HIST 105 NOTES

WEEK 1
26 September Wednesday
Lecturer: Asl zyar
Subject: Agricultural transformation and the first permanent settlements
First human traces found in Africa. In Anatolia, like half million years ago. [400000 years]
Lower Paleolithic site: Yarmburgaz Cave, Dursunla
No hominid bones found here. But some human activity covered. Some examples of human material
culture roughly within the history of development.
Mobile hunters/gatherers:
That means they dont produce their own food, only engages hunting/gathering activity. After a
while, they change their locations for seasonal bases. From those times up to today human activity
more or less covered the same problems. We have a time frame terminology
Paleolithic (old stone age)
Neolithic (new stone age)
Chalcolithic (copper/stone age)
Bronze Age
Iron Age
This classification is a modern one. Because we invented these terms later. Thomson from Denmark
museum classified this terminology in the 19th century. Today we find it very problematic. Why?
1. Ages were not simultaneous everywhere. While Mesopotamia in a different stage, some
other place was backward. This kind of terminology is not simultaneously working. That
means horizontal developments never happened.
2. Material classification is not so clear. For example, what does Stone Age mean? Does it mean
in this age nobody used metal work? Or in the metal age they stopped using stones? In fact,
how we name Stone Age, Copper Age is not that straightforward.
In geological terms we have a different time line:
a. Great Ice Age (1,6 m.-10 B.P.) [Pleistocene]
b. Post-glacial period (from 10.000 B.P. to present) [Holocene]
Holocene is the period we live in. Up to that point only minor fluctuations in the climate happened
but no radical changes ever seen in this period. Because, major changes are irreversible. Minor
climate changes are manmade. For example: cutting all the trees in Anatolia.
The end result of all these climate changes was: homo sapiens, we, the only surviving species spread
out the world. And in that time line two major changes happened for the very first time, in the
Ancient Near East, (todays Middle East)

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What were these developments?
A. Agriculture
B. Permanent Settlements
Which comes first? Agriculture or Permanent Settlements? To a very recent point, archeologists
believed that scarce resources of food, led people to grow their own food (agriculture) and that
brought out permanent settlements as a result. Today we know that, this may not be true for some
societies. We have evidence of hunters/gatherers forms of life in permanent settlements where food
is accessible, available and abundant.
A. Agriculture: refers to the domestication of selected plant and animal species in answer to
human needs. Happened in the end of Paleolithic, in Mesopotamia. What does
domestication mean? Wild species genetically modified. Animals respond to your interaction.
Wild crops began to be planted by man. If you plant selectively better crops and if you do
that for 500 years, you genetically modify the plant. Now you have species not occur in
nature but modified.
Looking at today, how can we tell this? How come it is possible? By looking at animal bonds and
skeletons.
B. Permanent Settlements: refer to man building shelters which are used all year around and
over generations. We see first examples of architecture. Again, at the end of the Paleolithic.
These two developments together lead growing of villages. We call the first earliest permanently
settled down people as: natufians. Natufian is the name of material culture of earliest sedentary
hunter and gatherers of Levant. This is not a name they call themselves, we dont know how they
called themselves, this is how we call them.
12000 BC Ain Mallaha was one of the Natufian sites. The people live in Ain Mallaha were hunters and
gatherers. Because we guess, they had enough access to the wild life. Thats why they did not change
location for some generations. Residual from their life is very little. These are very simple forms of
architecture with round rooms, they bury their ancestors. Burials are with ornaments, shell beads,
stylized limestone heads. (sort of personal decoration) In Ain Mallaha, there are signs of settling
down, however, no domestication of animals or plants attested.
Ain Mallaha is near Palestine. What we have in Turkey?
Hallan emi, ay n, Nevali ori, Gbekli Tepe.
Hallan emi ca. 10000 BC. (Batman, a very small permanent village)
Excavations showed that the residuals of animals and plants are wild species, not domesticated. It
was a purely hunting and gathering village. Similar to the earliest phase of ayn, discovered in
1990s. In the latest phase of this Natufian site, we see pig domestication. Beginning of architecture,
special structures such as; round structures around an open space.

