Ubaid

Preliminary results from further survey and a series of test pit excavations at the flint scatter site of Ras Ushayriq (QHNER 141) during the 2010 season has led to a re-assessment of the nature and chronology of the site.  Over 1500 lithics were collected including implements of the Arabian Bifacial Tradition (ABT) in the form of barbed and tanged arrowheads, a ‘knife’, and possible bifacial performs.  The site has also yielded an axe which exhibits evidence of hafting and a particularly high number of scraper tools.  A hearth has also been uncovered containing lithics, pottery, and fragments of animal and fish bone.  Furthermore, over fifty pieces of Ubaid pottery were discovered, and most significantly five worked fragments of obsidian.

The diversity of technologies combined with the wide variety of different raw material types present suggests successive re-occupation of the site using both local and imported materials.  Evidence of interaction between Arabia and Mesopotamia in the form of Ubaid pottery suggests a date of between 6000-3500BC, placing the main occupation of the site within the Neolithic and the early Holocene.  The recovery of five worked obsidian pieces represents the largest assemblage of obsidian discovered in Qatar to date and implies that the trade in this commodity is perhaps more significant than previously surmised.

Throughout the late Pleistocene and early Holocene the landscape of Qatar was transformed by global climate changes, cycles of sea level rise and fluctuations in rainfall. The Peninsula is formed from Eocene limestone which was subsequently shaped by geomorphological processes, leaving a gently undulating landscape featuring rock outcrops and sediment bowls. As a result of late Pleistocene and early Holocene sea level rise, the Arabian Gulf now surrounds the western, northern and eastern sides of the landmass, but for most of prehistory Qatar was part of a landlocked, hyper-arid region. Given these changes it is therefore important to consider both the changing external conditions that influenced human behaviour in prehistory and the varying taphonomic pathways that were favourable for site preservation. These are fundamental tenets of landscape archaeology, placing past human activities within the wider context of a landscape that is the product of climatic fluctuation and geomorphological change.

After a thirty-year hiatus, the French mission to Larsa and Tell el ‘Uwaili ( southern Iraq) resumed its fieldwork in 2019, for two seasons of one month each. In Larsa, several complementary surveys changed our understanding of the site, revealing in particular part of the network of channels supplying the city. The excavations focused on the sector north of the E-Babbar, the temple of the Sun-God Shamash, patron deity of Larsa, whose reoccupation in the Hellenistic period seems more important than expected. Two buildings are being explored, B48 and B50. B48 is a large Hellenistic house (650 sq. m.) part of a well-planned neighborhood. In Trench B50, below a very fragmentary Hellenistic temple, lay a major temple of the Old-Babylonian city, which remains to be identified. It is provided with massive mudbrick walls (5.6m wide at most) preserved in height up to the first storey of the building in some rooms (4.5m high). In ‘Uwaili, a new trench was open in the continuation of the excavations undertaken in the 80s on the northwest flank of the Tell where the Ubaid 0 levels (7th millennium BC) are close to the surface. Three hundred square meters were cleared and five architectural levels identified, numbered from 1 to 5 from top to bottom. The structures of level 5 correspond to the last Ubaid 0 level of occupation. The habitat is much denser than expected, and combines housing with small associated storage structures. The extension of the excavations in the next campaigns should bring more insights on the organization of the early Ubaid village.

The “Ubaid” has become a clumsy conflation of Chalcolithic time period, cultural bloc, ceramic type and social evolutionary phase. It has recently, and appropriately, been critiqued and deconstructed, notably in Beyond the Ubaid (Carter and Philip 2010a). Material culture variation at many scales has been noted within the wide-spread similarities which have justified the Ubaid as a category. These dynamics require explanation and this paper suggests that explanations might be better achieved, and paradigms in the field refreshed, through the use of communities of practice, theories of appropriation, complexity theory and current cognitive science. Within the fragmented landscape of the region, I suggest that they can be complementary, helping our understanding of polythetic variation, such as we find in the Ubaid. Aesthetics are proposed to explain Ubaid similarity and variation using examples of architecture, ceramics, and the manipulation and representation of the body. Aesthetics are fundamental elements of practice, function, ethics and value. This approach allows a focus on the affordances of material culture, and the materials and technologies which facilitate it, to explain change. This is argued for both the period, broadly the 5th Millennium, in which there is limited evidence of institutions, and in the 4th Millennium in the creation of what we call Mesopotamia.

