Neolithic Seafaring in the Persian Gulf

Chapter 15 The Social and Environmental Context of Neolithic Seafaring in the Persian Gulf
Robert A. Carter
During the late sixth and fifth millennium bc, a maritime trading network linked the villages of southern Mesopotamia and the Neolithic communities of the Arabian shores. This was more than an aggregate of opportunistic exchanges, but was a mature, stable and structured system that persisted for many generations. The reasons for its emergence and maintenance are to be found both in the motives of its participants and the geophysical and climatic development of the Persian Gulf region. The exchange relationship can be set within the broader context of the Ubaid horizon in Greater Mesopotamia and neighbouring regions, a phenomenon which saw a marked intensification of inter- and intra-regional interaction, manifested in the material culture as a shared suite of styles and perhaps ideologies. The evidence

Pottery distributions and provenance Mesopotamian-style painted and plain pottery is found on numerous sites in eastern Arabia (Burkholder 1972; Golding 1974; Masry 1974). The material relates to the Ubaid period of southern Mesopotamia, and was imported from southern Iraq (Oates et al. 1977). An accompanying coarse ware is probably of local manufacture. The number and geographical range of sites with Ubaid-related material have since been greatly expanded, and Ubaid ceramics can now be seen to have spread almost as far as the Straits of Hormuz, over 1100 km from their point of origin (Fig. 15.1) (Roaf 1974; Vogt 1994; Flavin & Shepherd 1994; Uerpmann & Uerpmann 1996; Jasim 1996; Carter et al. 1999; Phillips 2002; Beech et al. 2005). Both the number of sites and quantity of pottery declines in the lower Gulf, and the inhabitants of Ubaid-related sites (minimum number of this region may have obtained their Ubaid-related potsherds) H3 ceramics indirectly, through trade >0 >10 with communities in the central Gulf >50 Halilih (Carter & Crawford 2001, 18). Stylistically, the date of the pottery potentially ranges from the Ubaid 2 to the Ubaid 5 (Terminal Abu Khamis Ubaid) (Oates 1983, 255), but closer Khursaniyah Dosariyah analysis shows that nearly all the sites Ain as-Sayh date to the Ubaid 3 Period (including the so-called Ubaid 2/3, or Early Persian Gulf Ubaid 3), with a small number dating Ain Qannas to the Ubaid 4 (Carter 2002, 27, n. 6). The presence of Ubaid 5 (Terminal Dalma Ubaid) material remains uncertain. Thus, Mesopotamian pottery was probably being taken into the Gulf for a period of between 500 years Figure 15.1. Map of the Persian Gulf showing the locations of sites with (allowing for the whole of the Ubaid Ubaid pottery. 3 and the start of the Ubaid 4) and 191

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Figure 15.2. Boat-related finds of the Ubaid 2/3 Period (Early Ubaid 3) from H3, As-Sabiyah, Kuwait: a) ceramic model of a reed-bundle boat, 15 cm in length; b) painted ceramic disc showing a boat with a two-footed mast; c) examples of reed-impressed, barnacle encrusted bitumen slabs. 1000 years (if the trade continued for the whole of the Ubaid 4 Period) (Carter 2006, 58). Analytical work currently being undertaken by the author (ICP-AES on sherds from six sites in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi and Iran) confirms Oatess findings that the Ubaid-related pottery from Arabia is of Mesopotamian origin. It also indicates that Ubaid-style pottery from a site on the Iranian coast, site H200 at Halileh on the Bushehr Peninsula (Oates 1983, 255), is in fact of Iranian manufacture, though a minority of sherds may have been imported from Mesopotamia. 192

