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Books by PETER M M G AKKERMANS

TO THE EUPHRATES AND BEYOND: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Maurits N. van Loon. Edited by O... more TO THE EUPHRATES AND BEYOND: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Maurits N. van Loon.
Edited by O.M.C Haex, H.H. Curvers & P.M.M.G. Akkermans

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 2020 The ‘Black Desert’ begins just south of Damascus and compris... more Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 2020

The ‘Black Desert’ begins just south of Damascus and comprises some 40,000 km2 of dark and desolate basalt fields, which stretch from southern Syria across north-eastern Jordan, and reach the sand sea of the Nefud in Saudi Arabia. The rough and highly arid terrain is often difficult to access and travel through. Despite these uninviting conditions, recent fieldwork has revealed the immense archaeological and epigraphic record of the Black Desert. This material testifies to the prominent successes achieved by indigenous nomadic peoples in exploiting the basalt range through hunting and herding across centuries and millennia.

To date, there is an ever-increasing interest in the archaeology of the Black Desert. In particular, Jordan is home to a range of international research projects, and exciting new discoveries convincingly demonstrate the archaeological affluence of Jordan’s desert landscape. The present volume provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date examination of the archaeology and epigraphy of the immense basalt expanse as well as comparative perspectives from other parts of the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. This collection of papers offers detailed insights and analyses on topics ranging from mobility and landscape to developments in settlement and burial practices, as well as the role of rock art and literacy in ancient desert environments. This richly illustrated book is a significant point of reference for what is rapidly becoming a most vibrant and dynamic field of research in the Levant and Arabia.

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans, Merel L. Bruning, Harmen O. Huigens & Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse (Eds.) 2014

Nieuwenhuijse O.P, Bernbeck R, Akkermans P.M.M.G & Rogash J. (Eds.) 2013. FINAL PROOFS, ... more Nieuwenhuijse O.P, Bernbeck R, Akkermans P.M.M.G & Rogash J. (Eds.) 2013.

FINAL PROOFS, APRIL 2013
The times between the Neolithic and Urban revolutions in Mesopotamia have for a long time been interpreted as a period of stagnation. This volume is part of an emerging discourse that challenges such assumptions. Focussing upon the northern parts of ancient Western Asia, where most recent research has concentrated, an international group of researchers demonstrates that Upper Mesopotamia underwent complex historical changes that we just begin to grasp fully. The Late Neolithic was a critical phase of the history of the ancient Middle East. Authors investigate settlement patterns, practices of painting pottery, distributions of various raw materials, the role of craft industries, the emergence of seals and other issues from a variety of theoretical and practical questions. The book is a must-have for prehistorians working in the Near East, and a rich source of information for archaeologists working in other parts of the world.

Review by Ian Hodder: "This is an enormously impressive volume that consigns to the waste bin any notion that the Late Neolithic in Upper Mesopotamia was an inconsequential period of stagnant inactivity between the PPNB and the Ubaid, between the origins of farming and of urbanism. Rather, the period emerges as diverse and complex, witnessing much dynamism and challenging many accepted assumptions. A hugely impressive compendium of papers transforms our vision of this time period. The papers are lively and diverse in terms of theory and perspective. Some deal more with excavation results and with microhistories, while others provide synthetic accounts. ‘Interpreting the Late Neolithic’ is a milestone in late prehistoric research of Western Asia." (Ian Hodder Dunlevie Family Professor in the Department of Anthropology of Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University)

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans, 1993

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 1996

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 1989

M. Verhoeven and Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Eds.) 2000

B.S. During, A. Wossink and Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Eds.) 2011.

Papers by PETER M M G AKKERMANS

By: Jacques Connan, Bonnie Nilhamn, Michael H. Engel, Alex Zumberge, Peter M.M.G. Akkermans and R... more By: Jacques Connan, Bonnie Nilhamn, Michael H. Engel, Alex Zumberge, Peter M.M.G. Akkermans and Rzger A. Abdula (2023). Pp. 63-91 in: STYLE AND SOCIETY IN THE PREHISTORY OF WEST ASIA: Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse. Edited by Bleda S. Düring and Peter M.M.G. Akkermans.

By P.M.M.G. Akkermans & M.L. Brüning (2023). Pp. 29-42 in: STYLE AND SOCIETY IN THE PREHISTORY OF... more By P.M.M.G. Akkermans & M.L. Brüning (2023). Pp. 29-42 in: STYLE AND SOCIETY IN THE PREHISTORY OF WEST ASIA: Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse. Edited by Bleda S. Düring and Peter M.M.G. Akkermans.

