![]() After the initial Pre-Pottery Neolithic phase from northwestern Mesopotamia to Jarmo (red dots, circa 7500 BCE), the Pottery Neolithic culture of Mesopotamia in the 7th–5th millennium BCE was centered around the Hassuna culture in the north, the Halaf culture in the northwest, the Samarra culture in central Mesopotamia and the Ubaid culture in the southeast, which later expanded to encompass the whole region. | |
Geographical range | Old World |
---|---|
Period | Pottery Neolithic |
Dates | c. 6,400–3,500 BCE |
Preceded by | Pre-Pottery Neolithic B |
Followed by | Bronze Age |
Prehistoric Southwest Asia | ||
4000 — – 5000 — – 6000 — – 7000 — – 8000 — – 9000 — – 10000 — – 11000 — – 12000 — – 13000 — – 14000 — – 15000 — – 16000 — – 17000 — – 18000 — – 19000 — – 20000 — – 21000 — – 22000 — – 23000 — – 24000 — – 25000 — – 26000 — | ↓ Historic ↓ ↑ Palaeolithic ↑ | |
Axis scale is years Before Present |
In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is sometimes further divided into Pottery Neolithic A (PNA) and Pottery Neolithic B (PNB) phases. [1]
The Late Neolithic began with the first experiments with pottery, around 7000 BCE, and lasted until the discovery of copper metallurgy and the start of the Chalcolithic around 4500 BCE.
The Neolithic of the Southern Levant is divided into Pre-Pottery and Pottery or Late Neolithic phases, initially based on the sequence established by Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho. In the Mediterranean zone, the Pottery Neolithic is further subdivided into two subphases and several regional cultures. However, the extent to which these represent real cultural phenomena is debated: [2]
In the eastern desert regions of the Southern Levant—the Badia —the whole period is referred to as the Late Neolithic (c. 7000–5000 BCE). [3] It is marked by the appearance of the first pastoralist societies in the desert, who may have migrated there following the abandonment of the large PPNB settlements to the west. [4] [5]
In the southern Negev and Sinai Deserts, the Late Neolithic is characterised by the pastoralist Timnian culture, which persisted through to the Bronze Age. [6]
The Late Neolithic began around 6,400 BCE in the Fertile Crescent, succeeding the period of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. [7] By then distinctive cultures emerged, with pottery like the Halafian (Turkey, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia) and Ubaid (Southern Mesopotamia).
The northern Mesopotamian sites of Tell Hassuna and Jarmo are some of the oldest sites in the Near-East where pottery has been found, appearing in the most recent levels of excavation, which dates it to the 7th millennium BCE. [8] This pottery is handmade, of simple design and with thick sides, and treated with a vegetable solvent. [9] There are clay figures, zoomorphic or anthropomorphic, including figures of pregnant women which are taken to be fertility goddesses, similar to the Mother Goddess of later Neolithic cultures in the same region.
Pottery was decorated with abstract geometric patterns and ornaments, especially in the Halaf culture, also known for its clay fertility figurines, painted with lines. Clay was all around and the main material; often modelled figures were painted with black decoration. Carefully crafted and dyed pots, especially jugs and bowls, were traded. As dyes, iron oxide containing clays were diluted in different degrees or various minerals were mixed to produce different colours.
The Halaf culture saw the earliest known appearance of stamp seals. [10] They featured essentially geometric patterns. [10]
Female fertility figurines in painted clay, possibly goddesses, also appear in this period, circa 6000–5100 BCE. [11]
The Hassuna culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia dating to the early sixth millennium BCE. It is named after the type site of Tell Hassuna in Iraq. Other sites where Hassuna material has been found include Tell Shemshara. The decoration of pottery essentially consists in geometrical shapes, and a few ibex designs. The monochrome pottery from the latest level at Ginnig has been described as "proto-Hassuna". As the oldest layers at the site lacked pottery, Ginnig may represent a rare example of site in Upper Mesopotamia that was occupied during the transition from the aceramic to the ceramic Neolithic. [12]
The Samarra culture is a Chalcolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia that is roughly dated to 5500–4800 BCE. It partially overlaps with the Hassuna and early Ubaid.
