairns monuments of Central Syria within their wider regional landscape context. In doing so, it shall also demonstrate the diversity and complexity of activity occurring within landscapes, which can be seen as sub-optimal and where traditional tell architecture and occupation is not seen.
Proposal for a Southern Syria regional settlement pattern networking during the Bronze age: a chorematic approach.
Mr Frank Braemer CNRS and Mr Christophe Nicolle (CNRS)
In the Southern Levant, as in the other parts of the Middle east, the protohistoric sites have been mainly classified and studied according to a center/periphery model, the center being a town exploiting an agricultural landscape surrounded by areas exploited by herders. excavations and surveys in Southern Syria show an original settlement pattern including fortified agglomerations, open villages, farms, and herder's settlements. The links between theses settlements are more the result of a network system than one of a centralised organisation. This contradicts the traditional opposition between nomadic pastoralism and sedentary agriculture, and the concentric organisation of the landscape around towns. Other models exist, and scenarios of change are different from a region to one another. There is in the Levant a highly variable permeation between herders and farmers territories. The agglomerations are not always a place for a people's concentration. Peoples are mainly rural and self-sufficient. The capacity of the main agglomerations to integrate a large amount of social and symbolic functions (centralisation/redistribution of goods, consumption centres, and political influence) is not definite. The settled spaces are not spreading all over the geographical space. They are organised in clusters which didn't followed all the same trends and the same rhythms of change. We propose new categories associating agglomerations and functions in a more complex and qualified system: we will develop an approach based on models built with the chrono-chorematic tools for the geographers. These tools help to formalise data and to give a graphic picture of the different functions identified in an agglomeration and the links established with the neighbouring settlements and the landscape. These graphs are arranged in scenarios which can be compared from one area to one another.
Late Bronze Age Roads and Routes in the Transjordanian Highlands
Dr Kent Bramlett (University of Toronto)
Though the Highlands of Jordan were peripheral to the great powers during much of the Late Bronze Age and the area was more lightly sedentarized than were neighboring regions, an analysis of the settlement pattern of sites evincing some Late Bronze Age presence suggests this region was integrated into the interregional network of communication and trade routes widely established during this period. Old survey data and recent excavation results accord with reinterpretations of the importance of the eastern branch of the Via Maris through northern Jordan into Syria. The upper Yarmuk river region was also a hub of 19th Dynasty egyptian interest as recorded in campaign records and attested by the continuing discoveries of local Ramesside inscriptions. The reason for egyptian interest in the northern Transjordanian Highlands, or Yarmuk watershed, is better understood in the context of this significant route to Syria and Mesopotamia and the political objectives of the egyptian empire. The node-like distribution of confirmed Late Bronze Age settlements down through northern and central Jordan, positioned almost exclusively along routes or branch routes that in later times were opportune trade and caravan routes, may even suggest that some Arabian trade was beginning to flow north in the Late Bronze II. The probable extent and goods of any such exchange engages a lively debate on both sides of the issue. The fortified nature of several of these small LB sites, located as they were amid a generally non-sedentarized population, also provides a clue to the importance of their function.
Beasts of Burden: Logistics of Transport and Travel in the Ancient Near east
Dr Deborah Cantrell (Vanderbilt University)
Horses, mules, donkeys, camels, and, occasionally, elephants composed the backbone (literally) of transport and travel in the Ancient Near east. Domesticated quadrupeds were required for convenience and timely movement, whether as human conveyance, pack animals, couriers, or agents of war. Of course, it was crucial to feed, water, and properly rest these hard-working beasts to maximize their potential. The logistics involved in caring for transport animals was a well-developed science in the ancient world. This paper addresses the practical implications and cultural adjustments necessary for transport and travel, including the suitability of particular animals for particular terrains and climates; the physical and distance limitations inherent in various breeds; the cataclysmic change from travel via chariot to horseback riding; and the architectural accommodations for animal management evidenced in various archaeological sites in Assyria, Israel, and Egypt.
Tell-Based Settlement Systems of the Northern Levant
Prof Jesse Casana (University of Arkansas)
Utilizing a new online database of orthorectified CORONA satellite imagery, developed as part of a National endowment for the Humanities-funded project the "CORONA Archaeological Atlas of the Middle east," this paper presents analyses of the density and distribution of tell-based settlement across the northern Levant. Results of archaeological surveys and excavations in northern Lebanon, western Syria and southern Turkey show that most tells possess occupational histories spanning many millennia. However, these data also show that nearly all tell sites were occupied during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and conversely, that virtually all Bronze and Iron Age settlement was confined to tells. Tells should therefore be conceived as a unique, temporally-bounded cultural phenomenon that is part a distinctive collection of settlement and land use practices. Because tell sites generally appear with great clarity on CORONA imagery, particularly when viewed in stereo, it is now possible to map nearly the entirety of this ancient settlement system. This paper presents initial results of an ongoing research effort aimed at documenting the full extent of tell-based settlement, beyond the limits of archaeological survey areas and across national borders. Results offer new insights into the density and distribution of ancient settlement and population across differing environmental zones during the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as demonstrate the potential of morphological analyses of sites to be used as a proxy dating tool in aerial and satellite-based investigations.
Neolithic Settlement and Landscape Studies in Upper Mesopotamia
Dr Bahattin Çelik (Harran University, Turkey)and
Mr Fevzi Kemal Moetz Graduate School "Human Development in Landscapes", Kiel University
The transition from semimobile hunter and gatherer communities to sedentary food-producing villagers is a crucial process in human social evolution. Since sedentism is an important issue in this process, one of the main objectives of this paper will be an analysis of those aspects in the landscape, which attracted early settlers to establish sedentary communities. In order to achieve this objective it is necessary to reconstruct ancient landscape and settlement distribution in the landscape. The latter derives from archaeological data such as site excavations and surveys. A database of all the archaeological information related to the Neolithic peroid in the study area has been created, and environmental records such as pollen analysis are used to reconstruct vegetation and land use history. In addition animal and plant remains from excavations are investigated in order to reconstruct fanual life. Geomorphic analyses are included for understanding formation processes and landform history of landscapes. Remote sensing is used in order to gain further spacial information and in combination with all the other data feed into a Geographical Information System Database. Based on this data there will be the attempt to filter specific circumstances in the landscape which were favourable for the earliest sedentary communities.