"This paper discusses the results and wider significance of archaeological excavations undertaken on a Neolithic settlement located on the island of Marawah, in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Survey and excavation revealed the remains of seven prehistoric mounds associated with Neolithic structures. One of the structures measured approximately 4m long and 2m in width and, built out of stone, survived to a height of approximately 70cm. Finds include pottery, lithics, shell beads and bone. The site represents a unique architectural style for the Gulf Neolithic coastal communities, that does not have any obvious parallels. Radiocarbon analysis suggests the site was occupied around 7,600 years ago."

Ubaid pottery was famously recorded by H. R. Hall during the excavation of a tell mound at Al cUbaid, and for nearly half a century became associated with the origins of urbanisation and developments in social hierarchy in southern Mesopotamia. The discovery in 1968 of cUbaid pottery around the western Gulf littoral, some 1,000km to the south of Mesopotamia, raised questions regarding the nature of interaction between these two societies. This paper considers the origins of this interaction and the effects of geomorphology, hydrology and the palaeoenvironment on regional migration. The extent to which topography and marine transgression were a catalyst for migration is also discussed, and how, or if such factors influenced post-transgression settlement dynamics.

Regionalized patterns and paths to "complexity": relections about ceramic provinces and organizational modalities in the 6th-4th millennia Northern Mesopotamia Abstract In the last decades, the northern half of the so-called "Greater Mesopotamia" has been the center of many works and relections about diversiication of the trajectories towards proto-urban organizational models. Change in territorial systems can be observed over time not only on the basis of data generated by surveys, but also through comparisons between ceramic assemblages eventually revealing meso-regional homogeneities. Through a reassess

Notes: There are highly educated scholars on prehistory of Eurasia which probably will seriously advance in theory of research and interpretation of the archaeological records in the next one-two decades. From past we have learned that neither mass material nor simplified theories can describe prehistory in way to satisfy both readers and authors. Even after most dedicated research, the result is usually so modest that the authors may turn for while to another field of science for fresh air and to accumulate more intellectual energy until the next dig in prehistory.
Also, the global serious researchers on prehistory know that most difficult part is to connect the different regions. The article by G. J. Stein connects South Mesopotamia with North and Eastern Anatolia to study the archaeological material as a source for an analysis of the level of social complexity. This is very significant connection for the Eurasian researchers, especially for those who study the genesis of the Early Bronze Age in Eurasia.
Stein has a chronological table but probably in future will explain why LC4 and LCS are Chalcolithic and not at least partially Early Bronze Age. The fourth millennium cal BCE in Eurasia is generally the end of Copper Age and the genesis of Bronze Age in central Eurasia with different lower borders for beginning and abt 3000 cal BCE (the beginning of Troy I) as the end of the period.
The second problem is whether in future we need to keep the term complex society as a basic scientific term with specific contents or we need a new terminology. In fact each society is complex. Stein refers to the so-called social inequality – a term that we need to forget if we want to move the science ahead. Social inequality means nothing even if there is a law which gives some privileges of some. The inequality is an abstract term – do we write about social formalized privileges, law-gaps which allow rich gangs, or about societal elite members who become wealth thanks to their talent, hard work, and abilities? Should we put all these categories in one abstract term to look like the past Marxists whose role was more to make science dark for truth and wiseness? In fact the so-called social inequality exists as biological even between the different genders – male and women who are physically unequal. So, the social inequality cannot be a marker of complexity as a specific category, since it is natural together with complex society. Society can be very simple but with high difference according to wealth – so many examples in Africa! Dictatorship also simplifies society, although wealth creates big differences.
G. J. Good term looks formalized leadership, but where there is a political centralization, social hierarchy (based on wealth and social position) and the so-called economic stratification, we may need to think about state or chiefdom. In other words, every society is complex (although in different way), but it has different political structure (the classic hierarchy would be band, tribe, chiefdom and state).
The figurines on Fig 2 will make some specialists acknowledge that the mobile and semi-mobile communities of Chernavoda I Cernavoda III have at least typological similarities with distance cultures to southeast. At it is well known, the Balkan/Pontic – Anatolian/Mesopotamia relationships in the 5th – 4th millennium still need advance in the research.
Stein writes on p. 135: “Mortuary evidence suggests the emergence of hereditary elite social status in the LC2. If correctly dated, the burials and “libn” tombs at Gawra indicate the presence of wealthy elites – including children whose rich grave goods suggest inherited high status.” From theoretical perspectives the statement is partially true:1. So many examples show that rich children’s  burials may result in the fact that the family buried lovely child and the gifts expressed this love without being a real indicator of the family’s wealth; 2. Wealth does not equal elite. As in the contemporary world, in prehistory accumulation of wealth was a private matter or related to specific political system. The term elite in social science would mean either a moral category or a status category. If we accept the status interpretation, obviously in human society not every rich had high social/political status – the typical instance is Vassil Bozhkov who is known as the Skull, as well as the Italian and current Eastern European Mafia. They may attempt to get high social status, but any public attempt creates a wall of social negative response, since the social status is a moral value and obtaining high social status based on wealth is not a privilege of everyone. There is no reason to believe in Prehistory was different.  There were many rich people (probably more than today) but only some of them attempted elite social status as a leadership or political status, and some might have attempted but never got it. So, we don’t need to idealize prehistory especially when there are no written records. Most importantly, high social/political status does not require wealth in human society.
L.N.