The Ubaid period (c. 6500–3800 BCE) [13] is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid in Southern Mesopotamia, where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Woolley. [14]
In South Mesopotamia the period is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. [15] In the south it has a very long duration between about 6500 and 3800 BCE when it is replaced by the Uruk period. [16]
In North Mesopotamia, Ubaid culture expanded during the period between about 5300 and 4300 BCE. [16] It is preceded by the Halaf period and the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period and succeeded by the Late Chalcolithic period. The new period is named Northern Ubaid to distinguish it from the proper Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia. [17]
With Ubaid 3 (circa 4500 BCE) numerous examples of Ubaid pottery have been found along the Persian Gulf, as far as Dilmun, where Indus Valley civilization pottery has also been found. [18]
Stamps seals start to depict animals in stylistic fashion, and also bear the first known depiction of the Master of Animals at the end of the period, circa 4000 BCE. [19] [10] [20]
The Fertile Crescent in the Ancient Near East is one of the independent origins of the Neolithic, the source from which farming and pottery-making spread across Europe from 9,000 to 6,000 years ago at an average rate of about 1 km/yr. [23] There is also strong evidence for causal connections between the Near-Eastern Neolithic and that further east, up to the Indus Valley. [23] There are several lines of evidence that support the idea of connection between the Neolithic in the Near East and in the Indian subcontinent. [23] The prehistoric site of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan (modern Pakistan) is the earliest Neolithic site in the north-west Indian subcontinent, dated as early as 8500 BCE. [23] Neolithic domesticated crops in Mehrgarh include more than barley and a small amount of wheat. There is good evidence for the local domestication of barley and the zebu cattle at Mehrgarh, but the wheat varieties are suggested to be of Near-Eastern origin, as the modern distribution of wild varieties of wheat is limited to Northern Levant and Southern Turkey. [23] A detailed satellite map study of a few archaeological sites in the Baluchistan and Khybar Pakhtunkhwa regions also suggests similarities in early phases of farming with sites in Western Asia. [23] Pottery prepared by sequential slab construction, circular fire pits filled with burnt pebbles, and large granaries are common to both Mehrgarh and many Mesopotamian sites. [23] The postures of the skeletal remains in graves at Mehrgarh bear strong resemblance to those at Ali Kosh in the Zagros Mountains of southern Iran. [23] Despite their scarcity, the 14C and archaeological age determinations for early Neolithic sites in Southern Asia exhibit remarkable continuity across the vast region from the Near East to the Indian Subcontinent, consistent with a systematic eastward spread at a speed of about 0.65 km/yr. [23]
During the Mehrgarh Culture, precursor of the Indus Valley civilization, Period II (5500 BCE–4800 BCE) and Merhgarh Period III (4800 BCE–3500 BCE) were ceramic Neolithic, using pottery, and later chalcolithic. Period II is at site MR4 and Period III is at MR2. [25] Much evidence of manufacturing activity has been found and more advanced techniques were used. Glazed faience beads were produced and terracotta figurines became more detailed. Figurines of females were decorated with paint and had diverse hairstyles and ornaments. Two flexed burials were found in Period II with a red ochre cover on the body. The amount of burial goods decreased over time, becoming limited to ornaments and with more goods left with burials of females. The first button seals were produced from terracotta and bone and had geometric designs. Technologies included stone and copper drills, updraft kilns, large pit kilns and copper melting crucibles. There is further evidence of long-distance trade in Period II: important as an indication of this is the discovery of several beads of lapis lazuli, once again from Badakshan. Mehrgarh Periods II and III are also contemporaneous with an expansion of the settled populations of the borderlands at the western edge of South Asia, including the establishment of settlements like Rana Ghundai, Sheri Khan Tarakai, Sarai Kala, Jalilpur and Ghaligai. [25]
The European Neolithic is generally dated to 7000–3000 BCE. The spread of the Neolithic in Europe was first studied quantitatively in the 1970s, when a sufficient number of 14C age determinations for early Neolithic sites had become available. [26] Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza discovered a linear relationship between the age of an Early Neolithic site and its distance from the conventional source in the Near East (Jericho), thus demonstrating that, on average, the Neolithic spread at a constant speed of about 1 km/yr. [26] More recent studies confirm these results and yield the speed of 0.6–1.3 km/yr at 95% confidence level. [26]
Neolithic Greece is marked by some remarkable creations from stone or pottery. The settlement at Sesklo gives its name to the earliest known Neolithic culture of Europe, which inhabited Thessaly and parts of Macedonia. The oldest fragments researched at Sesklo place development of the civilization as far back as c. 7510 BCE — c. 6190 BCE, known as "proto-Sesklo" and "pre-Sesklo". They show an advanced agriculture and a very early use of pottery that rivals in age those documented in the Near East.