The Area of Takhirbai and the Transition from Bronze to Iron Age in the Murghab Alluvial Fan: The Importance of the Irrigation Factor
Dr Barbara Cerasetti (University of Bologna, Italy)
In the present as in the past, life in Central Asia has been dependent on erratic water supplies. Thanks to the recent intensification of archaeological work throughout the region and the combined support of GIS softwares and remote sensing, we can now study the relationship between urban development and innovations in hydraulic engineering and water management during the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age. We are convinced that a reconstruction of a detailed model of the ancient river system is the main tool in developing a better understanding of human settlement in the alluvial fan and in elucidating the relationship between sedentary and nomadic people in Southern Turkmenistan. There is just one archaeological area in the deeply transformed Murghab alluvial fan able to shed light onto this topic: the area of Takhirbai, which represents the only "window" into the last phase of the Bronze Age and the first phase of Iron Age among the dense settlement evidence of the Achaemenid period.
Resource exploitation of the Upper Khabur Basin (Ne Syria) during the third millennium BC
Dr Katleen Deckers and Dr Simone Riehl (Tübingen University, Germany)
A dataset of 908 tells, 1823 radial lines and streams in the Upper Khabur Basin was produced by digitizing CORONA satellite images. Several analyses are applied to this database in order to understand the hydrological and agrarian contexts of tells that were occupied mainly in the mid 3rd millennium BC. A strong alignment of tell sites along wadis is observed, which may explain the building of settlements upwards. The analysis of radial lines with exaggerated 3D-SRTM data indicates that, in most cases, they are unlikely to have been used as an irrigation system, but rather may be hollow ways with sometimes fade-out points delineating the end of cultivation zones. This is supported by a comparison between cultivation zones based on hollow ways and calculations of the necessary amount of land starting from the tell sizes. Resource exploitation calculations indicate that the area was not overexploited during the mid 3rd millennium BC and that tribute ca 2300 BC may have been a reason for land overexploitation, perhaps playing a role in settlement disruptions between 2200 and 1900 BC.
Development of remote sensing methodology for the creation of a landscape context within the Fragile Crescent Project (FCP) framework
Prof Daniel Donoghue, Niko Galiatsatos and Robert W. Dunford (Durham University, UK)
The Fragile Crescent Project (FCP) is a study of the rise and decline of Bronze Age urban settlements and associated political and economic structures in the ancient Near east between ca. 3500 and 1200 BC. In order to tackle the question of how the process and pattern of early Bronze Age urbanization varied from region to region, it is essential to harness data on trends in settlement from as large an area as possible, and, in turn, to relate these to the regional environment. This requires the creation of a large-scale and coherent set of high quality settlement data to tackle specific questions fundamental to the economic and social dimension of the rise of early states and civilizations. The Fragile Crescent Project is able to enhance the value of a series of regional surveys by analysing the data within a single geographical and environmental framework, specifically by taking advantage of recent advances in the use of satellite imagery and digital terrain models. Consequently this is a project that has only recently become possible through the convergence of a range of digital technologies. With the use of modern methodologies such as Multiple-view-angle (MVA) imagery analysis, texture classification, and Digital elevation model (DeM) analysis, we try to identify, confirm and provide a landscape context for sites previously recorded in the field (i.e. within existing survey areas). The field surveys act as a validation tool for the remote sensing derived information. Remotely sensed data not only provide most of the landscape context that field surveys recorded but also provide data on areas that were not surveyed before. The paper will demonstrate the value to landscape analysis of high spatial resolution optical imagery and digital terrain models derived from modern and declassified satellite imagery.
The role of Iron Age sanctuaries in the formation process of regional economic systems in the Levant
Dr Bettina Fischer-Genz (German Archaeological Institute, Germany)
Based on the archaeological evidence from a number of Iron Age sites in Syria, Lebanon and Israel, the spatial distribution of sanctuaries inside economic landscapes will be investigated in this paper. Urban as well as rural sanctuaries are a focal point of social interaction of communities, and thus reflect some of the political formation processes on a regional scale. Furthermore, rural sanctuaries are often associated with the agricultural and industrial use of the landscape, and are integrated in the communication network of a region. Thus, the location and spatial organization of the sanctuaries studied here provide insights into the complex formation process of economic systems on a regional scale.
The Landscape of Avaris, capital of the Hyksos.
Dr Irene Forstner-Müller Austrian Archaeological Institute Cairo
Tell el-Dab'a/Qantir, in the modern province of Sharqiya in the Egyptian Eastern Delta, has been excavated by Manfred Bietak, on behalf of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, for more than 40 years. The site can now be definitely identified with Avaris, capital of the Hyksos (c. 1640-1530 BC) and with the southern part of Piramesse, the Delta residence of Ramesses II and his successors.
The easternmost branch of the Nile once passed west of the site, and, by the Second Intermediate Period, Avaris was an important trading centre and a major harbour for seagoing ships. This is known to us not only from textual sources but also from the enormous quantity of imported goods, mainly storage vessels from the Levant and pottery from Cyprus. It is now known that the town covered an area of more than 260 ha and was one of the major urban sites in Egypt, with an estimated population size of between 28,800 and 34,600 inhabitants. In this paper, the topography and layout of the 15th Dynasty Hyksos town will be described, with especial reference to the function of its individual town quarters and the location of palaces, living quarters and possible harbours.
The Neo-Assyrian and Post-Assyrian Settlement in the Leilan Region, Northeastern Syria : Some Preliminary Results
Miss Katia Gavagnin (University of Turin, Italy)
This paper will present the results of the analysis of Neo-Assyrian and Post-Assyrian pottery collected during the 1995 season of the Tell Leilan regional survey. It will discuss the main diagnostic types for the different sub-phases of the period, and provide a preliminary interpretation of settlement development in the area during the first millennium B.C. During the Neo-Assyrian period the number of the sites considerably increased from the Late Bronze Age. even though some large centers were present, the Neo-Assyrian settlement pattern appears to be especially characterized by large numbers of small sites scattered across the countryside. This is in agreement with the results of recent research in other areas of Northern Mesopotamia; and it has been suggested that these small villages could "farms", founded by the Assyrians during the provincialization period. The definition, in ceramic terms, of the post-Assyrian period is especially problematic, but it would seem that after the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian empire, most sites continued to be inhabited without noticable changes in their cultural traditions until the arrival of Achemenids.
Rock reliefs and sacred springs: towards an archaeology of place in Anatolia
Dr Ömür Harmansah (Brown University Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, USA)
In the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages in Anatolia (ca 1400-800 BC), Hittites, Assyrians and post-Hittite regional states marked their landscapes with rock-carved monuments and sacred pool complexes. Such rupestral monuments and cultic establishments feature monumental inscriptions, pictorial imagery, ritual basins and sometimes architectural complexes. These sites have so far been studied largely from the point of view of historical geography, using art-historical methodologies and philological interests, and interpreted as imperial interventions into the landscape. In a field project that will start in Summer 2009 in South Central Turkey, I plan to investigate such sites in the context of their surrounding cultural landscape and settlement system. Preliminary reconnaissance work have suggested that several Hittite and Late Hittite reliefs are built on top of abundant springs, along narrow river gorges, and caved river sources, therefore always associated with some extraordinary karstic/fluvial geological formation. Scholars have correlated such sites with the so-called DINGIR.KASKAL.KUR (lit. "Divine Road of the earth") of Hittite and Hurrian texts, understood as powerful god-filled places where humans could interact with the underground world of dead ancestors. These sites were also presented as witnesses to treaty-signing events among different polities. A case study of the Assyrian Source of the Tigris river (Tigris Tunnel) monuments, north of Diyarbakir, suggests that such sites were always already symbolically charged places, cultivated by local social practices, and were then appropriated by state spectacles and building activities. In this paper, I will focus on the concepts of the social event and cultural performance (ranging from everyday practices to state spectacles), and investigate the formation of places as dense loci of human practice from a phenomenological perspective.
