Zarzian

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. The latter is a "village" located 4 kilometers downstream from Shadinar Cave on the Great Zab River, and has been dated to the cave's B2 level (10,870 BP).^[33] The Zarzi cave, eponymous with the Zarzian culture, was discovered and excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by archaeologist Dorothy Garrod. Her discoveries were instrumental in defining the characteristics of the Zarzi culture, alongside those of the Natufian and Kebarian cultures of the Levant, also discovered in the 1930s.^[34] At the time, while archaeologists all but abandoned the Zagros, the Levant and the Natoufian culture were the focus of more detailed excavations. Despite this, more Zarzian sites were discovered in the 1960s - notably Warwasi, Pa Sangar, Ghar-i Khar - as well as a set of thirty-five bodies deposited in the Shadinar cave around 10,700 BP,^[35] which provided a better description of the Zarzian culture. Further research since the 1980s has shed light on elements such as climate, vegetation, and human activity. In 2006 and 2017, carbon-14 dating of animal bones found at several sites, such as Palegawra, allowed the refinement of various dates.^[36][37]

Carbon-14 dating at Shanidar and Palegawra indicates that the Zarzian presence began around 12,000 BP^{[nb 1]} and probably ended with the advent of the Neolithic around 10,000 years ago.^[23][38] During this period, climatic conditions improved sufficiently to allow vegetation to spread to higher altitudes.^[39] The Western Zagros, populated by deer and goats, seems to have been covered by a dense wooded steppe, while the Palegawra documentation indicates the presence of oaks, poplars and even junipers or tamarisk. The banks of the Middle Euphrates and probably the Tigris are bordered by riparian forests of poplars, willows, and tamarisk. However, there is a certain discrepancy between pollen data and paleozoological data, especially in the Zagros region, where forest animal species sometimes appear where pollen diagrams indicate the existence of steppes.^[37][40]

Object manufacturing

Flint from the Zarzi cave, c. 18,000-14,000 BP. Sulaymaniyah Museum

The reduction in tool size that began at the beginning of the Baradztian reached its peak during the Zarzian, with a variety of microlithic tools, notably in geometric shapes, including many triangles, trapezoids, and curved pieces at the end of the Zarzian. Polished axes have also been found at Palegawra and Zawi Chemi, but do not seem to belong to the Zarzian culture. The only polished axe that seems to belong to this culture comes from Deir Hajla in the Jezirah. As for heavy tools, various Late Zarzian sites, including Zawi Chemi, yield sandstone or granite millstones with cylindrical basalt pestles. Although some of these heavy tools can be transported - such as the 30-centimeter sandstone slabs found at Zawi Chemi - some appear to be embedded in the ground. Personal ornaments made from bones are also known. Some are made from marine shells, indicating the existence of a long-distance trade or travel network. Beads and pendants have also been found at Palegawra and Pa Sangar.^[41][42][43]

Zawi Chemi

During the Late Zarzian, the Zawi Chemi site seems to indicate a trend towards sedentarization. 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. With a stone foundation, they sometimes have a light stone or wooden superstructure topped by an organic roof.^[46][47] In Zawi Chemi, there is also an enigmatic circular structure 2-3 meters high, near which there is a deposit of fifteen wild goat skulls and seventeen wings of birds of prey.^[48] This installation leads to the hypothesis of the ritual use of raptor wings or feathers to adorn clothing or headdresses,^[49] and reminds researcher Joan Oates of the avian frescoes at Çatalhöyük.^[50] However, although the site shows a clear trend towards sedentarization, it seems to have been occupied only during the spring and summer periods, as the winter residence is still unknown.^[47]

Hunting and gathering

Inhabitants of these villages still hunt and gather, and there is no trace of agriculture or animal husbandry during this sequence. 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. These plants show no trace of domestication and no evidence of a predominance of cereals.^[56]

Nemrik, being closer to the mountains, which are less well supplied with plant foods than the plains, seems to have an economic base more closely linked to hunting. Numerous bolases, accompanied by the remains of hunted animals, which may simply have been shot by their hunters, suggest that young animals were captured for breeding purposes in the 7th millennium BC and that falconry was also possible, as it was much earlier in Zawi Chemi.^[58]

Family residences

The inhabitants of the villages of M'lefaat, Qermez Dere, and Nemrik had been sedentary hunter-gatherers since the 11th millennium BC, and in terms of housing they had perfected the skills of their Natoufian predecessors from the Levant: at Nemrik, houses buried in a circular pit included, in addition to wooden posts, two to four thick internal pillars. These vertically erect stone pillars, sometimes fashioned after an anthropomorphic model, support a terraced earth roof, some with ladders for roof access. These pillars are wrapped in a layer of clay and lime. Lime seems to have been used here earlier than in the Levant. In Nemrik and Qermez Dere, the floors are also repeatedly covered with lime.^[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.^[58]

Initially, houses were simply dug into the ground and were four to six meters wide. By the 9th millennium BC, they had expanded to a radius of between six and eight metres. In addition, at M'lefaat and Qermez Dere, villages were equipped with an open central area paved with pebbles. Designed for common household tasks, researchers have discovered millstones and fireplaces.^[59][60] Later, around the houses, the first low, above-ground walls of stone and/or earth were built around the original pit, and towards the end of the millennium, the first bricks appeared in Nemrik and M'lefaat. They replaced the stacked, dried earth of the low walls. They are made from a mixture of clay, water and a vegetable degreaser such as grain husk or chopped straw. The bricks are shaped in various ways (into wafers or cigars) and sun-dried - this is considered a characteristic of early Neolithic sites in northern and central Mesopotamia.^[60] They are cemented with a clay mortar. This prefabricated element technique avoids the drying time previously required between each layer of stacked earth.^[61][62]

Lithic materials

Nemrik polished stone representations of diurnal birds of prey.