Ceramic decoration evolves to flame motifs toward the end of the Sesklo culture. Pottery of this "classic" Sesklo style also was used in Western Macedonia, as at Servia. That there are many similarities between the rare Asia Minor pottery and early Greek Neolithic pottery was acknowledged when investigations were made regarding whether these settlers could be migrants from Asia Minor, but such similarities seem to exist among all early pottery found in near eastern regions. The repertoire of shapes is not very different, but the Asia Minor vessels demonstrate significant differences.
The Sesklo culture is crucial in the expansion of the Neolithic into Europe. Dating and research points to the influence of Sesklo culture on both the Karanovo and Körös cultures that seem to originate there, and who in turn, gave rise to the important Danube civilization current.
The Linear Pottery culture is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic, flourishing c. 5500–4500 BCE. It is abbreviated as "LBK" (from German : Linearbandkeramik), and is also known as the "Linear Band Ware", "Linear Ware", "Linear Ceramics" or "Incised Ware culture", and falls within the "Danubian I culture" of V. Gordon Childe.
The densest evidence for the culture is on the middle Danube, the upper and middle Elbe, and the upper and middle Rhine. It represents a major event in the initial spread of agriculture in Europe. The pottery after which it was named consists of simple cups, bowls, vases, and jugs, without handles, but in a later phase with lugs or pierced lugs, bases, and necks. [27]
Important sites include Nitra in Slovakia; Bylany in the Czech Republic; Langweiler and Zwenkau in Germany; Brunn am Gebirge in Austria; Elsloo, Sittard, Köln-Lindenthal, Aldenhoven, Flomborn, and Rixheim on the Rhine; Lautereck and Hienheim on the upper Danube; and Rössen and Sonderhausen on the middle Elbe.
Two variants of the early Linear Pottery culture are recognized:
Middle and late phases are also defined. In the middle phase, the Early Linear Pottery culture intruded upon the Bug-Dniester culture and began to manufacture "musical note" or notenkopf pottery, where lines are sometimes interrupted by dots and stabs. In the late phase, the Stroked Pottery culture moved down the Vistula and Elbe.
A number of cultures ultimately replaced the Linear Pottery culture over its range, but without a one-to-one correspondence between its variants and the replacing cultures. The culture map, instead, is complex. Some of the successor cultures are the Hinkelstein, Großgartach, Rössen, Lengyel, Cucuteni-Trypillian, and Boian-Maritza cultures.
The Neolithic period in Europe was succeeded by the Bronze Age, circa 3000 BCE.
The Chalcolithic was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in different areas, but was absent in some parts of the world, such as Russia, where there was no well-defined Copper Age between the Stone and Bronze ages. Stone tools were still predominantly used during this period.
Mehrgarh is a Neolithic archaeological site situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in modern-day Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi. The site was discovered in 1974 by the French Archaeological Mission led by the French archaeologists Jean-François Jarrige and his wife, Catherine Jarrige. Mehrgarh was excavated continuously between 1974 and 1986, and again from 1997 to 2000. Archaeological material has been found in six mounds, and about 32,000 artifacts have been collected from the site. The earliest settlement at Mehrgarh, located in the northeast corner of the 495-acre (2.00 km2) site, was a small farming village dated between 7000 BCE and 5500 BCE.