Evidence for Desert Occupation and environmental Change at Three Sites in Dubai, UAe
Mr Jason Herrmann (University of Arkansas)
Joint investigations by archaeologists from the Dubai Department of Archaeology and the University of Arkansas at three sites in the desert interior of Dubai, United Arab emirates, part of an understudied region, advance our understanding of ancient desert land-use and environmental change in southeast Arabia. Archaeological survey, excavations, near-surface geophysical prospection and paleoenvironmental studies at Al Ashoosh II dating to the Arabian Neolithic (sixth to fourth millennium BC), Al Ashoosh dating to the Umm al-Nar period (third millennium BC), and Saruq al-Hadid dating to the Iron Age (first millennium BC), offer a look at desert settlement during three key moments in the climate history of the region. Al Ashoosh II and Al Ashoosh are inland sites that were occupied during moist periods, the former during the Holocene Climatic Optimum and the latter during a humid phase during the third millennium. Most compelling, however, are the results from Saruq al-Hadid, a bronze- and iron-processing site set in mobile sand dunes far from the resources necessary for such activities, which was occupied during the more arid first millennium. At this site, ground-penetrating radar data have been used to map the distribution of subsurface archaeological features and buried aeolian deposits. Through detailed analysis of the geometry of these sedimentary deposits, the wind regimes that influenced site formation were reconstructed. This information, paired with chronometric dating of archaeological materials and direct dating of the sediments themselves, produces a detailed understanding of the environmental influences on site formation at Saruq al-Hadid. These three case studies from the previously underrepresented desert of the UAe cast new light on chronologies of ancient settlement and environmental change in southeast Arabia and inform the study of the interaction between human activities and environmental change in similar environments.
An Inland Levantine Perspective on Late Bronze Age Maritime Trade
Dr Kristina Josephson Hesse (Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Sweden)
The nature of trade relations in the eastern Mediterranean from an inland Levantine perspective will be emphasized. The "maritime" trade of the ancient city of Hazor, located in the interior of LB Canaan, is a case study investigating the Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery on the site and its indirect trade relations with Cyprus and the Aegean. The contents of the Ulu Burun and Cape Gelidonya ships, wrecked on the coast of south Turkey, show that luxury items were traded from afar through Canaan via the coastal cities overseas to the Aegean. Such long-distance trade with luxury goods required professional traders familiar with the risks and security measures along the routes and with the knowledge of value systems and languages of diverse societies. These traders established networks, along main trade routes, in which certain cities became strategic nodes. The paper suggests that Hazor, as one of the largest cities in Canaan, possessed such a node position. This city was located along the most important N-S trade routes, between different cultural spheres and various realms of exotic raw material sources. The network of transverse e-W roads leading from Hazor to the coastal cities and vice versa shows that certain harbour cities were connected to Hazor. Based on their importance as trade cities; on their distance from and location in relation to Hazor; and on the composition of their pottery assemblages as well as on their active periods a couple of harbour sites will be discussed, which might have served Hazor with imported and exported items.
The Hula Valley from the early Bronze Age to the Ottoman Period: A longue durée examination of changing interactions between people and the natural environment
Dr David Ilan and Yifat Thareani (Hebrew Union College)
The Hula Valley of northern Israel presents human settlement with attractive advantages and stark disadvantages compared to other local environments in the southern Levant. As a catchment basin in an area with relatively abundant rainfall, irrigation and hydraulic energy are possible and lacustrine resources are available. On the other hand, if drainage is not managed on a major scale the entire valley becomes malarial and infested by other diseases, making it one of the least hospitable regions in the Levant. In antiquity the Hula Valley oscillated between regimes of high productivity and high population and regimes of low productivity and low population. We will examine the ways in which human settlement approached the environmental challenges in different periods, how settlement patterns varied through time, how this settlement changed the landscape and what patterns of communication developed both over the long term and from period to period.
Late Pleistocene environments of Occupation in the Azraq Basin, Jordan
Dr Matthew Jones (University of Nottingham, UK)
A number of epipaeleolithic sites have been described in the Azraq basin, that today forms a large part of the northeastern desert of Jordan. Geoarchaeological investigations in and around recent excavations at two sites, 'Ayn Qasiyya and Kharahneh IV, as part of the epipaeleolithic Foragers in Azraq Project have begun to reveal a picture of the basin environment through the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. The sedimentary succession from 'Ayn Qasiyya at the margins of the Qa' al-Azraq spans the last glacial interglacial transition (LGIT) with the site showing extensive evidence of early epipalaeolithic occupation. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal confirms that the sequence contains Late Pleistocene and Holocene sediments and allows us to investigate changes in this marginal lake site at a number of key times during this important transitional period. Glacial open water conditions preceded the epipalalaeolithic use of the site, which is dated to between 20 and 21 calibrated Ka BP. Marginal lake, or marshland environments, with through cutting river channels define the site until largely spring fed, carbonate rich deposits mark the Holocene climatic optimum. Sediments around the earlier, and longer occupied site of Kharahneh IV, to the west of 'Ayn Qasiyya and at higher elevations, suggest that standing water also existed here prior to occupation. Preliminary work from the site suggests that the late Pleistocene landscape morphology is preserved at the site. We attempt to place these sequences into a regional cultural and environmental context.
The end of the Third Millennium: The Tell Nebi Mend Perspective
Ms Melissa Kennedy (The University of Sydney, Australia)
This presentation will focus upon the Late Third Millennium (eB IV) and early Second Millennium BCe (MB I) deposits at Tell Nebi Mend. At present, nine phases of occupation and a large ceramic corpus have been associated with this transitional period. Analysis of these suggest that Tell Nebi Mend continued to be occupied throughout this period of apparent "collapse" (Weiss & Courty 1993; Weiss 2000; Akkermans & Schwartz 2003: 282-291), with no evidence for a stratigraphical or ceramic lacuna discernable. Also presented will be a brief discussion as to the possible reasons for this "collapse" of settlement and centralisation in the later Third Millennium. This paper will also explore issues of regional and inter-regional synchronism, as well as a preliminary outline of the material culture of this "Transitional" phase, in the Orontes river-valley. The 10 ha site of Tell Nebi Mend or ancient Qadesh is located in the Upper Beqa'a Valley between the confluence of the Orontes and its major tributary the Mukadiyah. The site also sits strategically at the heart of the so-called "Homs-Tripoli Gap", the major east-west route from the Mediterranean to inland Syria. Initially excavated by Maurice Pézard, during the early 1920s and then later by Peter Parr (Institute of Archaeology, University College London); the site has revealed a long and rich history of occupation spanning from the 6th Millennium BCe till the present.