The results of two seasons of extensive survey by the Qatar Museums Authority and the University of Birmingham around Wadi Debayan in northern Qatar have revealed substantial differences in the density and distribution of monuments from the late Stone Age onwards, particularly a high density of pre-Islamic burial cairns. Such a high density must reflect either a sustained population over a long period or significant rise in population over a short period. Given that very minor climate fluctuation can significantly affect resources in a hyper-arid landscape, the analysis of proxy data from regionally relevant environmental sediment traps appear to be a prerequisite for further meaningful research into pre-Islamic population dynamics. However, the identification of sediment traps remains a major problems within a deflated, hyper-arid landscape.

Coring within the wadi found evidence for marine sediments during the first half of the seventh millennium BP, followed by sea-level stabilization and encroaching intertidal vegetation during the second half of the seventh millennium BP. These results emphasize the potential for the presence of organic-rich deposits within wadi sequences, particularly in intertidal zones.

This paper summarises the preliminary results of an analysis of the mammalian, bird and fish vertebrate fauna from site H3 at Sabiyah in Kuwait. The site is a settlement located on the northern shore of Kuwait Bay. Radiocarbon dating, as well as distinctive pottery found at the site, confirms that the settlement dates to the late 6th/early 5th millennium BC. Domestic livestock exploited include sheep/goat and cattle. Hunting was carried out for gazelle, fox and marine turtle. Birds so far identified include cormorants. The numerous fish remains include requiem sharks, sawfish, sea catfish, groupers, jacks/trevallies, emperors, seabream and tuna. Most fishing was probably carried out in shallow waters adjacent to the site, although some larger jacks and groupers, and particularly the tuna, must have been caught in deeper offshore waters. A large number of sea catfish otoliths were recovered from the site. These are currently being studied by the authors in the Fish Ageing Laboratory of the Mariculture and Fisheries Department, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research. Preliminary data suggest that the sea catfish were caught during both summer and winter months. Interestingly, some of their otoliths had been utilised as blanks for the manufacture of beads.

A preliminary analysis is provided of the vertebrate faunal remains from a newly discovered ‘Ubaid settlement located on the island of Dalma in the United Arab Emirates. The site dates to the early 5th millennium BC. Fishing and hunting were of great importance although animal husbandry was also practiced, a small amount of bones of domestic sheep/goat being present at the site. Gazelle were sometimes hunted, and marine turtle, dugong and dolphin only appear to have been occasionally exploited. Other marine resources utilised included crabs and marine mollusca. Fish bones however form the most significant component of the assemblage. Ongoing analysis of the fish remains suggests that a wide range of species are present, including inshore as well as pelagic species. Major groups include the subclass Elasmobranchii (cartilaginous sharks and rays) as well as the following families amongst the Osteichthyes (bony fishes): Belonidae (needlefish), Serranidae (groupers), Sparidae (seabreams) and Scombridae (tuna/mackerel). Other fish families represented included Ariidae (marine catfish), Carangidae (jacks), Lethrinidae (emperors), Sphyraenidae (barracuda) and Scaridae (parrotfish). Initial biometric work suggests that some fishes were of a substantial size. A comparison is made with other published contemporary sites in the region.