Even before the Natoufian of the Levant, the lithic industry, which was very homogeneous in the region and based on local raw materials,^[63] was characterized by the laminar cutting of flint by pressure and by stone polishing. However, changes in this industry seem to have been more discreet during the first two millennia of its existence.^[64] At Nemrik, excavators found heavy objects such as millstones, grinders, mortars and pestles, grinding and polishing stones. Lighter objects include stone balls (bolases), plates, mace heads, pointed objects, and polished axes (including miniature specimens). Rarer stone vessels have also been discovered, one of which is made of marble.^[63]

Around 9500 BC, M'lefaat, although far removed from the Khiamian context, seems to be under Syrian influence, since El Khiam points are used.^[58][59] However, in the last phase of this industry - which Jacques Cauvin calls "Nemrikian" - more original diamond-shaped arrowheads appear: the "Nemrik points".^[59] From this period, archaeologists at M'leffat have found bone punches, beveled edges, and the oldest known collection of tokens.^[58]

Art and rituals

Primitive stone representation of a human figure. Nemrik - Iraq (8000-5000 BC). National Museum of Iraq - Baghdad.

Symbolic representations of birds of prey are found in polished stone, especially at Nemrik,^[65] carved at the end of stone rods (probably pestles).^[66] These birds of prey are related to the Zawi Chemi bone deposit discovered in 1960 and studied by Rose Solecki. They bear witness to an original local cult and could support the hypothesis of the use of falconry.^[58] The skeleton of an individual was found in a burnt-out house, his arms apparently extended towards one of these bird heads.^[67] Other animals are modeled in clay, carved or engraved on stone vases: wild boars, snakes, lions, and foxes at Hallan Çemi in southeastern Anatolia. Human figures were also made. The wild ox, though occasionally hunted, is nowhere to be seen except^[68] in Hallan Çemi: one house contains the skull and horns of a wild aurochs, which were once hung on the wall.^[69] The subjects are similar to those of objects from Mureybet in Syria and Cafer Höyük in Turkey. Other objects found at Nemrik include stone pendants of various shapes, malachite beads, stone representations of sexual organs, and river shell ornaments.^[70]

At Qermez Dere, archaeologists have noted one or two pairs of clay stelae whose function does not appear to be to support the roofs of houses. These stelae could have a symbolic meaning, suggesting that both ritual and domestic activities took place in the houses.^[69]

Qermez Dere and Nemrik show some evidence of ritual: in particular, the deliberate preservation of human skulls carried into each house in the late period of both villages. This indicates ancestor worship and early recognition of the house as a "family home," confirming the sedentary nature of the region's inhabitants and underscoring the solidarity between members of the same family. A cemetery from the last phase of occupation at Nemrik contains burial objects, but also flint projectile points embedded in the bones of some of the bodies - clear evidence of violent deaths.^[60]

Southern Mesopotamia

During the 8th and 7th millennia BC, the landscape of southern Mesopotamia seems to have been a collection of constantly fluctuating marshlandsalongside more arid areas, the whole presenting a landscape generally comparable to that in which the Marsh Arabs live today. 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. Some of them also lie beneath the remains of historical eras that are currently being explored. Some sites, such as Hadji Muhammed and Ras al Amiya, were discovered by accident during modern construction.^[76]

In the desert areas west of the vast wadi systems, which are now drained and dry, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of flint industries similar to those in the late Levant, with parallels to the flint industries of northern Arabia. These industries are perhaps characteristic of the Gulf region, which was still arid at the time - and undoubtedly influenced by a monsoon climate.^[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.^[79]

A home in the Zagros

The Bestansur excavation site in October 2021.

Excavated between 2012 and 2017, the Bestansur site is located in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains on the edge of the Shahrizor Plain, 30 kilometers southeast of the city of Sulaymaniyah. Geographically close, but older than Jarmo, the village survived between 8000 BC and 7100 BC. The inhabitants enjoy a wide range of ecological opportunities, including fertile arable land, water sources, hilly and mountainous terrain suitable for hunting a variety of animals and harvesting a variety of plants, not to mention the proximity of several stone deposits suitable for the manufacture of polished and carved stone tools.^[73]

Necklace made of white stones and cornelians found at the Neolithic site of Bestansur. Iraq (7800-7500 BC). Museum of Sulaymaniyah - Iraq.

The architecture of Bestansur was characterized by rectilinear, multi-room adobe buildings. Not all of these buildings appear to have been used for habitation: one was devoted entirely to burying the dead. The bodies, often dismembered, were probably exhumed and certain parts, especially skulls, removed for reburial in the dwellings. 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.^[73]

Nevertheless, this dietary stress occurred despite a high level of biodiversity that should have reduced dependence on a number of Neolithic plants and thus limited the risks associated with early agriculture and the early exploitation of animals such as domestic goats, sheep, and pigs. Again, some form of hunting of small and large mammals persisted, as did the consumption of fish, poultry, and land snails, important components of the diet.^[73]

Chogha Golan is one of the oldest known Neolithic sites in Iran. Excavated in 2009 and 2010, it covers an area of about 3 hectares and 11 levels of occupation from the Ceramic Neolithic (between 12,000 and 9,800 BP calibrated) have been attributed to the site. 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. The animal remains are very varied: goats, wild boars, gazelles, wild donkeys, cattle, hares, rodents, birds and fish, etc.^[74]

The abundant botanical remains document the beginnings of agriculture and show that it appeared over a very long period of time. Here, as in Bestansur, wild varieties of some of the basic Neolithic crops, barley, wheat, lentils and peas, were found in the vicinity of the site at the time of occupation. Again, various studies on the evolution of domesticated plants indicate that the Zagros was one of the hotbeds of plant domestication, along with the northern and southern Levant.^[74]