Boat remains and depictions Previous authors have suggested that the pottery was brought into the Gulf by sea, on account of its predominantly coastal distribution (Oates et al. 1977, 233; Piesinger 1983, 753). Several boat-related finds from an Ubaid-related Neolithic site in Kuwait (H3, As-Sabiyah) support this hypothesis. These include a ceramic model of a reed-bundle boat (Fig. 15.2a), a painted ceramic disc showing a boat with a two-footed mast (Fig. 15.2b) and numerous barnacle-encrusted fragments of reed-impressed bitumen, which were once part of the outer hull coating of a reed-bundle boat (Fig. 15.2c). These finds and their context have already been described (Carter 2002; 2006), and a detailed publication is forthcoming (Carter & Crawford in press). Suffice to say that a sophisticated boatbuilding technology existed, with advanced composite materials and knowledge of the mast and sail, which produced vessels capable of carrying people and cargo several hundred kilometres across the sea between southern Mesopotamia and the Arabian shores. Moreover, not only do the bitumen pieces comprise the worlds oldest fragments of sea-going boat, but the disc provides the worlds oldest evidence for the use of mast and sail (Carter 2006, 55). The identity of the sailors and boat-builders is uncertain, and it is unclear whether long-distance sailing technology should be regarded as the domain of the Neolithic inhabitants of eastern Arabia, or the Ubaid inhabitants of Mesopotamia. The technique of coating reed-bundle hulls with bitumen is a characteristically Mesopotamian technique, used from the Ubaid period to the modern era (Potts 1997, 13032; Ochsenschlager 1992, 52). Analysis of the H3 bitumen, however, reveals the remarkable fact that Kuwaiti bitumen was used, from Burgan in southern Kuwait (Connan et al. 2005). It has previously been observed that the techniques necessary for coastal navigation of the shores of the Gulf were more likely to have been developed in the Gulf itself than elsewhere (Piesinger 1983, 718). Environmental context Sea levels and shorelines The archaeologically visible maritime trading network emerged only after the development of shorelines close to those of the modern day. Evidence for earlier contacts, if they existed, would be submerged. The Gulf was dry during the last glacial maximum except for the course of the combined Tigris/Euphrates and associated wetlands, beginning to fill around 14,000 bp (Lambeck 1996, 54). At times the lateral transgression may have been over 1 km per year (Teller et al.

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2000, 303, 306). Such a pace would not have allowed the development of stable littoral environments, or the establishment of coastal settlements. According to Lambeck, modern levels were reached shortly before 6000 cal. bp (c. 4000 bc), bringing the shoreline to an advanced position close to the southernmost Mesopotamian sites (e.g. Eridu, Ur) (Lambeck 1996, 56). Pournelle considers that the shoreline had already passed Kuwait prior to 6000 cal. bc, when it lay half way between Kuwait and its later maximum extent (Pournelle 2003, 11314, 123, fig. 34), and that it approached the major southern Mesopotamian Ubaid sites by 5600 cal. bc (Fig. 15.3). Other analysts find that modern levels were reached and exceeded at an earlier date, with the peak already at c. 6000 cal. bc, 12 m higher than modern levels (Dalongeville & Sanlaville 1987, figs. 8, 9). This is partially supported by research in Khuzestan (Gasche 2004; 2005), which posits a much more northerly extension of the sea between 6000 and 5500 cal. bc on the Iranian side than Pournelles reconstructions (Fig. 15.3). This work did not find evidence for a high stand greater than modern levels, and concluded that shorelines stabilized after c. 5500 cal. bc, eventually beginning to prograde during the third millennium bc (Heyvaert & Baetman 2007, 1046). Whichever scenario is correct, it is clear from the shell and fish assemblage of the site H3, not to mention the boat remains, that the sea had reached or very slightly exceeded modern levels in Kuwait by 5300 bc. To the south, a shoreline very close to the modern one had been established along the Arabian coast by the later sixth millennium bc, delineated by the position of the Ubaid-related Neolithic sites. A small number of these became relatively large, with several metres depth of deposits and evidence for structures. The larger sites indicate a simple two-tiered settlement hierarchy, and include H3, As-Sabiyah (c. 90 80 m); Dosariyah (1.6 km2); Abu Khamis (225 75 m); Khursaniyah (not excavated); and Ain as-Sayh D (Masry 1997, 4850; McClure & Al-Shaikh 1993, 1078). It is thought that small groups followed patterns of cyclical migration with their herds of sheep, goats and cattle, taking in coastal regions as well as inland grasslands (now desert) (Uerpmann et al. 2000). The larger sites would have been favoured for prolonged stop-offs during the migration cycle, or even have developed into permanent or semi-permanent settlements of littoral/marine-adapted sections of the Neolithic population. Such nodes, whether permanently occupied or predictably visited at certain times of the year, are absolutely necessary for the establishment of stable and long-term maritime contacts with distant exchange partners. 193