----FINAL PROOF--- For publication in: Lucy E. Bennison-Chapman, Ed., 2023, Bookkeeping Without ... more ----FINAL PROOF---
For publication in: Lucy E. Bennison-Chapman, Ed., 2023, Bookkeeping Without Writing: Early Administrative Technologies in Context. Leuven: Peeters.

Some twenty-five years ago, hundreds of clay sealings as well as a series of stone stamp seals were found in excavation at Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria. Dating to the late seventh millennium cal. BC, the find represents one of the largest assemblages of prehistoric sealings known in the Near East until now. By now, even more seals and sealings have been found at the site. Their occurrence in securely stratified contexts allowed for interpretations about their use in controlled storage events by pastoralists. This paper is primarily concerned with the date of introduction of the sealing practice at Tell Sabi Abyad and its embedding in the wider cultural setting of the time.

... immensely. The sup-port of colleagues in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopk... more ... immensely. The sup-port of colleagues in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins, Betsy Bryan, Jerrold Cooper, Richard Jasnow, Kyle McCarter, and Raymond Westbrook, has always been steadfast. Finally ...

American Journal of Archaeology, 1998

The Cambridge World Prehistory 3 Volume Set, 2014

... The period involved ranges approximately from 5500 to 4500 BC At this time, Halaf society was... more ... The period involved ranges approximately from 5500 to 4500 BC At this time, Halaf society was widely dispersed along the northern fringes of the Fertile Crescent, including modern northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. ...

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 2020 The ‘Black Desert’ begins just south of Damascus and compris... more Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 2020

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans, Merel L. Bruning, Harmen O. Huigens & Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse (Eds.) 2014

Nieuwenhuijse O.P, Bernbeck R, Akkermans P.M.M.G & Rogash J. (Eds.) 2013. FINAL PROOFS, ... more Nieuwenhuijse O.P, Bernbeck R, Akkermans P.M.M.G & Rogash J. (Eds.) 2013.

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans, 1993

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 1996

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Ed.) 1989

M. Verhoeven and Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Eds.) 2000

B.S. During, A. Wossink and Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Eds.) 2011.

American Journal of Archaeology, 1998

The Cambridge World Prehistory 3 Volume Set, 2014

... dat de tekst vele eeuwen eerder is opgesteld door de zoon van de grote koning Sargon van Akka... more ... dat de tekst vele eeuwen eerder is opgesteld door de zoon van de grote koning Sargon van Akkad, die (de zoon) de tempel ... Bijna een halve eeuw geleden stelde Kathleen Kenyon naar aanleiding van haar opgravingen in Jericho dat de aanvang van het late Neolithicum een ...

... Search Leiden Repository This Collection. Seals and Seal Impressions from Middle Assyrian Tel... more ... Search Leiden Repository This Collection. Seals and Seal Impressions from Middle Assyrian Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria. Leiden Repository. Seals and Seal Impressions from Middle Assyrian Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria. Type: Part of book or chapter of book. ...

On December 9th, 2015, the Leiden University Center for the Study of Islam and Society and the Le... more On December 9th, 2015, the Leiden University Center for the Study of Islam and Society and the Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia will host a joint conference to highlight the state-of-the-art in Arabian Archaeology in the 21st century. The event will gather prominent scholars—archaeologists and epigraphists—to share their research, cross-fertilize with others working in the Peninsula, and outline the goals for Arabian Archaeology in the coming decades.

The conference will be followed by the launch of the journal Arabian Epigraphic Notes.