Tell Maghzaliyah and the Belikh Valley

The settlement of the Tigris valleys is mainly documented by the site of Tell Maghzaliyah, the remains of a village dating from the end of the 8th millennium BC, located not far from Qermez Dere, in a wadi on the edge of the Jebel Sinjar mountain range, whose cultural affiliation brings it closer to the cultures that characterize the late PPNB of the northern Levant and the Belikh Valley in northern Syria, where some twenty-four sites, including Tell Sabi Abyad, have been discovered. The inhabitants of these villages belonged to the typical PPNB cultural facies of Cafer Höyük or Çayönü and originated from the Taurus Mountains and other regions of Anatolia. Their economy is based on both hunting and agriculture, a well-established feature of the entire Belikh Valley, where wheat and barley are grown and sheep and goats are raised.^[58][68]

Unlike the ancient round houses of Qermez Dere and Nemrik, which were built around a common area, the buildings at Tell Maghzaliyah, all of which are clearly residential, are rectangular, with mud walls built on a foundation of limestone slabs and filled with stones. There are both storage and kitchen-living areas, and one of the houses has a chimney with an external flue, similar to later houses at Umm Dabaghiyah and Çatal Höyük. As in Nemrik, the final phases of the village show a wall flanked by towers surrounding the houses, indicating possible conflicts with neighbors.

Reconstruction of a Neolithic sickle. Blade-shaped stones are held in place with natural bitumen. Vienna Museum of Natural History.

Like Nemrik, the early levels of Tell Maghzaliyah show a predominance of obsidian, despite the remoteness of the nearest deposits in Anatolia, from where the chipping technique was imported. The site also contains projectile points, both leaf-shaped and knives, as well as clockwise rotating drills. Tell Sabi Abyad II, Byblos, and Amuq points were found in the upper levels of a site in the Belikh Valley. Flint scrapers, later used during the Hassuna period, are already present. Bitumen-coated sickles have also been found at Tell Maghzaliyah and other villages in the Belikh Valley, the blades of which show traces of grain harvesting. The inhabitants also left behind marble bowls, bracelets, and polished punches. Although the village of Tell Maghzaliyah is still pottery based, plaster tableware and decorated pottery are also used. These can be found throughout Jezirah and the Syrian Desert, especially at Seker al-Aheimar.^[58][68]

Seker al-Aheimar and the "Pre-Proto-Hassuna" period

Seker al-Aheimar is a large Mesopotamian site of about 4 hectares and is the only one that provides information on the transition from PPNB to Proto-Hassuna pottery. The acetate levels of the PPNB village show small rectangular buildings on a paved platform of a type already encountered at Tell Maghzaliyah. The use of lime plaster on brick walls was common. While some aspects of the utilitarian stone industry at Seker al-Aheimar resemble that of the Zagros, the end scrapers, burins, polished axes, and arrowhead types common at the end of the PPNB resemble those found in the Belikh Valley. Decorative objects include gypsum vessels as well as stone and Anatolian obsidian beads.^[80]

The most important discovery, however, is that of numerous stone vessels, white pottery and, above all, an early type of watertight vessel, which is the oldest form of pottery found in all of North and Central Mesopotamia. Fired on a low, temperate fire, which is characteristic of the first ceramic Neolithic, this pottery has a dense, granular consistency and is very different from the future "Proto-Hassuna" pottery.^[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.^[81]

The Proto-Hassuna phase

Umm Dabaghiyah, occupied for three or four centuries, located in the Iraqi Jezireh between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, much better irrigated in the 7th millennium BC than today, provides the most complete documentation of the Proto-Hasna phase (c. 7000 BC - 6500 BC). The population of Umm Dabaghiyah, undoubtedly the heir to the Syrian PPNB, still operated a mixed economy, with the evening primrose being hunted primarily for its skin and meat. This may be a seasonal site. However, wheat, lentils, and barley were present, as well as typical marsh plants, suggesting the presence of nearby salt marshes and shallow lakes in the area. Wall paintings suggest that the fast-moving onagers were caught in nets.^[83][84]

Neolithic wall painting from Tell Bouqras in the Deir ez-Zor museum.

The buildings at Umm Dabaghiyah show indentations in the walls, suggesting that they were accessed through the roofs. 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. Some of the buildings, built in long rows, appear to have been used for storage. Similar but shorter storage structures were found further north, at Yarim Tepe.^[88][89]

Alabaster pot with handles, Bouqras region 6500 BC Musée du Louvre

Compared to other sites, Umm Dabaghiyah does not have many examples of pottery. Moreover, it is very similar to the pottery of Bouqras, which seems to be related to it, in that it is simple: large jars or bowls painted in red ochre and sometimes decorated with rudimentary motifs such as bands, chevrons, or dots. However, Bouqras is a much larger village with clear origins in the Syrian PPNB. In addition to the typical Neolithic acetate material and ceramics previously described for Umm Dabaghiyah, finds include alabaster pots and paintings of ostriches or cranes painted in red ochre on some interior walls, all covered with plaster. These buildings, with three or four rows of rooms, are regular in plan and arranged along narrow streets in a coherent layout. Although there is no clear evidence yet, the size of some of the buildings and this layout suggest the establishment of a formal authority.^[90]

Alabaster figurine discovered at Tell-es-Sawwan with inlay of another material to emphasize the eyes. Oriental Institute Museum.

