FROM MOBILE FORAGERS TO COMPLEX SOCIETIES 7 IN SOUTHWEST ASIA Trevor Watkins, University of Edinburgh Terminologies in Southwest Asia 199 KEY SITE Jerf el Ahmar: A Neolithic Village 212 Landscapes and Environments of Southwest Asia: Defining the “Core Area” 199 A Cascade of Rapid Change: The Later Aceramic Neolithic (8800–6500 BCE) 214 A Crescendo of Change (20,000–8800 BCE) 201 KEY SITE KEY CONTROVERSY Göbekli Tepe: Religious Structures Explaining the Neolithic Revolution 203 at a “Central Place” 216 KEY THEME: CLIMATE CHANGE KEY SITE Environmental Shocks in Southwest Asia 204 Çatalhöyük 220 KEY SITE KEY THEME: DOMESTICATION Ohalo II: Epipaleolithic Lifeways in the Levant 205 A Story of Unintended Consequences 224 KEY SITE Transformation, Dispersal, and Expansion Abu Hureyra: The Transition from (6500–6000 BCE) 225 Foraging to Farming 208 KEY SITE Tell Sabi Abyad I 226 Summary and Conclusions 228 Further Reading and Suggested Websites 229 A cluster of skulls, retrieved from burials at Tell Aswad, northern Syria, with facial features modeled in painted clay, and eyes closed as if in sleep. 198 198-229_HP4E_chap-7_rf.indd 198 P.198 B 26/10/2017 16:23 n Chapter 6 we reviewed the profound transformation of is known as the Epipaleolithic in Southwest Asia. Radiocarbon Iclimate and environment that accompanied the melting of dating shows that it lasted about thirteen millennia (23,000– the ice sheets, and the development of agriculture in different 9600 BCE). The beginning of the Neolithic conveniently coincides regions of the world during the milder Holocene period. with the beginning of the Holocene period (at about 9600 BCE). In this chapter we turn to the very first human societies to The transition from the Neolithic into the following Chalcolithic have become settled, living in large-scale communities, sup- period can be roughly set at 6000 BCE. When the Neolithic was ported by farming: those of Southwest Asia. Subsequent chapters first defined in the nineteenth century, it was the last part of will discuss the origins and spread of farming elsewhere in the Stone Age, differentiated by the presence of pottery. When the world—in East Asia (Chapter 8), the Americas, Africa, and archaeologists began investigating the long stratigraphies of such Europe (Chapters 10–12). Neolithic sites as Jericho in the Levant, it came as a surprise that the greater part of that deep stratigraphic sequence produced no The history of Southwest Asia involves a process of transforma- pottery. So the terms Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN), or aceramic tion that led from the classic mobile forager bands before 25,000 Neolithic, were invented. Here the term aceramic Neolithic is years ago, through the end of the Pleistocene, or Paleolithic, preferred; and the aceramic Neolithic is subdivided into two sub- period, to a time in the early Holocene, the Neolithic, when there periods, an early (PPNA, 9600–8800 BCE), and a later aceramic were densely populated settlements of farmers and herders across Neolithic (PPNB, 8800–6500 BCE). The last few centuries of the much of Southwest Asia. The account of this transformation can Neolithic are known as the PN, or pottery Neolithic. be divided into three parts of unequal length. The first part covers almost 15,000 years, during which people changed from living in small mobile bands to relatively large, permanently settled Landscapes and Environments of communities. In parallel with the radical changes in settlement, Southwest Asia: Defining the “Core Area” they made equally radical changes in their subsistence. At the Within Southwest Asia [7.1, p. 201] there is a great variety of end of this first part, there were permanent communities settled landscapes and climatic regimes, and—as we can see in today’s around a “core area” of Southwest Asia, and, at least in some Middle East—extraordinary contrasts in population density. parts, they had begun to cultivate crops of cereals and pulses. Almost seventy years ago, the American prehistoric archaeologist The second part of the transformation happened at a much Robert Braidwood set out to find sites where he could investigate faster tempo, over a much shorter span of time. It was a cascade the transition from hunting and gathering to farming. He defined of cultural, social, and economic changes, as the domestication the zone where he could expect to find the archaeological sites that of sheep, goat, cattle and pigs followed the development of would document the process by mapping where the “raw mater- agriculture, and mixed farming economies became established. ials” of the Neolithic Revolution, the wild plants and animals Population density accelerated, and settlements increased in size. that were first domesticated, would have been found in the early At the end of this period, there were dramatic social, economic, Holocene period. Gordon Childe, who had no direct