ane ee THE NEAR EAST: CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION , | She Near East, where the cor t Africa, Asia, and Europe come together, has k known as the “cradle of civilization”. Home of the biblical Garden of Eden, where people first planted crops and settled lages, it is also the region where the earliest cities in the world appeared. This oldest of urban traditions arose out of a long development of villages and towns, going back to gooo B.c. The first true cities, the city-states of ancient | Sumer, appeared 5000 years ago in the lower drainage of ¥ ———— ee ee afarmers ‘ i of the region Is often ‘ix defined by « semicitele of aa ile CY - hills, routines, ane in valleys chat originate in the bills of hy southern Levant, ae up into Lebanon, Syria and the Taurus Mountains ‘of easter Turkey, and then curve downward long the Zagros mountain Choi that runs from Tragi Kurdistan into western Tran, ~ Several distinct ecological regions can be defined in the Fertile Crescen: and its surrounding areas, The Levant, home of the earliest settleneny ie includes the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley, and the surrounding foothills 49. at ee of present-day Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, To the west anv north of the crescent lie the Taare Mountains and the Anatolian Pla. of Turkey. The western portions of the crescent are defined by the Za - mountain region, which is bounded on the east by the Diyala plain of yy: central Iran, Cradled in the borom of the crescent is the drainage of : Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which flow from the mountains of exst- Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq into the desert floodplain of southern 1). before emptying into the Persian Gulf, The northern portion of this drainage, which includes the foothills fertile intermontane valleys of northern Iraq, was known as Upp Mesopotamia, The southern drainage, where the Tigris and Euphrates con verge and eventually join into the Shatt-al»Arab waterway leading into th: Persian Gulf, was known as Lower Mesopotamia, To the south lies thc huge expanse of the Arabian Desert BARLY VILLAGES LATE MPSOLITHIC TO PARLY NEOLITHIC) fe ot aineeeen Soni nooo yr a Prompted wandering groups of Mesc Age) hunter-gatherers to settle into small communities, where they took the first steps toward the domestication of certain species of plants and animals. At first, this involved the simple harvesting of large stands of wild wheat and the or and goats. These early changes are evident at several settl ee oe have recovered sickle blades and milling stones aa Ce ee Processing of plant foods, and large quantities of __ Pones, primarily from wild sheep and goats that were held in captivity ms a a : e only & supplement to the mainstream of daily ae ee Se ‘used on and foraging, Most of these early hamlets pe ghia nt formed part of the Natufian culture : ef : “ ermal ‘circular pit hanging environ ic (Mickle StoneEventually, between go0o and 7000 8.¢., permanent communities with 4 heavy dependence on cultivation and animal husbandry began appearing in the Fertile Crescent. This was the flowering of a new way of life known as - the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age. The remains of these early village- farming cultures have been identified at a number of locations, most notably at Jericho in the Jordan Valley, at Beidhs and "Ain Ghazal in Jordan, Ali Kosh in western Iran, Jarmo in Iraq, Abu Hureyra in Syria, and Cayont Tepesi in eastern Turkey. At several of these sites, excavations have docu . mented the transition from an initial experimentation with wild plants and i animals to the full-time cultivation of several varieties of domestic wheat and the domestication of herds of sheep and goats. These early settlements often began as small hamlets of circular or oval pithouses, and eventually grew into substantial communities of rectangular, one-story, mud-brick houses, with several hundred inhabitants. Although most of these communities appear to have been homogeneous clusters of domestic units of tribal farmers, at one site there is evidence of more complex activities, At the early site of Jericho, which covered some 10 acres (4 hectares), excavations have uncovered a 9-foot-deep (3-meter-deep) ditch and an adjoining wall with a tower, which may have surrounded the village. While it is not clear whether these constructions served defensive or flood control purposes, they do reflect a substantial investment of labor, — cipasts are found at many sites in the inter key reached deep into the southern Levant and to the Zagros Mountains in the east Obsidian, a volcanic nent commodity in early Near Eastern trade, and gave rise to one of the most complex early settlements in the region. Catal I liiyiik, a site in southern ‘Turkey derived its prosperity from a monopoly of the obsidian sources in the nearby mountains. This community—which can now be called a town: lass used to produce sharp-edged tools, was pr: coveredE NEOLITHIC S TLEMENT SOPOTAMIA the Levant and Turkey, the to Mesopotamia. The first la ¢ Village preading from the foothills ¢ the ge of the Tigris-Euphrates floodplairand formed part of a reg k s the | (circa 6000 B.c. to ¢ ' a t c Hassuna, today a sep j y va 50 by across, located 8.5 miles (14 k . community, one of the first Neolithic site carefully laid out. The buildings cons set bins. Similar sit courtyards with ovens and g: several sites in the region, includ and Umm Dabaghiyah ig Samarra, Tell-es-Sawwan, Of all these sites, the best known is Umm Dabaghiyah, which was ex vated by Diana Kirkbride in the late 1960s and early 19708. The settieme is made up of dozens of rectilinear rooms arranged around courtyards. 