Pottery made with a technique similar to that of Umm Dabaghiyah and Bouqras, but in a different style, is also found, although more rarely, in Levels I and II of the Tell es-Sawwan site.^{[nb 2]} Sawwan is a 7th millennium BC village in Lower Mesopotamia on the Tigris River, about 80 km north of Baghdad. About 400 tombs have been discovered here, three-quarters of which contain infants. Many of the graves are missing bones. One, for example, contains only the bones of a child's hand, suggesting that some bodies may have been moved to other gravesites. Beneath the tombs is an enormous amount of alabaster objects: vases, figurines, and miscellaneous items. All of these objects are specific to the Tell es-Sawwan site: some figurines have inlays of other materials, such as shells or stones of different colors, often highlighting the eyes. Depending on how they are arranged in relation to the tombs, researchers have inferred significant social differentiation between individuals. A few clay and alabaster figurines found outside the tombs may have been associated with funerary rituals. Most of the tombs were found under large, three-part buildings (known as "tripartite"), a structure that persisted well into Mesopotamian antiquity. However, some burials are located in other sectors and are clearly separated from any architecture, making it difficult to make a clear interpretation between "burials under dwellings" and "cemeteries".^[90][91]

The houses here are "tripartite", that is, they are composed of a central rectangular space, which is entered through one of its widths, giving access to a series of small rooms that surround it symmetrically along its length.^[92] At Tell es-Sawwan, these buildings are found empty of household goods, as if the inhabitants had left and taken everything with them. In fact, the site was probably abandoned and reoccupied after an estimated period of between 123 and 300 years.^[90][93]

The end of the Proto-Hassuna period also marked the first use of seals: at Hassuna, Bouqras and Sawwan, they introduced a practice that developed in Mesopotamia and still persists today as a "guarantee". The first seal impressions appear on small white lids, clearly identifying the "property" contained in the sealed container. By the end of the Samarra Period, these seals were widely used as "contractual" devices in central and northern Mesopotamia.^[94]

The Hassuna culture

Pottery fragment with incised decoration. Tell Hassuna, 6500 BC - 6000 BC Musée du Louvre.

The Hassuna culture (c. 6500 BC - 6000 BC) takes its name from an archaeological site, Tell Hassuna, located in central Jezirah, between the Tigris Valley and Jebel Sinjar, not far from modern-day Mosul. Yarim Tepe and Tulul eth-Thalathat, on the Jezirah plateau and the Kurdish foothills, are also part of the Hassuna profile. These villages survived throughout the 7th millennium BC in a rainy region where dry farming was possible. The inhabitants grow a wide variety of grains, lentils and peas. They raise cattle, goats, sheep and pigs, and hunt aurochs, gazelles and bears.^[95]

Fragment of pottery with painted decoration. Tell Hassuna, 6500 BC - 6000 BC Musée du Louvre.

Initially built of adobe, the walls of the multiroom houses were gradually built of molded brick. Houses were also built closer together and became more complex, with one house containing eleven rooms. 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. This system seems to have ensured community cohesion.^[95]

The Hassuna culture is characterized by very distinctive pottery, with motifs painted in red ochre or incised in parallel line networks and/or chevrons. This type of pottery is largely found in northern and central Mesopotamia, as well as in the Khabur region of northeastern Syria.^[84]

It is made by firing in large kilns. At Yarim Tepe, archaeologists have discovered the first well-preserved example of a pottery kiln consisting of two superimposed chambers separated by a wall with a smoke extraction system..^[95]

The Samarra culture

The Samarra Culture (c. 6200 BC - 5700 BC) is characterized by finely painted ceramics. Documented at Tell es-Sawwan and Choga Mami in central Mesopotamia, it is considered an evolution of the Hassuna Period ceramics and those of the Levantine corridor, whose villages were gradually depopulated.^[96] Archaeologists have also found evidence of Samarra pottery at a number of sites in northern Mesopotamia, as far away as the Syrian Jezirah and the Belikh Valley. Samarra pottery was easily recognizable and often elaborately decorated.^[97] Better made than its predecessors, it consists of large bowls and vases with rounded shoulders. Its light beige, slightly rough material is more harmonious. The decoration consists of geometric designs painted in bright red, brown, or purple-brown. These motifs can also represent men, women, birds, fish, antelopes, or scorpions.^[83][98] Some necklaces even have reliefs of human faces with stylized features. Pottery characteristic of this culture was also found at Tell el-Oueili, the oldest known village in southern Lower Mesopotamia, which documents the Ubaid period (Ubaid 0 phase, c. 6200 BC - 5900 BC).^[83][94]

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  Painted dish from the Samarra period. Pergamonmuseum, Berlin.
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  Painted dish from the Samarra period. Pergamonmuseum, Berlin.
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  Jar with painted decoration from the Samarra culture, Samarra. British Museum, London.
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  Alabaster vase and necklaces from Tell es-Sawwan, c. -6000 - -5800 National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad.

Female statuette from Tell es-Sawwan, Samarra period. National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad.

Samaritan statuettes were made of terracotta or alabaster. The figures are generally standing or crouching, and most are female.^[99] None of the figurines discovered at Choga Mami is intact: the heads are all broken and the presence of single legs with thin, flat inner surfaces suggests that the breakage was deliberate. Researchers believe that there was some kind of "contract" in place at the time the statues were broken.^[100] Some statuettes have elongated skulls and wide-open "coffee-bean" eyes. As in the Hassuna phase, the eyes and necklaces are often made of an external material, added or inlaid: the pupil is made of mother-of-pearl, and the thick, black eyebrows of bitumen. A technique reminiscent of future Sumerian production.^[99] These figurines seem to indicate a practice of cranial deformation - already attested in the pre-Ceramic Levant^[79] - which spread until the last phase of the Ubaid period. Such deformation can also be seen on some skeletons from the Ubaid phase at Eridu and Tell Arpachiah. This practice seems to have been carried out by a ruling class, no doubt seeking to demonstrate that they were no longer able to carry loads on their heads.^[100]

Female statuette from Tell es-Sawwan, Samarra period. The simple legs have thin, flat surfaces that probably leave the possibility of being broken. National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad.