By the second half of the sixth millennium bc, therefore, both regions involved in the exchange network featured coastal or marshland communities with easy access to the sea, with strong potential for developing water transport both for subsistence and for communication. As soon as this was the case, the maritime trading network emerged. Climate and the Arabian Neolithic climax Settlement and subsistence in the Arabian Peninsula has historically been strongly constrained by the availability of water. Average rainfall does not generally exceed 100 mm in eastern and inland Arabia, apart from in mountainous areas in the Oman Peninsula, where orographic effects result in higher moisture (Sanlaville 2000, fig. 1.1), while it has been estimated at as little as 34 mm along the Gulf littoral (Evans et al. 1969, 147). It has long been recognized that there was a period of significantly higher rainfall during the earlymid Holocene, caused by the movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and thus the monsoon, to about 10 north of its present position (Dalongeville 1990, 323; Parker et al. 2006, 248). This resulted in a progressive increase in the richness and diversity of exploitable habitats, leading directly to a steady expansion of the Arabian Neolithic in terms of site numbers and range. Not only were previously empty or thinly inhabited areas colonized, including the Rub al-Khali (McClure 1976; Edens 1982; 1988; Kallweit et al. 2005), but as noted above, larger and more permanently or intensively inhabited sites emerged in eastern Arabia within a denser pattern of smaller sites during the sixth and fifth millennia. This process may aptly be termed the Arabian Neolithic climax. The climax and its environmental backdrop is demonstrated by the correlation between human settlement in interior and eastern Arabia (indicated by sum probabilities of radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites), and moisture (derived from speleothem data) (Parker et al. 2006, fig. 5). During the wet period, areas of the Peninsula which are now desert or arid steppe developed grasslands with some woody cover (Parker et al. 2006, 246). In some areas there were permanent or semi-permanent lakes or perennial springs, not only in modern oasis areas (e.g. Hofuf, a focus of population in the Eastern Province from the Neolithic onwards), but also within the boundaries of todays Rub al-Khali desert. The vast grasslands were populated by gazelle and would have provided excellent pasture for cattle and mixed herds of sheep and goats. The littoral was an ecotone, where the grasslands bordered rich environments of lagoons, with rocky and sandy shores, and plentiful fish, bird life and shellfish. Neolithic groups populated this

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194

Figure 15.3. Shoreline reconstructions by Pournelle (2003, figs. 34, 42, 44, 46) and Heyvaert & Baetman (2007, fig. 11AB).

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landscape with their herds, exploiting the littoral with growing expertise. The connection between settlement and moisture is underlined by the subsequent depopulation of eastern Arabia during the fourth millennium bc, when the pluvial tailed off (Parker et al. 2006, 251; Uerpmann 2003, 74). This contraction was inevitably accompanied by the attenuation and eventual disappearance of exchange relations with Mesopotamia, as demonstrated by the low number of sites with Ubaid 4 pottery, the doubtful presence of Ubaid 5 material and the absence of Early Uruk pottery in eastern Arabia. Motives and social context The sea-born dispersal of Mesopotamian Ubaid ceramics in the Gulf is simply the most prominent symptom of profound social needs and changes within the communities of the two regions. The social context of the pottery trade merits examination. Neolithic contexts The meaning of Ubaid pottery within the Arabian Neolithic world offers clues to the motives of its users. Firstly, Ubaid pottery was an exotic good of high value. Prior to its arrival there was no indigenous ceramic tradition. Pottery is absent from the lower layers at Ain Qannas (Masry 1997, 6775), and there is a complete absence of pottery at inland Neolithic sites beyond the Gulf littoral and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Pottery was therefore remarkable and desirable for its appearance, properties, distant origin and technologically advanced manufacture. Moreover, the Ubaid pottery brought into the Gulf is highly decorated, with 71 per cent showing paint at H3 As-Sabiyah, the only Neolithic site where a large assemblage has been quantified. This is certainly an underestimate, as paint does not always show at the rim, which was used for quantification (Rim EVE measurements). It also contained a significant proportion of extremely fragile forms, including painted thinwalled (34 mm) carinated bowls with large diameters up to 40 cm, but mainly 2630 cm (Fig. 15.4, top left). These comprise 11 per cent of the whole assemblage of the main occupation horizon (using sherd counts the percentage is 21 per cent). Such visually striking and easily damaged objects would have had high intrinsic value in Arabia. Furthermore, crude attempts were made to imitate Ubaid painted pottery using gypsum plaster in regions of restricted access. Figure 15.1 shows that pottery and Ubaid-related sites are limited in the Lower Gulf, with the Qatar Peninsula forming an extensive geographical barrier between that region 195