The Neolithic or New Stone Age is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Europe, Asia and Africa. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system.
The 5th millennium BC spanned the years [5000 BCE - 4000 BCE), that is, inclusive of 5000 BCE but exclusive of 4000 BCE. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis.
The Ubaid period is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Woolley.
Sesklo is a village in Greece that is located near Volos, a city located within the municipality of Aisonia. The municipality is located within the regional unit of Magnesia that is located within the administrative region of Thessaly. During the prehistory of Southeastern Europe, Sesklo was a significant settlement of Neolithic Greece, before the advent of the Bronze Age and millennia before the Mycenaean period.
Tell Hassuna is a tell, or settlement mound, in the Nineveh Province (Iraq), about 35km south-west of Nineveh. It is the type site for the Hassuna culture.
The history of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity. This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources. While in the Paleolithic and early Neolithic periods only parts of Upper Mesopotamia were occupied, the southern alluvium was settled during the late Neolithic period. Mesopotamia has been home to many of the oldest major civilizations, entering history from the Early Bronze Age, for which reason it is often called a cradle of civilization.
Aratashen is a town in the Armavir Province of Armenia. It is located on the Ararat Plain.
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent, dating to c. 12,000 – c. 8,500 years ago,. It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic Near East, as the domestication of plants and animals was in its formative stages, having possibly been induced by the Younger Dryas.
The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in the fertile valley of the Khabur River, of south-eastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq, although Halaf-influenced material is found throughout Greater Mesopotamia.
The Samarra culture is a Late Neolithic archaeological culture of northern Mesopotamia, roughly dated to between 5500 and 4800 BCE. It partially overlaps with Hassuna and early Ubaid. Samarran material culture was first recognized during excavations by German Archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld at the site of Samarra. Other sites where Samarran material has been found include Tell Shemshara, Tell es-Sawwan, and Yarim Tepe.
Tell es-Sawwan is an important Samarran period archaeological site in Saladin Province, Iraq. It is located 110 kilometres (68 mi) north of Baghdad, and south of Samarra. It lies on a 12 meter high cliff overlooking the Tigris River.
The Hassuna culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia dating to the early sixth millennium BC. It is named after the type site of Tell Hassuna in Iraq. Other sites where Hassuna material has been found include Tell Shemshara.
Neolithic Greece is an archaeological term used to refer to the Neolithic phase of Greek history beginning with the spread of farming to Greece in 7000–6500 BC, and ending around 3200 BC. During this period, many developments occurred such as the establishment and expansion of a mixed farming and stock-rearing economy, architectural innovations, as well as elaborate art and tool manufacturing. Neolithic Greece is part of the Prehistory of Southeastern Europe.
The art of Mesopotamia has survived in the record from early hunter-gatherer societies on to the Bronze Age cultures of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires. These empires were later replaced in the Iron Age by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia brought significant cultural developments, including the oldest examples of writing.
The Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period or HUT is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. It lies chronologically between the Halaf period and the Ubaid period. It is still a complex and rather poorly understood period. At the same time, recent efforts were made to study the gradual change from Halaf style pottery to Ubaid style pottery in various parts of North Mesopotamia.
Yarim Tepe is an archaeological site of an early farming settlement that goes back to about 6000 BC. It is located in the Sinjar valley some 7km southwest from the town of Tal Afar in northern Iraq. The site consists of several hills reflecting the development of the Hassuna culture, and then of the Halaf and Ubaid cultures.
The prehistory of Mesopotamia is the period between the Paleolithic and the emergence of writing in the area of the Fertile Crescent around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as well as surrounding areas such as the Zagros foothills, southeastern Anatolia, and northwestern Syria.
Indus–Mesopotamia relations are thought to have developed during the second half of 3rd millennium BCE, until they came to a halt with the extinction of the Indus valley civilization after around 1900 BCE. Mesopotamia had already been an intermediary in the trade of lapis lazuli between the Indian subcontinent and Egypt since at least about 3200 BCE, in the context of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations.