Comparative Civilizations Review
Volume 40
Number 40 Spring 1999
Article 8
4-1-1999
N. Yoffee, J. J. Clark (eds.). Early Stages in the
Evolution of Mesopotamian Civilization: Soviet
Excavations in Northern Iraq.
Arthur S. Iberall
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Recommended Citation
Iberall, Arthur S. (1999) "N. Yoffee, J. J. Clark (eds.). Early Stages in the Evolution of Mesopotamian Civilization: Soviet Excavations in
Northern Iraq.," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 40 : No. 40 , Article 8.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol40/iss40/8
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Iberall: N. Yoffee, J. J. Clark (eds.). <em>Early Stages in the Evolution
96 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW
into Eurasia, or more particularly the diffusive spread of Homo
erectus across Eurasia, leads to a time table at which the gate
keeping entrance into the Americas, as a one time entrance and
take over, is keyed by the Bering Strait bridge and the time of
arrival of the species over the entire Siberian range. Once you
have one, two, a few such gated diffusions, one of them will take.
That is part of the detailed physics of stability transitions and
other so-called transport processes. You may wish to think that
you are free to wander the landscape of history in seeking out
such explanations, that there are many ways to skin cats. The
physical sciences limit you to only a number of processes whose
relative stability you have to assess, and that is the bridge we have
to offer.
P.S. We love this book. It brings us to the sense of a beginning of civilization, e.g., in the Near East right to the time period
and processes that one finds between the late Natufian and the
Halafian, with agricultural and pastoral beginnings back to the
Kebaran. This is our modelling contribution to Mellaart's and the
entire UNESCO book of facts.
Arthur S. Iberall
SOVIET CONTRIBUTIONS TO
MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION STUDIES
N. Yoffee, J. J. Clark (eds.). Early Stages in the Evolution of
Mesopotamian Civilization: Soviet Excavations in Northern Iraq.
Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press, 1993 (Translations of papers
originally published in Soviet Journals 1973-1989). 285 pp., 14
chapters, 211 figures, 4 maps, 1 table, index.
A Soviet archaeological expedition (Archaeological Institute
in Moscow of the USSR Academy of Science) spent twelve seasons from 1969 to 1980 exploring a group of prehistoric mounds
in northern Iraq on the Sinjar Plain, which lies between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers. The region is west of Tepe Gawra and
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north of Umm Dabaghiyah. Tepe Gawra and Nineveh are near
modern Mosul on the Tigris. At that longitude, shift about 130
miles to the west to land on the Habur River (called Khabar River
on National Geographic maps) which is a tributary further S to the
Euphrates. It is in that region, between the river and the Sinjar
Mountains to the E where the tells lie that the Soviet expeditions
explored from 1969 to 1980.
The time frame of the tells that were explored was about nine
thousand years ago (kya) for the earliest(Tell Maghzaliyah) to the
latest (Yarim Tepe III) of nearly five kya. Datings are all crude
radiocarbon dates. Dendrochronological corrections would
increase the time scale by about 500 years.
Certainly Klein, in herzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYWVUTSRQPONMLK
Ice Age Hunters of the Ukraine, 1973,
showed that players of whom not much had been heard of in the
West, the archaeologists of the USSR, could begin to make significant and useful contributions to world archaeology. Soviet
science wasn't all Lysenko; there was a considerable amount of
scientific cooperation of East and West by the mid-70s. Yoffee
and Clark attempt to show the archaeological value of USSR concern with archaeology in Northern Iraq. No doubt any such
exploratory researches, whether those of the USSR from 1969 to
1980, or the earlier British explorations, all mostly had military
intelligence purposes behind them; but those purposes may be
disregarded. The working scientists, whether experts or hacks, in
general had some idea of the mixed character of their missions.
God, country, and the military had to be served. So no moral
judgments are being made; the sole question is, what did they
contribute scientifically, conceptually?
Interlude - a basic archaeological context for this review:
Walking through the British Museum in 1993, this reviewer
noticed that their prehistoric findings within the Fertile Crescent
of the Taurus-Zagros arc in the Near East were arranged to display
largely the Hassuna, Samarran, and Halafian cultures of 8-7 kya.