Water for Assyria
Prof Hartmut Kuehne (Freie University Berlin)
At least fifty percent of the Assyrian mainland between the Tigris and the Habur received insufficient precipitation for rain fed agriculture; another twenty five percent is situated in the risky zone. Irrigation agriculture then was an economic essential for the prosperity of Assyria. The well known water systems sustaining the Assyrian capitals are situated in the east Tigris land. They have rather been associated with prestige works of Assyrian kings to irrigate their gardens or parks than with irrigation agriculture. How was Assur supplied with water, how was the steppe south of Sinjar put in value? Some years ago a regional water system along the Lower Habur was discovered which, since 2008, can be dated to the eighth century BC or even earlier. Local cuneiform sources from the Lower Habur, albeit scanty, demonstrate that water supply was an omnipresent feature in the Assyrian administration since the Middle Assyrian times. The archaeological record is somewhat less informative but seems to offer new perspectives more recently.
Trade, exchange and identity construction/ maintenance in the Late Bronze Age societies along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean: the case of Cyprus
Dr Anastasia Leriou (Department of Arcgaeology, University of Athens, Greece)
The starting points for this paper were the difficulties associated with the ""ethnicity"" of the Ulu Burun shipwreck, as well as the results of an extended research focussing on the delineation of cultural identities in early Iron Age Cyprus. Although the migration of Aegeans to Cyprus during the 12th and 11th centuries BC is considered a series of established historical events, the material record demonstrates no instances of consciously constructed boundaries between the different groups that are thought to have had constituted the island's post-migratory population. Set against a background of upheaval and maritime movement, the available evidence induces one to go back to the 14th and 13th centuries, if not earlier, in order to explain the association between the populations of Cyprus and the Aegean. This is when the systematic trade between these regions had reached its peak. Furthermore, this is when the levels of mobility and exchange among the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean had increased considerably. Several merchants reached the Cypriot ports and interacted with the natives and with each other. The absence of cultural boundaries observed in post-migration Cyprus makes one wonder how ¡foreign¢ would the tradesmen have felt while disembarking from their boats and how strange would they have seemed to the natives? Moreover, what was the level of differentiation among the populations of the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age, and how was it being manifested? Tackling these questions will contribute to the on-going discussion regarding how significant a peoples¢ divider sea was during this chronological period. At the same time, however, light will be shed on the exact opposite, i.e. sea¢s ability to facilitate connection. In order to estimate the potential of the processes associated with maritime trade regarding the construction and maintenance of identities, we propose to diachronically examine the archaeological record from the cosmopolitan coastal towns of Kition and enkomi-Salamis, in pursuit of cases of cultural signalling and, therefore, differentiation, while considering factors such as proximity, distance, anchorage etc. This may not be achieved by means of simply recognising ¡non-Cypriot¢ elements. As a result of the dynamic nature of ethnic/ cultural identity, one needs to identify instances of conscious manipulation of the material culture aiming at an unmistakable demonstration of cultural peculiarity. By comparing the results of the pre- and post-migratory levels, one may be able to start addressing these issues in an effective manner.
Remote Sensing, Landscapes and Archaeology
Prof Minna Lonnqvist, Dr Markus Törmä, Dr Kenneth Lönnqvist, Dr Milton Nunez and Dr Jari Okkonen (University of Helsinki, Finland)
The oasis of Palmyra, also known as Tadmor, in the centre of the Syrian Desert was a major caravan city in antiquity. It was one of the stations along the so-called Silk Road and accordingly the town prospered from its commodities such as textiles. The control of Palmyra over the neighbouring small towns in the surrounding desert and steppe was obvious and the roads leading to the euphrates must have existed already in the Bronze Age, when caravans traversed between Tadmor and Mari. The traffic became more intensive in the Hellenistic and Roman times, and the fortresses such as Dura europos and Zenobia became foci of movement towards the euphrates. Because of the desert landscape the surrounding areas of the Palmyra oasis are especially suitable for remote sensing studies. Already Father A. Poidebard started aerial archaeology in the district in the 1920s. Nowadays the satellite images, such as Landsat, can be used in detecting the alignments of the old caravan roads over the desert. Our conclusion is that the lower spatial resolution satellite images such as Landsat are more applicable to trace roads in the areas with the flat desert sand cover than in the mountainous areas with relief pattern like in the area of Jebel Bishri between Palmyra and the euphrates. However, the higher spatial resolution images such as QuickBird offer evidence of roads on the mountain. Our archaeological studies on the ground in the Jebel Bishri region have also helped us to detect roads. Special sign-posts for caravaneers have been identified in the area. According to our fieldwork along the euphrates the rock-based and steady river terraces seem to have been favoured basis along the euphrates.
The mechanisms of Holocene landscape changes in the Near East
Dr Bernhard Lucke (German-Jordanian University, Jordan)
It has been postulated that landscape changes in the Near East were primarily related to settlement activity, and that land use led to irreversible degradation over the Holocene. However, a closer look at the valley dynamics in Jordan suggests that landscape changes are governed by climate, and are probably reversible with regard to agricultural productivity. In most areas, the soil and sediment record suggests that prolonged periods of stability were interrupted by comparatively short, but intense periods of instability. For example, heavy landslides seem to have occurred with high frequency at some time during the Yarmoukian and Early Ummayyad periods. Those instabilities might primarily have been related to changes of rainfall patterns (the type of precipitation and its distribution over the year), not the total amount of rainfall. Similarly, the deposition of fertile valley fills seems connected with shifts towards a higher amount of small rains, e.g. during the Early Bronze Age, creating fertile plains that were later removed when precipitation patterns shifted back to more concentrated rainfall events. Research in the impact of climate changes on historical developments in the Near East has been focused on total amounts of rainfall, and environmental reconstructions focused on the degrading impact of overgrazing and agriculture. But it might be more promising to look at patterns of rainfall distribution and how they trigger complex responses of the environment. Several examples from different sites in Jordan will be presented, showing how soil and sediment studies can be utilized to approach this complexity, connecting landscape dynamics with reconstructions of climate change and human activity.
Of miners and traders: an analysis of long-distance interaction between the Anatolian plateau and Upper Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C.