and the dense cluster of sites in the Central Gulf. Small amounts of painted Ubaid 3 and 4 pottery are accompanied by large quantities of painted plaster bowls at Dalma (Fig. 15.5), where there is evidence for their manufacture (Beech et al. 2000; Carter forthcoming). The decoration is clearly influenced by that of Ubaid pottery, particularly Ubaid 4 material. The same kind of painted gypsum plaster vessels are also found on Marawah (Beech et al. 2005, 47). Neolithic communities on those islands clearly valued and required Ubaid pottery but were unable to obtain sufficient quantities, and thus substituted locally made imitations. Secondly, Ubaid pottery played a highly specific role within Neolithic social intercourse, concerned with feasting and display. The functional profile of the Ubaid assemblages in the Gulf shows an unusual predominance of cups and bowls, suitable for both display and the serving of food. At H3 these amounted to 78 per cent of the Ubaid assemblage (this is slightly lower than the percentage reported in Carter 2006, being based on a sample excluding unstratified material). This proportion appears to be mirrored in the unquantified publications of Ubaid pottery from other sites. Only 22 per cent of the Ubaid vessels were jars; these too were small and portable, suitable for serving rather than bulk storage. Ubaid pottery in the Gulf is invariably accompanied by a coarse, locally-made red ware, used only for cooking pots (Fig. 15.4, bottom). This occurs only with Ubaid pottery, indicating a related function. Of the overall assemblage at H3, 66 per cent consisted of cups and bowls, with 18 per cent jars and 16 per cent cooking pots. This is a higher percentage of both cups/bowls and cooking vessels than the only other published quantified Ubaid period assemblage, at Maddhur (Roaf 1989, 10319). The emphasis on open forms and cooking vessels indicates that Ubaid pottery in the Gulf was implicated in the public serving and consumption of food, i.e. feasting (Carter 2006, 60). Despite its exotic origins, which would have been fully acknowledged by its Neolithic users, Ubaid pottery should be regarded as an essentially Neolithic item of exchange once it had entered the Neolithic sphere. This is shown by its spatial distribution, both vertically (it is present at both the major and minor sites of the Central Gulf) and horizontally (it is spread throughout the area comprising the coastline and inland oases of Abqaiq and Hofuf, reaching up to 6070 km inland). Thus, rather than simply being left at the coastal sites by visiting sailors, it was carried and exchanged throughout the Neolithic complex of the central Gulf, by Neolithic agents. The possession and exchange or disbursement of pottery would have been a profoundly symbolic and

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Figure 15.4. Top: examples of Ubaid pottery from H3, As-Sabiyah; bottom: examples of Arabian Coarse Ware from H3, As-Sabiyah. 196

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Figure 15.5. Examples of painted plaster vessels from DA11, Dalma Island, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E (left-hand side), compared to Ubaid 4 pottery from Oueili (right-hand side) (Lebeau 1983). political act, given its high value and the likelihood of public display at communal events. The inhabitants of the central Gulf would not have had equal access to Ubaid pottery. Instead, the ceramics would have been traded on by individuals or groups with differential access to these valuable and symbolicallycharged objects, resulting in relations of inequality. The exchange or disbursement of Ubaid pottery would have been rich in value and symbolism, and a political act, demonstrating relations of solidarity, alliance, patronage and obligation. In the ethnographic record such exchanges are frequently enacted at feasting events and cycles, including famous examples such as potlatch in the Pacific Northwest (Dalton 1977), moka and tee in New Guinea (Strathern 1971; Weissner 2001), as well as lesser-known examples such as feasts in prehispanic Philippines (Junker 2001). At the latter, the distribution of prestige goods (including high-value imported Chinese ceramics) was a powerful political 197 tool, by which influence was established and alliance networks were consolidated. It has been claimed that feasts are central arenas of social action which have had a profound impact on the course of historical transformations (Dietler & Hayden 2001, 16), while involvement in trade can bring in its wake rapid, massive changes in the structure and technological equipment of a society, as well as in associated patterns of motivation, mobility and leadership (Adams 1974, 242). It is argued here that Ubaid pottery and its correlated activities (feasting and exchange) had a transformative impact on Arabian Neolithic society, representing a new means of accumulating wealth and prestige within the Neolithic context. Finally, the involvement of Ubaid pottery and its exchange in Neolithic politics relates directly to the Arabian Neolithic climax. Far-reaching social changes, ultimately predicated upon climatic amelioration, included population agglomeration, and probably the