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28 September Friday
Lecturer: Asl zyar
Subject: The Rise of Civilization: Early Urban Centers of the Ancient Near East.
ayn, 10200-7000 BC.
A very similar beginning as hunters/gatherers like Hallan emi. Except, Hallan emi stopped, ayn
continued. Did not abandon. We see, development of architecture from simple round structures to
rectangular sophisticated houses with subdivisions and development of special public buildings of
monumental size. We also see slow adoption of agriculture in a very long life span. People
experiment food production. It was easier to collect what is available. They grow white wheat and
barley. They had enough variety of animals to hunt. These developments were only possible in
certain conditions of geography. They experiment agriculture, but at the same time, they continued
hunting/gathering activity. Why? Because agriculture was so unreliable. After a period and
experience, they began to rely on it.
Nevali ori, (ca.8600-7900 BC)
Another contemporary of ayn. But it did not continued like ayn. They had rectangular
structures with walls. They developed structural buildings. And for the first time monumental
sculpture discovered. This site is called pre-pottery Neolithic site with domestic and monumental
public architecture at the same time. They also domesticated some plants: einkorn, barley, emmer
some legumes (lentils and peas)
Gbekli Tepe (Urfa) ca. 9700-8000 BC.
A little bit earlier than Hallan emi, more contemporary. Special non-residential buildings,
rectangular houses. Not square but round. Like onion layers. The buildings also have life span, i.e.
500 years. After this period they bury buildings like human. This is a typical Neolithic habit. Building
essence is associated with cult. We see an example of huge building. Round structures of
monumental size with megalithic sculptured pillars, perhaps with a sacred function. This is a very
large building, 15 m. in diameter. They contain no roof, open air building. People who constructed
this most probably, poor hunters and gatherers. But how come possible? 7 meters, 15 ton block of
stones. They should have engineering skills to builds it. We still try to understand how do they built
it, before urban complexes.
Where do we find early villages? Mostly in the foothills. Because of enough rainfall. Rain is very
important. With the experiments and advancing in irrigation they became more confident in
producing food. They made some channels. However, rainfall is a sine quo non. Living is not possible
without rain fall. Thats why fotthills are homelands of the surviving urban centers. They need 250-
500 mm. rain per m2 to survive.

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Change in the settlement. Before, we see apart, isolated villages in order to provide security. Now we
see, changes in the settlement. Coming closer for protection.
Settlements in Mesopotamia:
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river. Refers to the alluvial plain in
between. In this are precipitation was needed for agriculture. In this place there were intensive use
of land allows proximity of settlements: agricultural yield per field ratio increases. In order to get
enough food, people have to move together. That means, a lot of people living together will change
how the people live together. End result: hierarchies within site. Who has got best access to the
water, begin to control others. One of them crystallize the system and end up urban settlement:
Uruk. In the course of the 4th millennium development of one major urban scale center: the city of
URUK (Warka in modern Arabic, Erech in the Old Testament)
City slowly get denser. In hunters and gatherers life you dont need community living. But irrigation is
complicated, using water together thats white creates capitals and provincial capitals.
How do we define an urban center in this period?
Size of settlements
Full-time specialization of labor (produce things more than you consume, a lot of people
consume)
Economic surplus (able to feed people that work in monumental buildings)
Monumental public works
Long-distance trade
Institutionalization of religion (cult is old, but this is organized, sacred structures at the
center of the activity)
Emergence of writing
URUK: Early Urban Center in southern Mesopotamia! (Home city of epic of Gilgamesh!)
A very complex society, able to organize such a workforce, 7500 man 1 year, or 750 man 10 years.
Series of monumental public buildings, some certainly used as tempels, other of unknown function
City is rely on agriculture, able to produce food, able to built agriculture.
Mass-produced wheel made pottery, Complex bureaucracy: cylinder seals. Seals show high
administration. Capitals need to be controlled. These cylindric seals make impressions on clay.
Development of recording: writing begins.
After having new urban centers, we have a new complexity: a new city-state! Multiple cities of urban
centers! Real evidence of it is the professional armies that fight for lands! We see dynastic rule in
independent city-states: names of deities, rulers and sites in inscriptions. A City-state has got a

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central town with villages in hinterland (radius ca. 15 km). But how can they tell about borders? How
mapping was possible?
Two types of land-use define borders of polity:
1. cultivated land=irrigated
2. Pasture land, also used as hunting and gathering area
The next step will be organized army protection for borders. With population growth and economic
surplus, it had become possible to hold standing armies. It produced military readers for the army,
and these temporary military leaders become political leaders and eventually, hereditary kingship
reproduced itself!