Mr Michele Massa (Univeristy College London, UK)
The second half of the Early Bronze Age in western and central Anatolia is a period in which interaction seems to play an important role in shaping emerging complex societies, and witnesses the formation of large fortified settlements along major sea-bound and overland routes. These polities seem to be –at least partially- based on trade and trade control, and their growth is paralleled by a general increase in wealth display both in funerary and settlements contexts, and by the creation of long-distance networks with neighbouring regions. In particular, the spread of peculiar classes of objects, pottery, raw materials and trade technology (scales and stone weights) at key Anatolian sites hints for strong contacts with Upper Mesopotamia. Textual evidence from the Kanesh/Karum period (early second millennium) clearly shows that the main interest of Assyrian merchants was metal, especially gold and silver, and the archaeological evidence for the third millennium suggests similar trends. The aim of this paper is thus to analyse in more detail the mechanisms of these interactions, trying to identify what was exchanged, which routes were followed and their impact on the process of polity formation.
Roman rural sanctuaries in Hauran as centre of socio-interactions: a study of the landscape through GIS-modelling
Miss Francesca Mazzilli (Durham University, UK)
Sanctuaries have been mainly considered for their religious purposes. However, religious practices involve social interactions, especially considering that sanctuaries are meeting points of people from different regions and cultures to worship the deity and undertake sacrifices- e.g. pilgrimage. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that sanctuaries were centres of social interactions thanks to their key location within the rural landscape: key-factors are high visibility of sanctuaries and their proximity to Roman passage-ways. Furthermore, by considering anthropological and comparative studies, peregrinations towards these cultic centres led to the development of occasional and rural commercial activities. Landscape analysis is the key-approach to understand the social interactions and the role of the sanctuary as centre of social networks. The GIS model, based on the analysis of Google-earth and Landsat images, milestones combined with Bauzou's study on Roman road system, enables us to identify the location of sanctuaries in proximity to the Roman route-ways. Studying the relationship between the sanctuaries and its landscape through GIS modelling is essential to re-assess "our" traditional understanding of sanctuaries and value them as centres of social and economic interactions. This paper will discuss the Hauran where sanctuaries can be considered part of the socio-economic networks and in particular the case of the religious complex Sī'. Its open-space, archaeological evidence of offerings and sacrifices, banqueting and commercial activities, and especially its location on route-ways are elements suggesting that Sī' was a centre where not only religious practices but also commercial activities, and consequentially also socio-interactions took place.
Long-term communication networks and settlement patterns in south-western Iran.
Dr Bernadette McCall (University of Sydney, Australia)
A survey of the mountainous Mamasani region of Fars province in south-western Iran has revealed evidence of occupation spanning the epipalaeolithic to Islamic periods. Settlement patterns indicate the presence of sustained populations in the small Mamasani mountain valleys, the frequency and density of which generally reflect regional settlement trends for greater Fars and Khuzestan. In addition, the material culture of the Mamasani area attests to extended periods of contact with the larger plains of highland and lowland south-western Iran, represented by clear parallels with the archaeological sequences of the Kur River basin and the Susiana plain, respectively. There is also evidence of contact with other small Zagros valley systems suggesting that the study area was part of a wider network of linked valleys and passes that formed natural pathways through the mountains. While the topography of the region has regulated movement through the mountains for millennia, the survey results indicate that communication networks were not static over time. The prominence of the Mamasani valleys on one of the major southern routes through the Zagros Mountains facilitated long distance trade and travel, while the combination of interconnected fertile plains provided a suitable base for sedentary populations. At different times in its settled history, Mamasani population levels fluctuated and the orientation of major cultural connections shifted between upland and lowland areas. This paper explores the nature of the Mamasani region as a population centre with respect to its role within Zagros communication networks from different archaeological periods. The main focus is how various networks incorporating the Mamasani valleys functioned during periods characterised by high and low populations, and discusses the implications of the results of this analysis in a regional context.
Intra-Regional Networks of Exchange in the Late Prehistory of the Southern Levant
Dr Ianir Milevski and Dr Omry Barzilai (Israel Antiquties Authority, Israel)
Intra-regional exchange and networks studies are commonly used for comprehending the economic structure of proto-and urban societies in Near eastern archaeology. Such studies have been rarely attempted for the late prehistoric periods in the southern Levant (i.e., Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Early Bronze Age). This paper presents identified patterns of commodity-exchange networks for raw materials, flint tools, pottery vessels, ground-stone tools, shells, ornaments and metal objects. It is suggested that independent intra-regional exchange networks operated in these periods through longitudinal and lateral routes within the southern Levant. The longitudinal routes connected sites in the northern (Galilee) to those in the central-southern regions (Judea, Negev), while the lateral routes connected sites in Transjordan to those in Cisjordan. The identified exchange systems show an increase in the variety of exchanged commodities from the Neolithic to the early Bronze Age. This phenomenon correlates with the social developments during this time span, i.e. the transition from agro-pastoral communities to the first urban societies
Tracks through the River. The birth of an early Bronze Age town in the Upper Wadi az-Zarqa (Jordan): Khirbet al-Batrawy
Prof Lorenzo Nigro (Rome "La Sapienza"" University, Italy)
The discovery and archaeological exploration of Khirbet al-Batrawy, an eB II-III fortified town in North-Central Jordan, by Rome "La Sapienza" University, allowed to study a strongly characterized early urban phenomenon in Upper Wadi az-Zarqa, where a site controlling the ford through the river and its religious high place gave birth to a city, conceived in strict relationship with tracks crossing a hierarchically organized landscape. Faunal remains and architectural evidence illustrate how Batrawy was a caravan centre at the end of tracks crossing the Syro-Arabic Desert and leading to the Jordan Valley, while finds point to an intense system of exchange pivoted on the early city.
Communication of landscape: Near eastern legacy in the codes of figurative representation of the outward setting to the Mediterranean imagery of the first millennium BC.
Miss Francesca Onnis (Université Lyon2-CNRS lab. Archéorient (UMR 5133)
How was the landscape seen and perceived in the ancient Near east? external representations that have survived help shed light onto this question. These depictions reflect the manner in which their authors perceive the surroundings and the natural environment in which they were inserted, or the idea they wanted to attribute to it. This is particularly true for the ancient Near east. Following the birth of urban civilisation, Mesopotamian figurative production paid particular attention to representations of the natural landscape. In historical figurative narratives, the landscape often holds the keys to understanding the scene. Another reason for this interest in the landscape may be realted to the urban community itself, which constructed its identity in opposition to the world outside the city, unknown and considered to be dangerous. This concept is preferred in 'official' art, which developed the idea of the sovereign as guarantor of the community's protection by overcoming Mother Nature. Levantine art adopted both this iconographic theme and its fixed schemes from Mesopotamia, adding both local elements and influences from egypt or the eastern Mediterranean. Levantine artists, however, reworked these representational schemes in order to express their own conception of the natural environment and the forces governing it. During the 1st millennium BC, Levantine artists represented this version of the landscape on different figurative objects that they exported throughout the Mediterranean. The theme of the landscape became then part of the figurative and conceptual heritage that many western Mediterranean cultures assimilated from the Near east during the Orientalising period. We will closely examine one of these classes of objects, which served as a vehicle for this diffusion: Phoenician metal bowls.
The Ancient Oasis Landscapes of Arabia's Hajar Region and Their Relationship with the Beehive/Turret Tomb Cemetries of the Peninsula
Mrs Jocelyn Orchard (Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, UK)
In Oman and the United Arab emirates, the location and layout of the ancient oasis towns reflect not only the dominant influence of the Hajar region's environmental constraints, but also the practical and spiritual responses of the first farmers to their landscape. Typically 200-400 hectares in size (including agricultural and grazing land), each settlement is characterised by four massive circular religious monuments laid out in diamond formation, and by impressive cemeteries of so-called beehive tombs prominently deployed on the ridges and slopes of nearby jabals. While our discovery that these ancient oases were irrigated by aflāj has opened the way to the exploration of their internal landscapes and the study of their land use, field systems and agriculture, the religious dimension detectable in their highly visible monuments and tombs and in the fact that they were open and undefended, implies that they were protected by a common doctrinal belief that held the territory of each to be sacrosanct. In the wider landscape of the Arabian peninsula, the occurrence - in a great southward sweeping arc from the Hajar region to Sinai – of cemeteries of beehive type (suggestive of the presence of oasis towns), constitutes a truly Arabian phenomenon and testifies to a widespread culture with shared customs, religious beliefs, rituals and, probably, trade. Our paper will cover the effect of climate and sedimentary history on landscape and settlement in the Hajar region, describe the spatial layout of the oasis towns, their cemeteries and their irrigation networks – including descriptions of recently excavated buildings and beehive tombs – and discuss the religious nature of these settlements – as perceived in their internal and external landscapes - and the culture they represented throughout the Arabian peninsula.
A bridled donkey from Tel Haror and the introduction of the light, horse-drawn chariot in the Middle east and egypt
Prof eliezer D. Oren (Ben – Gurion University, Israel)
The discovery at Tel Haror in the western Negev, Israel, of articulated skeletons of donkeys, one still equipped with a bronze bridle bit, sheds new light on the history of the light chariot in the Near east and egypt in the second millennium BCe. The bridled equid was one of at least two donkeys which were ritually buried in an elaborate installation in the Middle Bronze Age II-III sacred precinct and the ceremonial interment was subsequently concluded with a ritual feast. This unique discovery is significant on two counts: firstly, it is the earliest metal bit from a well dated archaeological context and, secondly, this is to date the only bridle bit of the second millennium BCe actually to have been recorded in the mandible of an equid. This paper will discuss the frequent occurrences of donkey burials side by side with the prevailing use of the draught horse. Also, it will address the intriguing religio-cultural aspect of ritual killing and interment of a donkey harnessed with a bridle bit, as well as the ramifications of this phenomenon on the vexed issue of the introduction (and institutionalization) of the light, horse-drawn chariot in the Near east and egypt in the second millennium BCe.
Settlement intensity and attenuation in the Bronze Age Northern Levant
Prof Graham Philip and Dr Rob Dunford (Durham University, UK)
Building upon the work of The Vanishing Landscape of Syria (Leverhulme Trust) and the Fragile Crescent Project (AHRC), this paper will provide a synoptic overview of the distribution of Bronze Age settlement across the northern Levant. As a multiscalar analysis, the paper will provide a fairly coarse-grained comparison of the nature, structure and density of settlement activity across inland Syria from Homs to Aleppo, while simultaneously treating in more detail specific areas for which good quality field data is available. The aim is to identify, at both local and regional levels, those areas which represent settlement cores and those wherein settlement was more attenuated. The resulting data will provide an invaluable context for understanding the relationship between settlement and natural resources, communications routes, and patterns of material culture distribution, as well as key processes such as the limits of 'Uruk' contact, the so-called second urban revolution, and changing activity in the marginal and sub-optimal zones. This will be achieved using a combination of published and new survey data and evidence derived from satellite imagery. The analysis will focus on: • aggregate settlement area (ha) per unit area; • number of sites per unit area; • maximum site size in different units. By presenting the evidence in this way it will be possible to start to compare developments in the northern Levant with those in other parts of the Near east.
The Middle Euphrates River Valley Region from the 5th through the 3rd Millennium BC: An Archaeological Landscape Perspective
Mr Andrea Ricci (Graduate School "Human Development in Landscapes", Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany)
Over the past three decades, the construction of the Birecik and Carchemish Dams in Turkey and the Tishrin Dam in Syria has led researchers to conduct a number of pilot surveys and rescue excavations in an area which was previously almost entirely neglected by scholars. Their efforts resulted in a massive enrichment of the available information which has deepened our perspective on the human occupation of the Euphrates River Valley for the entire course of the Holocene. This paper investigates the archaeological landscapes of the Birecik and Carchemish sectors from the 5th through the 3rd Millennium BC by integrating remote sensing analyses and published data with results of new geoarchaeological survey investigations conducted in the Syrian sector of the land behind Carchemish. Particular attention will be devoted to the investigation of settlement dynamics, site hierarchies and population trends to understand how the processes of urbanization developed in this region and to examine possible local system of movements and longer communication routes.
Epipalaeolithic Social Interaction: A View from the Azraq Basin
Dr Tobias Richter University College London
In the prehistory of the Levant discussions of social interaction continue to be primarily addressed in discussions of the Neolithic and later periods. Indeed, some authors have suggested that during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B new and more complex forms of social interaction arose, which represent one of the defining characteristics of the NeolithicIn this sense, the complexity of social interactions is inversely related to the inferred complexity of social organization associated with early village societies. Similarities in architecture, burial customs and artifact types, as well as the trade and exchange of exotic items have been used to track these Neolithic. This paper argues that social interaction over long distances and incorporating seemingly disconnected landscapes is already apparent during the early epipalaeolithic. Based on a discussion of the evidence for interaction and the use of landscape in the Azraq Basin of eastern Jordan, I argue that the novelty of social interaction associated with the PPNB has to be rethought.
Network Structures in North Mesopotamian Prehistory.
Mr Eric Rupley (University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, USA)
Postulates about social interdependencies are at the core of anthropological models of societal change. Network models are one representation of such interdependencies. We examine recent general theories which relate network structure and robusticity/ vulnerability and discuss aspects of the relationship between these theories and current models of regional (and trans-regional) development in the later prehistory of Northern Mesopotamia (ca. 4500-3000 BCe). Intervening in this relationship are critical assumptions which govern the association between demographic and land use data derived from archaeological survey and the articulation of these data into network models. Recent satellite-optimised survey evidence from Tell Brak Syria will be discussed in this light.