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expansion of capital, as livestock herds grew beyond the immediate subsistence needs of individuals and communities. Such developments encouraged the reformulation of concepts and measures of status and wealth within Neolithic communities, such that ownership and access to imported decorated pottery became highly significant. Increasing mastery and abundance of resources, e.g. marine resources and pasture, would have permitted some members of the community to specialize in non-subsistence activities, including maritime trade and the production of goods needed for exchange. Mesopotamian contexts The makers of the pottery lived in a very different world. In southern Mesopotamia, sedentary communities farmed and raised livestock within a mosaic landscape of dry and watery environments, with settlements situated on raised land (turtlebacks), surrounded by marshes and lower ground susceptible to flooding, allowing flood recession irrigation (Huot 2004, 5960; Stein 1994, 36; Pournelle 2003; Kennett & Kennett 2006, 78; Algaze 2001, 201, 204). The wetlands were conducive to the development of maritime and riverine transport (Pournelle 2007, 47; 2003, 185, 19091; Algaze 2001, 201, 204). As with the Arabian littoral, a relative stabilization of the shoreline may have encouraged the development of permanent settlements and even polities of some kind. It is generally assumed that the Ubaid period saw a progressive increase in social complexity, characterized by increased economic differentiation, regional centralization, ritual elaboration and perhaps social stratification (Stein 1994, 41; Oates 1993, 408). The latter is problematic, given the difficulty in identifying elites in the Ubaid archaeological record. Although there is an unusually large house at Abada (in the Hamrin, nearly 400 km from the southern sites), associated with presumed high-status artefacts (maceheads, tokens, stone vessels) (Jasim 1983; Jasim & Oates 1986; Stein 1994, 41), there is no indication of status-differentiation in the southern settlements or funerary record (Akkermans 1989, 362). Our failure to identify individuals and artefacts with elite associations within the southern Mesopotamian record is paralleled by the paucity of imported goods. Apart from obsidian, foreign materials are conspicuously absent, as indeed are luxury goods or status-markers of any kind (Stein 1994, 3940). The role of exotic imports, so frequently implicated in social change and the emergence of elites in formative societies (Wengrow 2006, 756; Flannery 1968; Van de Noort 2003) is therefore questionable in the case of the southern Mesopotamian Ubaid (Stein 1994, 40). The possibility remains, 198

however, that an elite stratum did exist in the southern Ubaid world, which is hard to discern archaeologically. Stein theorizes that the control and mobilization of staple finance (i.e. agricultural produce) was more important than the possession and exchange of luxury goods in the development and maintenance of chiefly elites (Stein 1994), while Flannery suggests that Mesopotamian elites did not use the manifestation of prestige goods to express power and status, but employed other methods which are not highly visible in the archaeological record (Flannery 1999). Ubaid elites may have downplayed their privileged status, sponsoring ideologies of inclusion and corporate identity, and avoiding overt and divisive practices which underline assymetric social relationships, such as elite burials and displays. Similar strategies are inferred in the European Neolithic from collective burials (Shanks & Tilley 1982, 1512). The lack of evidence for exotic imports is doubly remarkable given the abundant and ever-growing evidence for very wide-ranging and seemingly intensive interaction networks during the sixth and fifth millennia, which stretched from southeast Anatolia through Mesopotamia to southern Iran. These networks are manifested by the sharing of pottery styles, architecture and other elements of material culture, including personal ornamentation and body modification (Oates 2004, 938; Lorentz forthcoming; Daems forthcoming). Until recently the emergence of this vast cultural zone was conceptualized as an expansion of people and/ or ideas, ideologies and styles, from a putative Ubaid homeland in southern Mesopotamia at around the end of the Ubaid 2 period (Oates 2004, 98; Stein 1994, 367; Roaf 1990, 53). Some recent examinations have alternatively stressed the importance of non-hierarchical transformations and interactions on a multiplicity of scales, while underlining heterogeneous aspects of the Ubaid horizon (Stein forthcoming; Karsgaard forthcoming). In both cases, there is a sharp dichotomy between the clear evidence for an intensification of interactions between regions, and the paucity of evidence for what those interactions might have entailed, such as evidence for the exchange of goods. This has led some authors to give primacy to intermarriage and the exchange of women, or the dissemination of ideology, when explaining the apparent spread of Ubaid material culture (Yoffee 1993, 266; Forest 1989; Stein forthcoming). In the case of the ArabianUbaid interaction, the exchange of goods is undeniable, given the distribution of southern Mesopotamian pottery. The equation remains one-sided, however, and we are reduced to speculation regarding the goods which passed into Mesopotamian hands. There is no shortage of plausi-