"The effects of changes in sea level over the past 100,000 years have been monumental both as a powerful catalyst for migration and for the displacement of populations. While the submergence of earlier landscapes has generally made them inaccessible to archaeologists, the potential for environmental preservation is thought to be higher than in most terrestrial areas. Despite this, these landscapes are often considered a ‘terra incognita’ to mainstream archaeology, due not only to the depth of water, but also to their burial through sedimentation. In the Arabian Gulf and elsewhere this has inevitably led to the marine areas being given less ‘archaeological credence’ than terrestrial areas.

Over recent years a multitude of extensive marine geophysical data sets have been gathered, chiefly for the purposes of oil and gas exploration. Although such geophysical surveys are primarily targeted towards the mapping of deep subsurface rock formations, the top section of the data can be processed specifically to detail the currently unknown shallow palaeo-geomorphology of the Gulf, providing information that would be impossible to collect within archaeological budgets. Using such data to document palaeolandscapes is just one element of a marine mapping program which can form the basis of a cohesive strategy for managing the archaeological resource in marine areas. Such strategies impact upon education, the accessibility of heritage information to the public, and ultimately the protection of this marine cultural landscape."

Preliminary rapport about the activities during season 2004 in 3 sites on Urfa Dam area: Körche (close to Tilbes Höyük) -The Ubaid site-, Surtepe (the EB high mudbrick platform) and Tilvez Höyük (a 3 ha. site during the EB I period). Here is shown a draught plan of one of the bipartite Ubaid buildings found at Körche, plus associated painted pottery photos.

This paper explores connections between infant mortuary rites and strategies of wealth transmission in Mesopotamia prior to urban expansion. By considering the social roles of infants in relation to lineage and household reproduction, it challenges interpretations linking ‘rich’ infant burials to ascribed rank at birth during the Late Chalcolithic period. Drawing upon recent theoretical developments in the anthropology of childhood and models of gift exchange, the intramural burial of infants is explained as a positive measure that revived the productive capacity of households. Building on this argument, it is suggested that the ambiguous status of infants sanctioned the removal of wealth from circulation as part of mortuary rites, thereby guaranteeing its future flow within the closed context of the household group. A reappraisal of the infant burial record demonstrates how mortuary rites can form part of the cultural strategies that allow kin groups to expand their authority and capital over time.

"The origin and course of the Neolithic on the Arabian Peninsula is the subject of an ongoing academic debate. Faunal data suggest an origin for domestication of animals in the Levant and these can be found in Arabia from the sixth millennium onwards. In contrast, lithic evidence does not support the hypothesis that Neolithic herders, accompanying their herds, spread over the entire Peninsula, as they did not leave significant traces of their material culture. Although Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)/
PPNB influences can be traced across the northern part of Arabia, it is barely possible to observe them further south. By contrast, lithic technology in this region is characterised by major indigenous developments that might originate from a Pleistocene cultural heritage. By discussing the process of Neolithisation in Arabia from different points of view we can avoid the pitfalls of simplistic or monocausal models as well as preconceptions. Furthermore, we will be able to demonstrate that the Neolithic developed differently in different regions of the Arabian Peninsula."

Recent geomorphological and palaeoclimatologic research showed that irrigational agriculture was not an absolute condition for settlement of Southern Mesopotamia starting from the 11th millennium BCE. Between the 6th and the 4th millenia BCE (starting from Ubeid 0), a marine transgression took place. As a result, the entire territory from Tell Oueilli and Eridu up to Nippur became a wetland ecosystem, with Tell Oueilli, Ur and Eridu being not far from the outer delta edge. With this “Ubaidian transgression” coming to an end and reversed, accompanied by a further aridisation, the inhabitants of the Southern alluvium had to rely more on the levee agriculture, while still continuing to take advantage from the wetland resources and from the seasonal marshland pastures. In the 3rd and the 2nd millennia the “sea”, a-ab-ba of the cuneiform sources, found near Ur and Lagash, was a complex deltaic structure of freshwater and saline open stretches, intermixed with tidal flats and reed marshes. The deurbanisation at the end of the Old Babylonian period could be the end of an adaptation cycle to the changing conditions of this wetland zone. The reasons which led to the creation and collapse of social complexity, urban society and state in Southern Mesopotamia invite a study in the light of deltaic processes supported by modern ethnographic data. Returning to Iraq after a long time gap, the Russian archaeological mission will focus on a multidisciplinary study of the wetlands and their surroundings. We present a preliminary report of reconnaissance at Tell Dehaila (ES 34), one of the biggest urban centers (comparable to Ur) of the Old Babylonian period.

