Prehistory of Mesopotamia

[1] Furthermore, the strong cultural similarities observed throughout Mesopotamian prehistory between the regions immediately east of the Tigris and west of the Euphrates allow for the study of a larger Mesopotamia bordering the foothills of the Zagros Mountains.

[10]Meanwhile, in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Shanidar cave on the southern flank of Jebel Baradost in the foothills of the northern Zagros, in the province of Erbil in north-eastern Iraq, represents the most important archaeological site in the discovery of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic Mesopotamia.

The deepest and thickest of these (8.5 meters), level D, attributed to the Middle Paleolithic, reveals layers of ash mixed with flint tools and bones, suggesting that the cave has been occupied intermittently since 60,000 BP, for about ten thousand years.

[12] In addition, the pollens found and analyzed in the laboratory allowed researchers to deduce strong climatic changes during the period of the cave's occupation: first warmer than today, then very cold, and finally hot and dry up to 44,000 years BP.

[32] The end of the Epipaleolithic was marked by the Zarzian culture, which covered Iraqi Kurdistan with the Zarzi, Palegawra, and Shanidar B1 caves (reoccupied) then B2 (again uninhabited, but containing several burials), as well as the Zawi Chemi site.

[37][42][44][45] At sites such as Pa Sangar, Palegawra, Zarzi, and Shanidar, archaeologists note that hunting practices remained unchanged from earlier periods: goats and onagers were still the main sources of meat.

Located in an open valley not far from the Great Zab River, a few kilometers from the Shanidar Cave, the site consists of separate dwellings of approximately circular or semicircular shape, wholly or partially dug into the ground.

Gazelles, hares, foxes, a few oxen, equines, and ovicaprinae are the hunters' preferred game, while gatherers harvest wheat, barley, lentils, peas, and vetches, all part of the local wild environment.

[59] This continuous renovation and cleaning of individual houses suggests a significant social change: the transformation of the shelter into a notion of "home", a place of permanent residence for which a kind of family "property" could develop.

[73][74] It was also at the sites of Tell Maghzaliyah and Seker al-Aheimar (of the same cultural type from the Taurus Mountains, located in the Khabur Valley) that the first decorated pottery was discovered, dating to the end of the 8th millennium BC, thus establishing a link between the last PPNB and the beginning of the so-called "Proto-Hassuna" period.

It is possible that many of the remains of this period, located near the rivers (which were major settlement areas), still exist today but are inaccessible because they are buried under the alluvial deposits of the Tigris, Euphrates, and their numerous tributaries and wadis, if they have not been simply eroded by them.

[77] In addition, "Mesolithic" lithic tools (with microliths, burins, scrapers) dating roughly to pre-Neolithic times have been found during surface surveys in the Burgan Hills of Kuwait..[78] But when it comes to the first prehistoric populations to the west and south of what would become Sumer, researchers can only speculate.

This "house of the dead" provides a wealth of information on the difficulties faced by the inhabitants, probably linked to the Neolithic transition: numerous skeletons of children and adolescents highlight serious problems of malnutrition and nutritional stress in early life.

The occupation of the site has left abundant and diverse archaeological remains: traces of plastered walls, lithic industry, stone crockery, engraved bone objects and clay figurines.

[80][81] For researchers Yoshihiro Nishiaki and Marie Le Mière, this discovery demonstrates the existence of an early ceramic phase - represented by a cultural entity provisionally referred to as "Pre-Proto-Hassuna" - which appears to have begun in the Middle PPNB and ended in the Proto-Hassuna, introducing the latter.

At Tell Sabi Abyad, a village that was deliberately burned down, archaeologists found two skeletons that appeared to be lying on the roof of a house; this was undoubtedly an elaborate ritual in which the dead played a central role.

These buildings, with their generally very small rooms, have internal plaster fireplaces associated with external ovens, suggesting cold winters (as in modern times in the region), unless this device was used to dry evening primrose skins.

The system of families grouped around collective granaries, which were considered to be the center of the settlement, was already in use in the North Mesopotamian Neolithic society of Tell Maghzaliyah and reached its full development during the Hassuna period.

The seeds of domesticated and dry-farmed plants collected in the villages indicate that the inhabitants of the round houses of the Halaf culture, like their contemporaries in Samarra and Hassuna, were largely sedentary farmers and breeders.

The last phases 3, 4, and 5 are documented by Tell el-Ubaid itself,[114][123] but are above all marked by the spread of the Ubaid culture to northern Iraq and northeastern Syria in the middle of the 6th millennium BC, with Tepe Gawra, northeast of Nineveh, and Zeidan, near the confluence of the Khabour and Euphrates rivers, as significant sites.

The scarcity of marks of status and differentiation in the remains, and the virtual absence of luxury, exotic, or prestige objects, in villages that were generally small in size and with very few differences in individual architecture, are indicators of a type of organization with little hierarchical structure.

[124] It was not until the last centuries of Tell Abada's occupation (end of 5th millennium BC) that archaeologists observed specialized activity in the manufacture of ceramics and the intensive use of marker tokens, a sign of more elaborate administrative management.

These sites, like Hadji Muhammed and Ras al-Amiya, were discovered accidentally during modern construction work, as they lie deep beneath thick layers of alluvium carried by the streams of the ancient Mesopotamian delta.

[77] In addition, the Oueili levels of Ubaid 0 have yielded pottery closely related to that of Choga Mami - attesting to contacts with the Samarra culture - female figurines and tripartite buildings similar to the Proto-Hassuna of Tell el-Sawwan.

[128]However, the buildings are much larger than those at Tell es-Sawwan: wooden posts support the roof, while stairs lead to terraces and a large living room with a fireplace, a possible place for family gatherings that seem to have brought two generations together.

[130][131] For others, the religion of the time still seems to have been practiced in small sanctuaries, and the large buildings discovered under the Eridu ziggurat seem more likely to have been used for meetings,[77][132] or to welcome visitors in the manner of the present-day mudhif of the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq.

[145] Habuba Kabira is a case in point: the Syrian site in the Middle Euphrates region shows such close links with southern Mesopotamia that this city and its religious center near Jebel Aruda are considered a "colony" of Uruk.

This food surplus - along with pearls and fish - was also traded between the southern elite and those in the north, where dry agriculture was less intensive, but where copper ore, precious stones, obsidian (southeastern Turkey), and wood were available, woolly sheep were raised for cloth, and the potter's wheel (already known by the middle of the 6th millennium BC) was introduced.

[152] The painted pottery of earlier cultures tends to disappear in favor of simpler materials, sometimes mass-produced and identical[124] - so-called "Coba" bowls with the "ox" symbol inlaid on some of them, also found at Tell Zeidan and, later, at Uruk - whose use is not yet attested, but which could be measures of rations, indicative of a more complex management of resources.

[143] At Tepe Gawra, the architecture of the large tripartite houses was reused for ritual purposes and became temples, often associated with fortified buildings, most likely under the control of an elite who could thus exercise political activity and mobilize labor and its production by acting as priests, sponsors of shrines, or in the name of deities.