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ble exchange items which would leave little trace in the excavation record, including: Pearls (Masry 1997, 133; Oates et al. 1977, 233; Uerpmann & Uerpmann 1996, 135; Potts 1998, 23; Carter 2006, 60). These disintegrate easily and are usually too small to be recovered without sieving. Large-scale excavations at the southern Mesopotamian sites would not have favoured their recovery. Recent research already indicates the importance of pearls within the Neolithic world (Carter 2005, 1624). Shell jewellery (Carter 2006, 60). This was manufactured on a large scale at several coastal Neolithic sites, possibly for trade (Carter & Crawford 2002, 8; Masry 1997, 90; King 1998, pl. 45; Flavin & Shepherd 1994, fig. 8:iv). Chains of shell beads were found in the Eridu and Ur cemeteries (Safar et al. 1981, fig. 68; Woolley 1955), though these could have been made from nearby river, marsh or marine shell. Stone and minerals (Oates et al. 1977, 233; Carter et al. 1999, 57), e.g. flint, red ochre or even obsidian. Recent analyses of Neolithic obsidian from al-Khor, Qatar and H3, As-Sabiyah show that some originated from western Arabia, and this could have been traded northwards (Carter & Crawford 2002, 10; Zarins 1990, 531). Livestock and perishable animal products (Kallweit 2003, 61, 63; Oates et al. 1977, 233). Cattle or hides could have been major items of trade with Mesopotamia. Intangibles (Carter et al. 1999, 56). Pottery may have been exchanged for the privilege of exploiting local resources, such as fish and access to water. Conclusions The emergence of seafaring and long-distance maritime exchange in the Persian Gulf was predicated upon social developments among the communities in eastern Arabia and southern Mesopotamia, which in turn developed partly in response to climatic conditions and the stabilization of sea levels close to modern levels during the sixth millennium bc. The exchange of pottery can furthermore be contextualized within the wider Ubaid horizon or interaction network, whereby elements of shared material culture were distributed from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. This phenomenon, perhaps independent of the environmental changes which affected southern Mesopotamia and Arabia, testifies to a multi-regional intensification of contacts, but is still poorly understood in terms of how and in which arenas interaction took place. The ArabianUbaid relationship is useful as a case study 199

within the wider Ubaid horizon, in that identifiable trade goods and motives can be assigned to some of the participants. These motives are highly contextual and specific to the maritime network in the Persian Gulf, and similar conditions would not necessarily pertain to other regions of the Near East. For example, the villagers of northern Mesopotamia or Iran would not have been as impressed by painted pottery as the essentially aceramic Neolithic peoples of Arabia. Finally, brief comments should be passed on the role of the network in fostering social complexity. Observers frequently associate maritime exchange with elite development and advancing social complexity, for example in the Californian Channel islands (Arnold 1995, 735, 742), and in the Bronze Ages of the North Sea and the Cyclades (Van de Noort 2003, 407; Broodbank 1993). More specifically, it has been suggested that the specific introduction of sailing technology can have a highly transformative effect on coastal and islands societies (Broodbank 2000, 3419). It is, however, not currently appropriate to characterize the Persian Gulf network as an elite exchange system. Although both societies were perhaps engaged in processes of social differentiation, and the exchanges were driven by considerations of wealth and status, the putative elites remain elusive. In the case of the Neolithic, the lack of a developed agricultural base, and the consequent high degree of mobility, limited the opportunities to control surplus and consolidate wealth and power. Thus, although Ubaid pottery was implicated in competitive displays of wealth and status, the structure of Neolithic society did not encourage the development of stable elites. In southern Mesopotamia it is more likely that genuine elites were emerging, but they remain invisible. Until better evidence is found for elites and their involvement in long-distance exchange, the trading expeditions are best seen as having covert or unrealized agendas of personal gain and elite aspiration. References
Adams, R., 1974. Anthropological perspectives on ancient trade. Current Anthropology 15(3), 23957. Akkermans, P.M.M.G., 1989. Tradition and social change in northern Mesopotamia during the later fifth and fourth millennium bc, in Upon This Foundation: the Ubaid Reconsidered, eds. E.F. Henrickson & I. Thuesen. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 33967. Algaze, G., 2001. Initial social complexity in southwestern Asia: the Mesopotamian advantage. Current Anthropology 42(2), 199233. Arnold, J.E., 1995. Transportation innovation and social complexity among maritime hunter-gatherer societies. American Anthropologist 97(4), 73347.

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