The South Phoenicia Land Rush – Urbanization at the Beginning of the Persian Period
Mr Yiftah Shalev (University of Haifa, Israel)
The Persian period in the Levant has become increasingly the focus of archaeological research in the past few years. These studies indicate that the period was a time of prosperity in the Levant and especially in the coastal plain, where many towns were founded and the population grew rapidly. This phenomenon is especially impressive in the area usually called Southern Phoenicia, roughly stretching from Ashkelon to the Carmel, where the Babylonian regime severely reduced the size of the population during the 6th century BCe. Currently, the common view is that urbanization of the coastal plain was a very rapid process, starting already with the marching Achaemenid armies on their way to egypt (c. 525 BCe) and occurring as the result of a deliberate governmental policy of the Phoenician kings, if not an imperial initiative of the first Achaemenid kings. This view is based on the notion that these settlements, located along a main marine highway, served as knobs in the pan-Phoenician exchange system, ensuring a free flow of goods, labor and information to and from the main Phoenician city-states. Analysis of the stratigraphical and ceramic sequence at Tel Dor on the Carmel coast, one of the few modern stratigraphic excavations of this period, and one that has been comprehensively published, indicates that this date is probably too early. A new examination of other sites along the Phoenician coast as well shows that Dor is not unique in this regard, as it seems that these new towns were not established prior to the early 5th century BCe. Furthermore, these sites do not experience a real floruit until the second half of that century. This 50-year gap between the Persian conquest and the establishment of the new settlements, as well as the slow and gradual takeoff of this process, lead us to suggest that the new settlement pattern grew as a result of the establishment of local exchange systems rather than efforts to ensure a regional or imperial one.
From the caravanserai to the road: proposition for a preliminary reconstruction of the Syrian road networks in the Middle Age
Ms Cinzia Tavernari (Université Paris IV and eVCAU Laboratory (Virtual Space for Architectural and Urabn Design)
Studies of the Levant roads during the Middle Islamic period traditionally focused on historical data, paying relatively little attention to the archaeological evidence of the routes, even though represented by wayside caravanserais, probably the least elusive proof of the existence of a stopover and, consequently, of a road passing by within a given period. Caravanserais can thus be considered spatial-temporal tags providing fixed and significant points for the reconstruction of the communication axis followed during different periods. Supported by this material evidence and resting on a database organized within a geographic information system, the aim of the research is to lead a diachronic analysis of the Syrian road networks, from the beginning of the Ayyubid period till the end of the Mamluk one. Focusing on such a long span of time, nearly four centuries, should permit a better study and a deeper understanding of the dynamic of evolution and change of the road networks, particularly of the resilience phenomenon, which often appears to characterize itineraries and which indicates networks' aptitude at retaining their structural and functional identity even after having integrated important disruptions. As a matter of fact, several of the routes studied show a remarkable longevity. Finally, the study tries to compare the theoretical axis models with the recomposed itineraries established on the basis of the historical and archaeological sources; the results of this analysis could allow for the evaluation of the data's coherence and shed new light on the patterns of caravanserais' distribution. Aware of the important methodological renewal the archaeological study of the road networks recently witnessed this paper wishes to propose a reconstruction of the Syrian road networks based on the researches conducted so far.
Dynamic aspects of craft specialization in lithic industries
Ms Judith Thomalsky (University of Tübingen, Eurasia Dept., Germany)
The study of lithic chipped stone industries is dealing with concepts of technological organisation. The 5th and 4th millennium BC is a period of extensive technological and social innovations, showing a wide spatial distribution within a relativley short timefarme. In this context the lithic production strategies resemble the differentiation of the chaîne opératoire to a dual conception of raw material and tool blanks procurement. The elements of primary industry in sedentary contexts are dominated by a flake industry in contrast to the extra-site production of expert blade blanks. The general decline of artefact numbers and the limitation of the tool inventory are indicators of an incipient standardisation in lithic production. Different aspects of lithic variability are associated with different socio-economic strategies and activities but clearly also expose sub-regional networks of blade blanks or tool exchange and special production purposes. A quite different network structure is recorded in the Obsidian industries which occur in relative small quantities since the 6th millenium BC. The distribution of obsidian artefacts illustrate an asymmetrical circulation system in the Near east which may be controlled by regional production centres like Norsuntepe in the Altinova and Hamoukar and Tell Brak in the Northern Iraq. The progress of technological organisation is embedded in socio-economic strategies and cultural networking and reflects a shift from an household production level to an specialised craftsmen level in the course of the 3rd millennium BC for which the "canaanean blade system" and the workshop in Titris Höyük are the most impressive examples. A central aspect is to outline the dynamics concerning the diffusion of lithic innovations and to establish a typology of craft activities and production strategies in the archaeological record which outlines the dynamics of diffusion of production and organisation criteria.
Beyond Style: Petrographic analysis of Dalma ceramics in two regions of Iran
Dr Yukiko Tonoike (Yale, USA)
Although ceramics as chronological markers have been emphasized in studies of early complex societies, they also define cultural and interaction spheres. This paper presents the results of petrographic analysis of 150 samples of early sixth-millennium Dalma ceramics, found in abundance in the northwestern and central Zagros. Petrographic analysis, especially microstructural analysis, proved to be crucial in this study, since the ceramics have previously been described as being impossible to distinguish in spite of the great distance between the regions. This paper presents the final results, comparing the northwestern and central Zagros Dalma assemblages, as well as Dalma ceramics to the preceding and following Hajji Firuz and Pisdeli periods, in an attempt to better understand the nature of the distribution of Dalma ceramics.
Political ecology and the Landscapes of Northern Jordan in the Late Islamic Periods
Prof Bethany J. Walker (Missouri State University, USA)
No narrative dominates the demographic history of late Mamluk Syria more than the decline of the countryside in the fifteenth century. The general drop in the size and concentration of villages, and the abandonment of many settlements suggested by archaeological surveys (most pronounced in Transjordan), has been considered the most important local response to the collapse of the Mamluk state. While settlement fluctuations in this period transformed rural Syria in important ways, there here has been little systematic study of the issue in order to determine to what degree population levels dropped from the 14th-century, how many settlements "disappeared", and what was the long-term legacy of this phenomenon. Recent archaeological fieldwork, combined with critical analysis of late medieval and early Ottoman narrative and documentary sources, indicate in this period a dispersal of large settlements and a shift to new agricultural regimes forced by a confluence of political turmoil, economic trouble, and climatic change. In anthropological parlance, this could be described as a kind of "internal migration" in which settlement in large centers participating in imperial agro-industries was replaced by more modest settlements, located in more marginal zones, engaged in diversified production. The Northern Jordan Project was launched in 2003 to investigate the phenomenon of such settlement and land use shifts, taking the individual village in its physical, functional, and social landscapes as the unit of study. Adopting the conceptual framework of political ecology, the project explores cultural change against the backdrop of the struggle for control over natural resources in the region between Irbid and the Yarmouk River in the later Islamic periods. This paper explores some of the methodological challenges presented by environmentally driven landscape studies such as this and presents ways in which archaeological survey and excavation can be combined with archival and climate research to identify diverse settlement and land use types, document their development, and describe the complex interplay between local society, imperial states, and the physical environment.