Levels III and IV at Tell es-Sawwan confirm the use of the "tripartite" Mesopotamian house plan already discovered in the Hassuna period, but in the shape of a capital T.^{[nb 3]} These levels were also characterized by Samarra-style pottery and a second type of building that appears to have served as a "granary". These levels were also characterized by Samarra-style pottery and by a second type of building that appears to have been used as a "granary", identified by its lime-covered floor and containing agricultural implements. All of these houses were surrounded by a mud-brick wall (also visible at Choga Mami)^[93] and a ditch, are composed of remarkably small rooms. This suggests the use of a flat roof for daily^[101] activities or implies the presence of a floor covering the entire surface,^[93] accessed by a staircase. The latter configuration could imply a division of activities between two levels: on the first floor are the service areas, storerooms, and workshops, where animal life takes place; on the first floor are the living quarters, a series of rooms, and various bedrooms.^[102] The use of molded mud bricks has been documented at Tell es-Sawwan, Bouqras, and Samarra. This method of construction (of which a few isolated earlier attempts are known) became widespread during the Samarra period. It allowed for the standardization and rationalization of construction according to a pre-established plan. It anticipates the architecture of the ziggurats and large buildings of historical Mesopotamia.^[87][93][94]

In the Samarra phase, the first Mesopotamian "public" buildings appear, evidence of social and religious activities. They can be considered the ancestors of Mesopotamian sanctuaries.^[103] The tombs below the last levels of Tell es-Sawwan contained funerary objects consisting mainly of pottery and clay figurines, in stark contrast to the tombs on the first levels.^[101]

Choga Mami, about 2 kilometers from the Iranian border, northeast of Baghdad, was built on an axis of communication along the Zagros Mountains, where water is available. Here the houses were built very close together, with large, separate courtyards, perhaps used as working areas.^[100]Samarra period inhabitants raised sheep and goats and hunted gazelle and aurochs. In arid southern Mesopotamia, farmers had to rely on irrigation to fertilize soils that were already prone to erosion and salinization. The first traces of irrigation canals were discovered at Choga Mami.^[104]

By the end of the Samarra period, seals and other "contractual" devices were more widely used in central and northern Mesopotamia. Only a small number of such seals appear in southern Mesopotamia, but this absence may be due to difficulties in exploring the sedimentary strata of the region.^[94][103]

The Halaf culture

Broken pottery with bichrome decoration featuring a stylized bird in profile.^[105] Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In Upper Jezirah and the rest of Upper Mesopotamia, the Halaf culture (c. 6100 BC - 5200 BC) developed alongside the Samarra culture. It was named after the site where the first examples of richly decorated pottery were discovered in 1929: the Tell Halaf site on the Turkish-Syrian border.^[106] Other sherds of this pottery were later discovered in Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah (both on the outskirts of modern-day Mosul), and in many other places such as Chagar Bazar, Tepe Gawra, Yarim Tepe, also in northern Syria (Yunus Höyük), and in southeastern Anatolia at Domuztepe. Along with Anatolian obsidian, Halaf pottery is the most widely distributed of all types of ancient ceramics, found from the Zagros to the Mediterranean, a distance of about 1,200 kilometers.^[79] But it was in the Belikh valley, at the Tell Sabi Abyad site, that the earliest remains of this culture were discovered.^[107] It was here that late Samarra-type pottery was discovered, referred to here as "transitional Halaf", was discovered, which evolved into true early Halaf and thus determined the origin of the Halaf culture, originally thought to be located in northeastern Anatolia.^[79]

The Halaf culture is thus characterized by pottery that follows in the footsteps of that of Samarra, but is technically more sophisticated. So much so, in fact, that it attests to a much greater degree of specialization by the potters, which was already evident during the Samarra period. These potteries, with their very fine paste, were subjected to a hotter, more oxidizing firing process, giving them an orange or buff color.^[108] Shaped using a "tournette" (slow wheel turned by hand),^[109] the first rotary method of shaping ceramics, they are made from carefully selected local clays. They were generally fired in kilns with a round or oval base and an ascending draft. These were equipped with single-chamber kilns (pottery and fuel in the same chamber), which were gradually replaced by double-chamber kilns (pottery and fuel separated), which allowed a better distribution of heat in the objects being fired.^[110] Initially dominated by geometric motifs - triangles, squares, checkerboards, crosses, festoons, small circles, and cross-hatching - pottery decorations gradually took on more complex decorative schemes, including highly stylized plant and animal motifs such as resting birds, gazelles, and cheetahs. Other motifs are undoubtedly more religious, such as bucraniums (stylized bull heads), double axes, or "Maltese squares" (a square with a triangle at each corner). Excavations on the Euphrates have revealed black and red bichrome decorations and, in smaller numbers on the banks of the Khabur, polychrome decorations combining red, black, and white.^[111][112]

• 
  Dish with painted decoration, Late Halaf (c. 5600–5200 BC), Tell Arpachiyah. British Museum.
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  Painted bowl, Late Halaf (c. 5600–5200 BC), Tell Arpachiyah, Iraq. British Museum.
• 
  Painted jar, Late Halaf (c. 5600–5200 BC), Chagar Bazar, Syria. British Museum.
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  Broken pottery (shard). The exterior is painted with a bucranium. Tell Arpachiyah, Iraq. Halaf period (6000-5000 BC). British Museum.
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  Shard of pottery decorated with a snake sticking out its tongue. Tell Arpachiyah, Iraq. Halaf period (6000-5000 BC). British Museum.

Necklace found at Tell Arpachiyah, made from obsidian beads and cowrie shells from the Persian Gulf, formerly colored with red ochre. British Museum.

Halaf-type pottery seems to have been produced at specialized centers such as Tell Arpachiyah, Tell Brak, Chagar Bazar and Tell Halaf.^[112] At Tell Arpachiyah, beneath the upper Ubaid-dated levels, archaeologists have uncovered what appear to be pottery workshops or stores, as numerous pottery-making and cutting tools were present: stone and obsidian objects, a large number of flint and obsidian cores. This level was completely burnt, apparently deliberately, probably for ritual reasons. Tell Arpachiyah may well have been a special religious site: an area of round buildings (wrongly assimilated to the tholos of Mycenae),^{[nb 4]} surrounded by a perimeter wall, contains numerous burials, but, unlike the round constructions of other places, contains no trace of habitation.^[106]

Seated parturient figurine from the Halaf period. The paint bands are painted with henna, and the upper arms show traces of scarification marks.^[113] Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels.