The chapter presents the results of the excavation carried out during the first and third season of excavations at Tell Zurghul in 2015 and 2017. Area B is located on the top and Western slope of Mound B. Archaeological evidence so far uncovered points to the existence of a stratified sequence of buildings that belong to the chronological phase of the Ubaid Period of Southern Mesopotamia. Moreover, although the knowledge of the architecture of the buildings is limited due to the levelling caused by continuous superimpositions and the heavy erosion of the mound (particularly to the West and South-West), the nature of the materials that have been registered suggests that the buildings can be identified with temples.

The authors explore aspects of a well uncovered at Tel Tsaf, Israel, dating to the Middle Chalcolithic
Period, ca. 4800 cal b.c. The well was uncovered in close proximity to the settlement of Tel
Tsaf, shedding light on the hydraulic technology of the community. An exceptionally rich assemblage
of complete vessels has been found in situ at the bottom of the shaft. The ceramics show two
distinct typological features uncommon to other assemblages of the Middle Chalcolithic: double
paired handles and the so-called beakers, a new ceramic shape dominant in this assemblage. We
argue that the ceramic assemblage comprises task-specific vessel shapes designed for drawing water
from a well. The examples from Tel Tsaf are currently the earliest of their kind.

Study focused on the off-mound Late-post Ubaid site nearby Tilbes Höyük. Excavated since Fall 2000 until 2003 season. Now under the waters of the Birecik Dam. The painted Pottery shares some "Halafication" roots, even if we are talking about materials to be set on a very later Ubaid 4 and post-Ubaid (from Southern Ubaid chronology). Interesting "Terminal Ubaid" site. Similar materials yielded also from our current excavations at Surtepe. So, it seems those materials are common at a few sites on Birecik-Mid Turkish Euphrates.

The environmental and economic evidence from three seasons of excavation (1992-1994) at site DA11, an Ubaid-related settlement on Dalma island, United Arab Emirates is discussed. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the site was occupied during the second half of the 6th and first half of the 5th millennium. The discovery of carbonized date stones (Phoenix dactylifera) at site DA 11 has made an important contribution to the history of early date consumption in the Near East. Animal bones recovered during the excavations indicate that fishing and hunting were of great importance although sheep and goat husbandry was also practised. Gazelle, marine turtle, dugong and dolphin were also occasionally exploited. Fishing seems to have been an important activity with a wide range of species being represented, including inshore as well as pelagic species. Comparing the Dalma fish assemblage with those published in reports in the region suggests that there is some variation in the types of fishes caught in different areas. Other important marine resources utilised at Dalma included marine mollusca. In contrast to contemporary sites on the mainland, DA11 has an unusual range of exploited molluscs, dominated by a few species from exposed rocky shores, cobbles and coarse sand, along with a marked use of pearl oyster from shallow water cobbles and sea grass beds. Molluscs from sheltered lagoon environments, which are common on mid-Holocene sites on the mainland, are entirely absent. Overall this evidence highlights three important points: (1) the variation in fishes caught on broadly contemporary sites within the region which may be due to differences in available habitats between the different areas of the Gulf, (2) the overall patchiness of mollusc distribution along the shore reflects the quite subtle habitat needs of each species with the potential for them to change over time under different climates or other conditions, and (3) such factors must have had a marked effect on the human exploitation of these species.

A preliminary analysis is provided of the vertebrate faunal remains from a newly discovered ‘Ubaid settlement located on the island of Dalma in the United Arab Emirates. The site dates to the early 5th millennium BC. Fishing and hunting were of great importance although animal husbandry was also practiced, a small amount of bones of domestic sheep/goat being present at the site. Gazelle were sometimes hunted, and marine turtle, dugong and dolphin only appear to have been occasionally exploited. Other marine resources utilised included crabs and marine mollusca. Fish bones however form the most significant component of the assemblage. Ongoing analysis of the fish remains suggests that a wide range of species are present, including inshore as well as pelagic species. Major groups include the subclass Elasmobranchii (cartilaginous sharks and rays) as well as the following families amongst the Osteichthyes (bony fishes): Belonidae (needlefish), Serranidae (groupers), Sparidae (seabreams...