Chalcolithic settlement location and landscape practices in northwestern Cappadocia
Dr Celine Wawruschka (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria)
Between 1993 and 2001 a reconnaissance survey was undertaken by the Department of Prehistory, Istanbul University, in northwestern Cappadocia. In the course of this survey, eight sites dating to the Chalcolithic period were identified. One of these sites, Güvercinkayasi, has been under excavation since 1996 and serves as the key reference site for this investigation. Site topography has been documented for all known sites (including those identified by earlier surveys and excavations in the area) in 2008 and 2009. Parameters that have been recorded for their catchment areas (sensu Vita-Finzi and Higgs 1970) include geology, sediments and hydrology, raw materials sources, and land suitability for pastoral and arable production. The principal aim of my project (funded by the Turkish Academy of Sciences) is to reconstruct preferred landscapes of settlement in northwestern Cappadocia during the Chalcolithic period. In addition, the results of site catchment analysis are compared to subsistence archaeology and material culture datasets from Güvercinkayasi, in order to reconstruct Chalcolithic landscape practices (subsistence strategies and raw materials procurement) in this area.
Writing, Class and Urbanism in the 2nd Millennium BC.
Dr Mark Weeden (School of Oriental and African Studies, UK)
There is a tendency in modern scholarship to view the sharing of cuneiform writing across different ancient societies in the second millennium BC as one element of participation in a common sub-continental economic and cultural system. While this is certainly true in a number of respects, it is nevertheless useful to look at the differences between cuneiform cultures of this period from the perspective of the constitution of social class in an urban setting. Writing can be shown to have played a very different role in class-composition in Babylonia, where it was the province of an urban middle class, to the role it played in Anatolia, where cuneiform writing was associated with the self-definition and survival of a narrow aristocratic ruling elite. Different Hittite sites will be considered from the point of view of the presence of writing and the types of writing found there. The profession of the scribe and the programme of cuneiform scribal education will also be compared between Babylonia and Anatolia, asking the questions: what local networks were literate people embedded in their respective societies and what social strategies were they pursuing in learning to write? The paper will explore some of the socio-political issues arising from the use of writing in these ancient societies and attempt to use these as an explanatory platform to understand the differences in the types and stability of writing systems in this period.
"Seven Generations Since the Fall of Akkad": Quantifying Akkadian Collapse, Habitat-Tracking and Amoritization
Prof Harvey Weiss (Yale University, USA)
The multi-proxy paleoclimate stack for the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia documents the double-spike abrupt climate change events at 5.2-5.0 kaBP and 4.2-3.9 kaBP. The 5.2-5.0 kaBP abrupt aridification and cooling event was coincident with the Late Uruk collapse in southern
Mesopotamia and across northern Mesopotamia, and the consolidation of state power along the Nile. The 4.2-3.9 kaB abrupt aridification and cooling event initiated the century-scale agro-production failure that generated Akkadian and Old Kingdom collapses, as well as the first stage of tribal-pastoral Amoritization and habitat-tracking from dry-farming to irrigation agriculture terrains in Mesopotamia and Syria-Palestine. The termination of the 4.2-3.9 kaBP event was coincident with the second stage of Amoritization: the re-settlement and political re-organization of dry-farming domains and the agro-territorial conflicts with riverine polities. High precision dating of both paleoclimate events and regional settlement processes illuminate some details of 4.2-3.9 kaBP adaptations on the Habur Plains and along the Euphrates and Orontes Rivers.
Settlement Cores and Peripheries in Upper Mesopotamia in the Fourth and
Third Millennium BC
Prof Tony. J. Wilkinson and Mr Dan Lawrence (Durham University, UK)
Archaeological surveys conducted over the past 30 years in northern Syria, northwest Iraq and southern Turkey have supplied us with a significant data base on patterns of sedentary settlement. Some of these surveys are now being re-analysed and re-interpreted by means of satellite imagery and GIS through a major new project the Fragile Crescent Project. This project is enabling such surveys to be re-interpreted within a wider theoretical framework than was the case during the 1970s-1990s when these areas were originally surveyed. This paper uses archive survey data checked against satellite imagery to demonstrate variations in settlement density, which in turn, enables us to suggest the existence of settlement cores and peripheries for key periods. For each of the following periods: late fourth millennium BC, mid third millennium BC and early 2nd millennium BC, patterns of sedentary settlement are mapped in terms of the following: * aggregate settlement area (ha) per unit area (per 100 sq km); * number of sites per unit area; * maximum site size per survey tract. By so doing it should be possible to provide a context for areas of steppe, upland, and semi-desert that were the domain of more mobile groups such as the Aramaeans. These data should also provide an analytical framework for the understanding of phenomena such as the Uruk expansion, mid-third millennium BC urbanism, the later third millennium BC transition and the movements of mobile pastoralists in the late third and early second millennium BC. Because the movement of humans will often take place between areas of higher settlement, the definition of such areas will allow us to make suggestions about inter-regional movements and compare these with data drawn from material culture, topographic routes and perhaps hollow ways. Moreover, by providing a yardstick for settlement density in Upper Mesopotamia, it should be possible to compare settlement densities in the Levant with those of other parts of the Fertile Crescent.
Re-viewing invisible flows: Landscapes and interconnections in 3rd and 2nd millennia BC eurasia.
Mr Toby Wilkinson (University of Sheffield, UK)
A long tradition of research suggests that during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, both urban and non-urban societies of south-west Asia and wider Afro-eurasia, became progressively more interconnected. The physical exchange routes along which such connections were made often appear to pre-figure parts of the later historical Silk Road. Whilst recovered texts hint at considerable multi-directional flows of materials, including precious stones, organic material, metals and textiles, the archaeological evidence for these same materials is often very difficult to find or completely invisible. This talk will explore how a selection of such invisible flows of objects and materials, people and ideas, might be integrated into our analysis of landscape, settlement and society, and visualised geospatially using modern GIS mapping and analysis. The archaeological case-studies will focus on eastern Anatolia and western Central Asia, and the routes of exchange and interaction within and beyond these regions.