Their time journey then continued into the Ubaid period in the
next millennium, 7-6 kya. By then, agriculture, grazing sheep,
goats, cattle, pottery, and metallurgy had emerged. Turning to
Sherratt (ed.) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Archaeology,
1980, i found that a much earlier Mesolithic startup, the Kebaran
culture, 17-14 kya, involving an exploitation of wild cereals,
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shows signs of existence from Sinai to Syria. This is followed by
a terminal period, the Natufian, perhaps 12-10 kya. Seasonally
occupied dwellings with considerable stylistic diversity exhibited
and implied less mobility than before; heavy stone tool artifacts
indicated emergence of cultivation of cereals, and domestication
of sheep, goats, and cattle, even though a major animal food staple still remained the hunted gazelle. Past 10 kya, a continuous
retreat of the glaciers could be noted.
In Sherratt's Section 16 on the emergence of cities in the Near
East, the contributor, Oates, points to the crucial innovation of
complex villages of 12-15 acre size in central Mesopotamia in the
Samarran phase at about 8 kya, with specialized craftsmanship,
trade in luxury goods, communal defense works, and evidence of
personal property and central redistribution. In the full Ubaid
period, 7 to 5 kya, one finds the development of an urban
Mesopotamia, supposedly the world's first urban civilization. A
map, Fig. 16.2, depicts 38 major sites in the Zagros and TigrisEuphrates region, with an additional handful beyond to the east.
The cluster includes Tepe Gawra as the most northerly, Sialk as
the most easterly, Eridu the most southerly, and Habuba the most
westerly.
If we turn to UNESCO's History of Humanity, Vol. 1, de Laet
(ed.), 1994, reviewed above, one finds Chapters 24, 36, 37, 38,
and 41 of use in pinning down a quite recent, highly authoritative,
broad picture of the Mesopotamian startup. These chapters cover
Western Asia from the end of the Middle Paleolithic, to the beginning of food production, to the first states, to plant and animal
domestication.
The UNESCO history offers, as a marvelous beginning-ending, a summary chapter (41) of the Western Asian history and
evolution during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. The story starts
from the Kebaran and how it got to be the successor to the 'last'
hunter-gatherer Aurignacian phase and the beginning of settlement and civilization. This reviewer notes that, as a working
physical scientist but amateur in civilizational studies, he was first
introduced to archaeological epochs by Mellaart, Earliest
Civilizations of the Near East, 1965. UNESCO's chapter 41 is
Mellaart writing just as authoritatively 30 years later and bringing
the story up to date among his peers. But there is more to that
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than a 'simple' story of some arcane history: in our opinion, we
can use that 1994 UNESCO book as a basis to compare and judge
this Yoffee book.
If we repeat Mellaart's 1994 Chronology, from his Table 16,
we have loosely:
Pre-Neolithic and Neolithic periods in
Kebaran
Later Kebaran
Early Natufian
Late Natufian
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
Begin Halaf, Hassuna, Samarra
End Halaf, begin Ubaid 3
Western Asia - kya
19-14.5
14.5-12.7
12.75
11.7-11
11-10.25
10.5-9.25
9.25-8.25
8.25
7.25-7 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedc
The Yoffee book: The Soviet explorations focused on the
mound sites of Yarim Tepe, Tell Sotto, and Kultepe; but having
explored 10-15 sq. mi. around their Yarim Tepe base, they surveyed more than 50 Ubaid, Halaf, Hassuna, and pre-Hassuna
sites.
Chapters 3-5. Before the Soviet work, Jarmo (9-8 kya) was
the only known aceramic Neolithic site in Northern Iraq. Karim
Shahir offered a beginning of food-producing at about eleven kya;
Hassuna was a highly developed culture of farmers and pastoralists at about seven kya; but the sequence connection was fragmentary. In 1971-1975 the Soviets explored Tell Sotto (a mile or
so west of Yarim Tepe). Below its archaic Hassuna level, they
found a small early agricultural settlement involving, also, very
primitive ceramics. Their 1976 excavations at Kultepe revealed
similar material to Sotto. Those Sotto-type studies pushed the
emergence of settled villages in Northern Mesopotamia back in
time, but did not reach their origins. Sites earlier than Kultepe, at
perhaps 8-9 kya, of an aceramic nature, would be required to
answer the issue of origins of the Hassuna and Samarra cultures.