Once the pottery was produced in the center of the village, it was transported via intermediate centers to more distant destinations, notably as far as the Persian Gulf, in exchange for other products.^[112] Apart from these production centers, the villages of the Halaf culture have the common characteristic of often being very small. The expansion of this culture seems to have taken place from one village to the next: as soon as a village exceeded a hundred inhabitants, settlers move away to build a new village nearby.^[114] For prehistorian Jean-Paul Demoule, this is the hallmark of a low-hierarchical society that develops in small human agglomerations.^[115] For Georges Roux, "nothing indicates a brutal invasion, and everything we know about them points to the slow infiltration of a peaceful people".^[112] Nevertheless, for researcher Joan Oates, there is ample evidence of deliberate cranial deformation in this culture, a "practice with considerable elitist potential" already mentioned in the section devoted to the Samarra period. At Tell Arpachiyah, the dentition found on the deformed skulls indicates that their bearers were genetically related, suggesting the constitution of an elite family group.^[79]

Another notable aspect of the Halaf culture is the female figures of childbirth that are typical of this culture. They depict a seated woman supporting her breasts with her arms. The body is decorated with lines and strokes that appear to represent tattoos, jewelry, or clothing. The head is often represented by a flattened neck stump, sometimes with two large eyes. These may be talismans against sterility.^[112]

Seal and its modern impression with geometric motif from the Halaf period. Provenance: North Syria (circa 5600 BC - 5000 BC).^[116] Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Halaf culture is characterized by circular structures called "tholoi" by archaeologists, most of which were actually dwellings (unlike the Mycenaean tholoi). Built of mud or brick on pebble foundations, they sometimes had a quadrangular extension and were covered by a dome. 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. This does not exclude the existence of itinerant herders who moved between base villages and seasonal transhumance camps. The bones found are those of common animals such as sheep, pigs, goats and oxen..^{[112][114][117]}

It is worth noting the marginal existence of a form of hunting that has evolved from a collective practice, characteristic of the PPNB, to a more individual hunt practiced by a smaller group of people. This type of hunting, based on the bones of wild animals (gazelles, onagers, deer, fallow deer, and roe deer), seems to be more important in communities located in the south, where the steppes are more arid. The product of this hunt may have been exchanged for plant products cultivated further north. Primarily for food, it is also used to protect herds, fields, and livestock. However, Halafian arrows, probably coated with poison, are rare and made from local flint, often of poor quality, and more rarely from obsidian. Most of the arrows found are still unused. Consequently, other perishable weapons such as slings or traps may have been used.^[118]

At Tell Sabi Abyad, archaeologists have uncovered some 300 clay seal impressions whose original seals cannot be traced. These impressions seal portable containers, baskets, or vases. Far more numerous than those already discovered for the Samarra period, these impressions depict caprids, plants, and geometric motifs. As in Samarra, it is difficult to derive any meaning from them other than that they may be part of an administrative practice of the "contract" type or reflect a desire to control the circulation of goods or commodities. Other Late Halaf Period seal impressions have also been discovered at Tell Arpachiyah.^[57][119]

Development and dissemination of Ubaid culture

Bowl painted with dark geometric motifs, Ur. British Museum.

The long Ubaid period (c. 6500 BC - 3900 BC) refers to a late Neolithic and an early Chalcolithic phase of prehistory and is named after the site of Tell el-Ubaid, not far from Ur. There, in 1924, Leonard Woolley, while directing the excavation of a Sumerian temple, discovered numerous monochrome pottery pieces that testified to another culture.^[77] Frustrated and less meticulous than the ceramics of the Halaf culture, this pottery, often hastily decorated with geometric motifs and sometimes inspired by nature,^[120] was also discovered in a nearby ancient cemetery.^[77]

Later, the remains of the city of Eridu provided the first important information about the architecture of the Ubaid culture.^[121] Subsequently, the discovery in the 1980s of the Tell el-'Oueili site, north of the modern city of Nassiriyah, revealed the much older nature of the Ubaid culture and pushed back its origins to around 6500 BC, thus attributing Tell el-Ubaid to a very late phase of its eponymous culture. The term "Ubaid culture" is therefore a rather conventional appellation that does not reflect any real continuity or uniformity of this culture.^[77]

Drop-shaped pendant seal with two quadrupeds and its modern impression. 4500–3500. Late Ubaid - Middle Gawra period (northern Mesopotamia)^[122] Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York

Researchers have identified six successive phases, numbered from 0 to 5, and named after representative sites, based on visible changes in the forms and decoration of ceramics related to this culture. Early Ubaid is mainly documented by the sites of Tell el-Oueili (Ubaid 0 and 1), Eridu and Haggi Muhammad (Ubaid 1 and 2), which are the oldest known sites in Lower Mesopotamia (c. 6500 BC - 5300 BC). 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.^[109] The Ubaid culture also appears to have spread southwards: sites related to the Ubaid culture are also found in Kuwait, with evidence of boat use suggesting the development of fishing and perhaps even the presence of pearl-seeking divers. Seasonal sites are also attested along the northeast coast of Saudi Arabia and in Qatar. Shards linked to the Ubaid culture have also been found in the southern Emirates.^[109]

Until the end of the 5th millennium BC, the egalitarian, non-stratified character of Ubaid culture communities is generally accepted: as in Late Neolithic communities, temporary and cyclical leadership - based on a communal corporate identity^[124] - seems to have been in the hands of the Elders. 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. Added to this, even on sites that were probably of regional importance, is the scarcity of seals linked to administrative control and an apparent lack of specialization in trades.^[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.^[125]

Southern Ubaid culture

Described as "islands sorrounded in a marshy plain", still evoked in the impressions of cylindrical seals from the late 4th millennium BC,^[126] the sites discovered so far in southern Mesopotamia are located on so-called "turtle shell" terraces, the remains of stepped alluvial terraces incised during the Pleistocene that evoke the patterns of a tortoise shell when seen from the air. 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. It is therefore likely that many other sites remain unexplored under a thick layer of sediment.^{[79][123][127]}

The oldest excavated levels of the Ubaid culture are found at Tell el-Oueili. Dated to 6200 BC using carbon-14 measurements, they lie just above a water table. The water table prevents archaeologists from reaching the virgin soil, leaving one or more archaeological layers currently unexplored, and it doesn't appear that occupation of the site began until 6200 BC, such is the high level of neolithization of the population on the levels that can be explored. They were already cultivating cereals such as wheat and barley, while beef, pork, sheep, and goats were domesticated.^[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]

Terracotta model of a house with only the reed thatch roof represented by the paint strokes. Tell el-Ubaid 5900-4000 BC British Museum - London.