knowledge and cultural changes as the populations of the largest settlements of the region, had suggested that his Neolithic Revolution took declined catastrophically. place in the Fertile Crescent, more particularly at either tip of In the third part, a new kind of settlement pattern was estab- the crescent, in the Nile Valley and Delta, and in the delta of the lished, and settlements of farmers appeared in parts of Southwest Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in what is today southern Iraq (see Asia beyond the “core area.” The transition from the second to the box: Explaining the Neolithic Revolution, p. 203). Braidwood’s third part poses an unresolved question: Was the spreading out multidisciplinary team reasoned that the wild cereals and pulses, of smaller farming communities across a wider landscape simply together with the wild sheep and goats, would have been found a better solution to living as farming communities, or was there in the Levantine Mediterranean woodlands, around the foothills a “push factor” in the shape of a period of rapid climate change of the Taurus Mountains across Southeast Turkey, Northeast and aridification at the end of the seventh millennium BCE? Syria, and in the hill country along the modern frontier between Iraq and Iran. Braidwood called this arc “the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent.” Around that arc there is sufficient rainfall Terminologies in Southwest Asia to sustain open woodland of oak and pistachio, with plenty of There is a veritable dictionary of technical terms—for diagnostic space for wild wheat and barley, a variety of pulses—peas, beans, types of artifact, for stratigraphic phases, periods, and cultural lentils, and chickpeas—and a range of fruit and various nuts. groups—but, for our purposes in this chapter, they have been These hilly flanks constitute the “core area” of transformation whittled down to a minimum. Following the Upper Paleolithic that occurred from the end of the Paleolithic, but, as we now period (45,000–25,000 years ago), the last part of the Paleolithic know, parts of central Anatolia also belong in the “core area.” LANDSCAPES AND ENVIRONMENTS OF SOUTHWEST ASIA: DEFINING THE “CORE AREA” 199 198-229_HP4E_chap-7_rf.indd 199 26/09/2017 11:13 TIMELINE: FROM MOBILE FORAGERS TO COMPLEX SOCIETIES IN SOUTHWEST ASIA BCE BCE 20,000 19,000 18,000 17,000 16,000 15,000 14,000 13,000 12,000 11,000 10,000 9,000 8,000 7,000 6,000 Epipaleolithic Aceramic Neolithic Ceramic Neolithic Last Glacial Recovery Younger Dryas Recovery and Early Holocene Optimum Maximum Rapid Climate Change Event SOUTH LEVANT (ISRAEL, PALESTINE, JORDAN) Grinding and pounding equipment becomes common Natufian, PPNA, PPNB Harvesting and storing of cereals and pulses Broad-spectrum hunting and fishing El Wad, Eynan WF16 (Wadi Feynan 16) Toward sedentary villages Hilazon Tachtit Jericho Ohalo II ’Ain Ghazal NORTH LEVANT, SOUTHEAST TURKEY, AND CYPRUS Abu Hureyra I Abu Hureyra II Akrotiri- Jerf el Ahmar Aetokremnos Dja’de Çayönü Tepe Göbekli Tepe Nevalı Çori ZAGROS, NORTHEAST IRAQ, AND WESTERN IRAN Zarzian Shanidar CENTRAL ANATOLIA Pınarbas‚ı Pınarbas‚ı Burial within the settlement and retrieval of skulls Harvesting and storing of cereals and pulses begins Broad-spectrum hunting and fishing begins Communal buildings Toward sedentary villages Skull Curation and Caching Copper tools Period People Event Occasional Site occurrence 200 CHAPTER 7 FROM MOBILE FORAGERS TO COMPLEX SOCIETIES IN SOUTHWEST ASIA 198-229_HP4E_chap-7_rf.indd 200 P.200 B 26/10/2017 16:24 7.1 Southwest Asia. Map Black Sea showing major physical features and sites discussed U T R K E in the text. Y Göbekli Tepe Çatalhöyük Ca Nevalı Çori spia ● ● Çayönü S n ● ● ea Ta Shanidar u ns ● Tell Sabi ● rus ntai Mou T ● Abyad i g Zawi Chemi Eu r ph i ra s ● t US es YPR Abu ● C● Zeribar M Akrotiri Hureyra ed iter rane an Se Z a ● Eynan ag Mo ro un s ● Ohalo II ta Kebara ● in ● s ● ‘Ain Ghazal Jericho ● WF16 (Wadi Feynan 16) EGYPT N e l 0 500 km i N 0 300 miles Changing Climate and Environments Clare and Weninger 2015). In the concluding discussion of this We think of the transformation as a drama taking place on the chapter, we need to consider how these climatic fluctuations varied landscapes of Southwest Asia, but, over the time span affected living conditions, and what part climatic and environ- of more than 20,000 years, there were significant changes in mental pressures played in the transformation process. climate (see box: Environmental Shocks in Southwest Asia, p. 204), environments, and the natural distribution of key plant BCE and animal species [7.2, p. 202]. For our purposes in this chapter, A Crescendo of Change (20,000–8800 ) the beginning of the human story coincides with the Last Glacial The story of this major transformation in how people lived their Maximum, the last major cold phase of the Pleistocene period.