1?!si ial floors were made of gypsum plaster, and the walls of pressed mud; the walls ‘often included niches, used, perhaps, for storing food, Many of the build ings were houses, with casily identified living rooms and kitchens, and, in some instances, ovens with chimneys. Several houses had the remains of frescoes, one of which displayed a hunting scene. Other groups of rooms, laid in double rows, lack residential features, and may have been used for storage. The economy of Umm Dabaghiyah appears to have been based on a mixture of agriculture, hunting, and trade. Among the staple crops were ‘emmer wheat, cinkorn wheat, and barley; domesticated animals included sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Hunting was an important part of daily life, judging from the large amounts of remains of onager, a type of wild ass, and gazelle. The hides of these animals may have been traded to other commu- nities. In return, the villagers imported flint and obsidian for making tools, as well as artifacts made from basalt, greenstone, and seashells, Other arti- facts include spindle whorls for spinning wool, clay figurines, and a variety of decorated pottery. Hassunan ceramics, mostly bowls and jars, exhibit varied decorative tech- niques, including slipping, burnishing, painting, appliqué, and incision. As would be expected in the earliest decorated pottery, there is a great deal of experimentation, with painted and incised geometric designs, dots, wavy lines, and circles, as well as appliquéd human and animal faces and heads. Much of the fancier pottery at Hassunan sites is found in graves. These also contain above-mentioned trade items, as well as baked-clay figurines, pol and alabaster bowls and statuettes. The elaborate goods found it‘gees oF haan and saall children suggest Inherited social rank, «lew oF vhe emvergenes of social stratification, ‘, Mat Hessuinan conumunitien are found in the foothills of the Zagro: ‘Mewatains, where chy farming is possible, However, a later group of sites, kivrws collectively as che Samarran culture, are found farther to the south, in drier teious This southern expansion was made possible by the development of iris ‘How, which was to be a eritical factor in the eventual settlement of Lower Mesopotamia, Excavations at the Samarnan site of Choga Mami, near Mandal: iv ‘eastern Iraq, have revealed traces of « primitive irrigation rystem, the oldest in the ‘work. This was a lange site, covering 2s acres (1 hectare), an is estimated to have ‘rad & population of more than 100 people, While the intensification of agricul ‘rare through: allowed for the expansion and construction of larger com smunities in the south, there is some evidence to suggest that the inhabitants ha:| ‘concerns beyond subsistence. At Choga Mami, a tower stands next to one of thr town entrances, while at Tell-es-Sawwan--to the northwest, on the Tigr River—excavations have uncovered the remains of a ditch and wall around part « the town. These appear to be fortifications, suggesting that these early commun: ‘Ges came under attack; from whom and for what reason we can only guess: othe settlements competing for land or trade routes, perhaps, or nomadic raiders | search of food and craft goods, It is probably no coincidence that irrigation and fortifications appeared the ‘same time in ancient Mesopotamia. Irrigation permitted many farmers invest more energy into the production of craft goods, which in turn allowe: for the growth of surplus wealth and the beginnings of social ranking. Th accumulation of new wealth most likely created tensions between competi: groups and communities, and may have attracted outside raiding groups « well. The town planning, irrigation, and defense systems, and the trade nei works that developed in the Hasunnan period undoubtedly called for manaye Ey ment and leadership skills, and most likely gave rise to a rudimentary ruling *_¢ dlass in which each community was ruled by a chief and his cohore i “er ‘The expansion to the south gave ri # gave rise to a new culture, known as the Halafian, © “T around ss00 1.¢. This culture, which overlapped with the Hassunan, is character ized by a more sophisticated, uniform ceramic style and a distinctive architec Only a ew mrtad ee a architectural . seAaeesd is ei wated, but similarity in the painted designs ar pottery remarkable; sites as far apart as 340 miles (550 sane reign sen design. Ths pone earlier in small numbers at & to stamp individualized motifs 0