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. Adjacent to this room are a series of small rooms, each with a hollowed-out fireplace, probably providing private spaces for a nuclear family. In addition, another large outdoor structure with huge cellars appears to be a large communal attic. All of these structures are pre-designed using life-size plans drawn on the ground. These plans are based on a unit of measurement of about 5′ 9" (1.75 m) - that's six feet by 0′ 11" (0.29 m). In addition, familiarity with certain geometric properties of triangles made it possible to draw right angles. The walls are made of mud bricks pressed between two planks. The tops of these bricks are convex, with fingerprints that help them adhere to the mortar. It wasn't until the middle of the 6th millennium BC (Ubaid 1) that bricks of uniform size were formed into a frame. They were also used in the construction of more numerous but narrower granaries.^[77][128]

Generally speaking, despite the apparently wetter climate of the time, irrigated agriculture seems to have gradually developed, while leaving some room for the exploitation of marshes (fish, reeds), another major factor in the development of human communities in southern Mesopotamia.^[123][129] Date palms, wheat, and barley were also cultivated. Cattle and pigs were raised alongside smaller numbers of sheep and goats.^[126]

During the Ubaid 2 and 3 periods, certain buildings were enlarged to such an extent that the archaeological community was divided over their use.^[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.^[133] Pascal Butterlin hypothesizes that community buildings rubbed shoulders with those reserved for worship, both built in the tripartite model and expanded over the centuries. Later, during the Uruk period, the size of the buildings at Uruk seemed to increase more rapidly than those north of Mesopotamia at Tepe Gawra or Tell Brak.^[134]

Northward expansion

Northward expansion of Ubaid culture.

The third Ubaid phase (c. 5200 BC – 4500 BC) was marked by expansion into northern Iraq and northeastern Syria: pottery and utilitarian objects such as clay grinders and figurines identical to the sites discovered in the south are found at more northerly sites like Tell Arpachiyah and Tepe Gawra near Mosul, Tell Zeidan on the Middle Euphrates and as far as Değirmentepe in eastern Anatolia, where the first traces of copper metallurgy appear.^[135] While it is well established that the spread of the Ubaid culture took place over several centuries by a slow, gradual, and peaceful change, its mechanism still remains the subject of debate.^[136] For Joan Oates, this propagation is the product of cultural movements through marriages or exchange systems.^[109] For Jean-Daniel Forest, the Halaf culture, as it advanced into southern Mesopotamia, was forced to adopt irrigated agriculture, imitating the already existing Ubaid culture to such an extent that the latter rapidly replaced the Halaf culture to the north.^[77] However, it was a new way for the people to express their identity through new objects in their daily lives, especially a style of pottery very similar to that of the south, but with different, more naturalistic decorative motifs and with a more reddish color than that of the Halaf pottery and that of the southern Ubaid culture.^[136][137]

Ubaid pottery 5100 B.C. - 4500 B.C., Tepe Gawra. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

By the middle of the 6th millennium BC, the circular, tholoi-type houses of the Halaf culture were gradually replaced by the rectangular, multi-room houses typical of the northern Ubaid period. Most of these followed a tripartite plan, with the smaller rooms often arranged symmetrically around a large central hall. This type of building is found at Tell Abada in the Hamrin Basin, where it is characterized by regular buttresses, at Tepe Gawra in northern Iraq, and as far away as Değirmentepe in Anatolia. Tell Abada also has a hydraulic pipe system that brings water from a nearby spring and wadi to a cistern inside the village. The village also seems to have specialized in the manufacture of pottery: the oldest evidence of the use of the potter's wheel can be found here, dating back to the 6th millennium BC.^[125][138]

The culture's treatment of the dead seems to have gradually become more uniform. Whereas the Halaf culture showed great diversity, the Ubaid culture was content with burials in simple tombs equipped with a few ceramic vessels, with no apparent social differentiation. While Tell Arpachiyah has a small Ubaid cemetery outside the domestic dwellings, similar to the larger contemporary cemetery at Eridu in southern Mesopotamia, burial within the village seem to have been limited to the burial of infants under the houses. The same is true of Abada, where fifty-seven infant urns were found in the basements of large buildings.^[86][139]

Resource exchange and control

Primitive terracotta representation of a woman. Ur or Eridu, Iraq (4000-3500 BC). National Museum of Iraq - Baghdad.