No older settlements were found locally; thus they surmised that
these Sotto-type settlements were the earliest in the Sinjar Plain
studied, and that earlier sedentary activities might be located in
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the hilly spurs of the surrounding mountains. This was confirmed
in 1977 by discovery of a fortified aceramic settlement, Tell
Maghzaliyah - explored 1977-1980. It is a little further north of
Yarim Tepe III on the Abra River. Their subsistence economy was
a mix of hunting-gathering, and agriculture. Their sedentary
character clearly indicated the importance of agriculture. Precise
connection from Maghzaliyah to Sotto-type plain farmers, while
short in time, is not completely clear. Thus the preceramic groups
now include the oldest strata of Jarmo in Shimshara, and Tell
Maghzaliyah (i.e., perhaps nine kya). The early ceramic sites
include the early oldest strata of Tell Sotto, Kultepe, Umm
Dabaghiyah, and the upper stratum of Jarmo (eight kya).
Chapter 6 (written 1987) deals with the earlier British explorations of the upper Hassuna levels at Yarim Tepe I (Lloyd 1938,
Oates 1965), and then the Soviet study of the lower Hassuna levels (1969-1971). The latter exhibited settlements of those three
"most important early agricultural cultures of northern
Mesopotamia," the Hassuna, Halaf, and Ubaid.
Chapter 7 deals with the archaic phase of the Hassuna culture.
It discusses a whole wide range of the problems as the Soviet
commentator sees them (1982). It attempts an absolute chronology at the end perhaps from about 8-8.5 kya to final Samarran and
Halafian phase at perhaps seven kya.
Chapter 8 deals with the Halafian levels of Yarim Tepe II, to
its earliest somewhat uncertain start up of seven kya. Chapter 9
continues the Halafian levels examination in Yarim Tepe III
(1978-1980 season) - reported on in 1984. The findings of Tepe
Gawra, Tell Arpachiyah, and Yarim Tepe III are related, through
the Halafian period into the Ubaid. Chapter 10 (1982) deals with
burial practices of the Halaf culture.
Chapter 11 (1982) deals with the Ubaid levels of Yarim Tepe
III, which culture is the proto-Sumerian, i.e. immediately precedes the beginning of Sumerian civilization proper in
Mesopotamia, and is found all through Mesopotamia: this is the
Soviet inference asserted in 1982. They date the Sinjar Valley in
Northern Ubaid culture at about 6-6.5 kya and regard it as a major
route for its western transmission.
Chapter 12 is a chapter on the earliest evidence for metallurgy in ancient Mesopotamia. The authors comment on pushing
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copper datings back from seven kya to nine or ten kya at Cayonu.
The Soviet authors are confident that their explorations exhibit
findings of copper ornaments and tools from perhaps 8-8.5 kya to
6-6.6 kya (1981 report).
Chapter 13 is a 1984 recapitulation of what the Soviet findings achieved in clarifying a history of Northern Mesopotamia.
Chapter 14, written by the American editor, Yoffee, is his
1983 paper on Mesopotamian Interaction Spheres. It was because
of that paper, given at a USA-USSR symposium on the archaeology of the Near East, that the editor began to plan to get the
Soviets to help interpret their work, e.g. in this volume.
A bibliography covering material of some relevance to both
Soviet and non Soviet work referred to by the Soviets from 1936
to 1992 is included
The nonspecialist reader will find it useful to review the modern background in the UNESCO series, especially Mellaart's
chapter, for the overall panorama against which the Soviet
contributions to Northern Mesopotamia history from nine kya to
about six kya were made. We will also remind the civilizationist
reader that the trend to urban civilizations has its startup in the
late Natufian, according to us (Iberall, White, Wilkinson, zyxwvuts
Foundations) and that it will pay to know what came before.
Arthur S. Iberall
A TEXTBOOK ON PREHISTORIC MESOAMERICA
Richard E.W. Adams. Prehistoric Mesoamerica. Revised edition
(first edition 1977). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1991. Paperback, 454 pp. : 402 pp. text; 17 pp. appendices; 25
pp. references; 9 pp, index. 125 illustrations; 18 maps; 2 tables.
The reviewer, as a physical generalist, is undertaking the
review of a specialist textbook; the reader is thus forewarned.
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