While it has now been shown that irrigated agriculture in the south - especially with the help of the spider's ards and wagons - was not the sole cause of the centralization of social organization, it did produce a food surplus that was used to maintain specialists, leaders, priests, and artisans who did not produce their own food. 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.^{[147][148][149][150]}

Similarly, the increased use of seals and tokens reflects the existence of increasingly centralized and controlled economic activities.^[142] Moreover, these seals became increasingly complex. They are used to seal a wide variety of portable goods shipped in sacks, baskets, and jars, marking the authority under which the contents are placed. They are also placed around doors to control access to storage areas. In addition, broken seals appear to have been kept as a record of transactions. While clay seals were initially associated with one or more dwelling units, by 4000 BC they began to be concentrated around newly emerging religious institutions.^[151]

Burial diversification

Although the lack of distinctive signs on the remains of a Late Ubaid cemetery at Eridu is indicative of societies that were not very hierarchical until the middle of the 5th millennium BC, researcher Joan Oates points out that the social status of the people buried in the Eridu cemetery is still unknown and that this cemetery alone does not indicate the absence of social inequalities.^[140] At Tepe Gawra, in northeastern Iraq near Mosul, the evolution of burial practices, which had previously been on the way to standardization, became more diversified: the 6th millennium BC cemetery saw the appearance of very rich tombs containing gold, silver, and other rare materials never before seen, sometimes associated with infant burials.^[124][152]

Tell Majnuna, a subsidiary mound of the Tell Brak site, provides evidence of a mass burial of partially articulated individuals. These human remains probably represent a feast or massacre, suggesting a violent assertion of power. This is in contrast to the burials of the Ubaid period and undoubtedly implies a loss of individual identity.^[152]

Crafts and art

Female terracotta figurines, one with pointed skull, Ur. British Museum.

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.^[153][154] During the Middle and Late Uruk periods, beveled-edged bowls found in very large quantities could also have been used to distribute standardized rations or to make bread.^[144]

So-called "lizard-head" figures, probably representing the ruling elite, are very common in Eridu and Ur. They provide further evidence for the practice of skull deformation, an indicator (discussed above) for the existence of a non-working class. One of the male figures found at Eridu holds a club, which could be interpreted as a symbol of authority.^[124][128]

At Tell Brak, numerous seal impressions have been found dating from 4200 to 3600 BC. They often depict animals such as lions alone or in groups, snakes, or goats. These animals are often fighting each other, and the only humans depicted are fighting a lion or snake with weapons or tools. The lion could be seen as a symbol of authority at a time when leadership was becoming more powerful. This was before they appeared in art from southern Mesopotamia at the end of the Uruk period. There are also hybrid figures that combine humans and animals (except for goat heads), or combine goat heads with the legs or wings of other animals. Geometric or abstract motifs, flowers and a few complex scenes complete the Tell Brak collection.^[155]

Limestone cylinder seal and impression: the king (the man in the net skirt) and an acolyte feeding the sacred flock, Uruk period, circa 3200 B.C. British Museum.

There are, however, a considerable number of seals depicting vultures. An elegant symbol, especially integrated in everyday life: the hypothesis that it could be related to the processing of waste resulting from extensive urbanization seems plausible. The carrion and garbage eaten and processed by the vultures could have led the inhabitants of the time to consider these birds of prey as a blessing.^[156]

The 4th millennium BC also saw the appearance of the first cylinder seals. The earliest were discovered in the Middle Uruk levels and predate the Eanna buildings. Their complexity provides greater security than the seals used previously. An important figure, the "man in the net skirt" (or "priest-king") is often depicted, sometimes hunting lions, attributes or prerogatives known later in Mesopotamian history as those of kings, priests, and warriors.^[143]

Towns and temples

Examples of idols with alabaster eyes, discovered in the "eye temple" at Tell Brak. Around the middle of the 4th millennium BC. British Museum - London.

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. In this way, the communal character once associated with the great tripartite houses of the Ubaid period is preserved, but used to legitimize the new, closely linked secular and sacred "officials". The tripartite houses that housed the gatherings so dear to Ubaid communities have been replaced by growing, irregular clusters of buildings whose dimensions seem to reflect individual preferences rather than community rules and conventions.^[142]

Excavation of Late Chalcolithic buildings (TW zone) at Tell Brak.

In the 4th millennium BC, the northern zone of Tell Brak was also a major example of urban expansion: the entire 45-hectare of Tell was occupied. During this phase, an accumulation of dwellings formed a "ring" around the site, probably indicating a 100-hectare urban agglomeration. On the other hand, the smallest sites in the vicinity, measuring 5 hectares, seem to indicate a system in which Tell Brak exercised political and economic domination over the surrounding communities.^[142][151] There is also evidence of monumental architecture associated with institutional religion: notably the early phases of the "Temple with eyes" dating from the beginning of the 4th millennium BC, with its hundreds of small "idols with eyes". This temple was contemporary with the equally impressive building at Hammam et-Turkman, on the Belikh River in northern Syria, with 2-metre-thick walls and a buttressed façade.^[152]

Reconstruction of the Level VII temple at Eridu, late 5th millennium BC, a monumental edifice with a tripartite plan characteristic of the Late Chalcolithic period.

In the south, the existence of temples has been confirmed, especially at Eridu, where the oldest of them, built around 5000 BC during the Ubaid period, was discovered under the Ziggurat.^[157] Eridu, Tell Dlehim and Tell al-Hayyad cover between 40 and 50 hectares, while Uruk covers more than 70 hectares.^[158] Around 3400 BC, Uruk saw the appearance of a major architectural monument in the E-anna district. These were undoubtedly a number of formal public buildings, whose specific economic or religious purpose remains a matter of conjecture since, unfortunately for historians, they were emptied of their contents when the upper level was built. The surrounding enclosure covers an area of 8 to 9 hectares, and some of the buildings are decorated with cone mosaics.^[143]

Writing and numbers

Writing was the most significant advance of the 4th millennium BC. Initially highly symbolic, it is highly probable that this was an extension of the use of stone tokens or clay bowls on which a symbol was carved or printed. However, it has not yet been formally established that tokens preceded tablets, and they could just as well have been used to print clay tablets, in order to standardize the use of symbols.^[159][160] Alongside writing, a numerical system was developed, most probably to count livestock, cereals and dairy products, or to establish a calendar. Counting was based on a sexagesimal system, and its use probably began with the use of geometric tokens that were later printed on clay tablets. Although there is as yet no proof, the tokens found at Tell Abada could be the precursors of this counting system.^[160] Traditionally, it is the appearance of writing that marks the end of prehistory, although according to the current state of research it appears more as a symbolic marker or culmination of the process of the emergence of the state and cities, which characterizes the transition from prehistory to history in the truest sense of the word.^[161][162]