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eigh... more The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC 1–3. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals—that is, traction and wool—the first clear evidence for these appears much later, from the late fifth and fourth millennia BC 4,5. Hence, the timing and region in which milking was first practised remain unknown. Organic residues preserved in archaeological pottery 6,7 have provided direct evidence for the use of milk in the fourth millennium in Britain 7–9 , and in the sixth millennium in eastern Europe 10 , based on the d 13 C values of the major fatty acids of milk fat 6,7. Here we apply this approach to more than 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe dating from the fifth to the seventh millennia BC. We show that milk was in use by the seventh millennium ; this is the earliest direct evidence to date. Milking was particularly important in northwestern Anatolia, pointing to regional differences linked with conditions more favourable to cattle compared to other regions, where sheep and goats were relatively common and milk use less important. The latter is supported by correlations between the fat type and animal bone evidence. The use of milk, wool and traction, so-called 'secondary' products, obtained from domestic animals without killing them, marks an important step in the history of domestication 4,5. But evidence for when and how this first happened is inconclusive. Some researchers have argued that once animals were domesticated the potential benefits of these products would have been exploited rapidly 11. Others have pointed to the late appearance of unequivocal evidence—that is, representations of milking scenes, carts and ploughs—and to barriers , such as lactose intolerance in humans, suggesting that early domestication was predominantly for meat and hides, postulating a 'secondary products revolution' during the fifth or fourth millennium BC, 2,000–4,000 years after the first domestication of cattle, sheep and goats in the Near East and Europe 5,12. Evidence provided by figurines and pictures of animals before 4000 BC, and from artefacts (for example, ceramic strainers), has been variously interpreted 13 , as has evidence from animal bone assemblages, especially the ages at which animals were killed, taken as reflecting what they were kept for and how they were managed 14–16. The analysis of lipid residues from pottery, particularly our discovery that ruminant milk fatty acids can be distinguished from those of carcass fats, provided a new tool for detecting early milk use 6,7. The approach rests upon differences in the d 13 C value of the C 18:0 (in C x:y , x is the number of carbon atoms in the fatty acid, and y is the number of double bonds) fatty acid of milk and carcass fats. This arises from a greater proportion of dietary carbohydrate-derived carbon being used in the biosynthesis of carcass fat C 18:0 , compared to milk fat, up to 40% of which derives from biohydrogenated dietary unsat-urated C 18 fatty acids (C 18:3, C 18:2 and C 18:1) 17,18. Using this approach, we recently provided evidence for widespread milk use at some of the earliest Neolithic sites in southern Britain 7–9. However, these sites, dating to the early fourth millennium BC, are late in relation to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the Near East and southern and central Europe. The same technique has also provided evidence for milk use in Romania before 5000 BC 10. Reported here are results from analyses of organic residues from sherds of pottery vessels from fifth-to seventh-millennium BC sites in southeastern Europe, Anatolia and the Levant. Vessels most likely to have been used for food preparation were selected to test where milk use started, and whether the use of milk products first began in the region where farming was pioneered, namely within the Fertile Crescent, or whether it was an innovation of other regions. Figure 1 shows the locations of the 23 sites from which the sherds were sampled. The results of the analyses of 2,225 sherds are summarized in Table 1 and Figs 2 and 3; 12% of the sherds (255) yielded sufficient residue for compound-specific stable carbon isotope analysis. Typical gas chromatographic profiles of the residues displayed in Fig. 2 show that the C 16:0 and C 18:0 fatty acids predominate, the high abundance of the latter confirming that the residues derive from animal fats. Mean lipid concentrations varied over the range 0.54– 1.74 mg per g sherd. The lower concentrations and incidences of lipid residues in these assemblages, compared to pottery from northern European sites, probably relates to differences in vessel use, clay type, the greater age of the pottery and/or degradative factors associated

The Late Neolithic period in Upper Mesopotamia is generally associated with a surge in human sett... more The Late Neolithic period in Upper Mesopotamia is generally associated with a surge in human settlement, in terms of their number, geographic distribution, and organizational complexity. In archaeological discussion, the "advanced farming village" is often seen as the logical "end product" of the agricultural transformations that began in the Early ("Pre-Pottery") Neolithic. However, the complex later prehistoric landscape did not emerge overnight. Current evidence suggests that this profound transformation took about one and a half millennia, and showed much localized variability. Over the past decades , regional surveys have resulted in a rich body of evidence that stimulates the exploration of long-term trends in settlement through the Neolithic period. Here we present a synthesis of this exploration. We highlight some important methodological and conceptual challenges to interpreting these data, and we point out a number of possible shifts in the ways Late Neolithic communities inhabited the landscape.

Archaeology in Jordan 4: 7-9, 2024

Project continued its excavations of burial cairns in the rugged, basalt-strewn Jebel Qurma regio... more Project continued its excavations of burial cairns in the rugged, basalt-strewn Jebel Qurma region, located east of Azraq in Jordan's northeastern "Black Desert." Although pre-Islamic tombs occur in the basaltic uplands in large numbers, these graves of different shape, size, type, and construction have rarely been investigated comprehensively. Our project explicitly focuses on the exploration of the many tombs and their development through time. Prehistoric tombs, ranging from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age IV, occur sparsely in the Jebel Qurma region. The vast majority of the burial mounds date from the first millennium BC to the early first millennium AD (on the basis of 14 C and OSL dates) and were repeatedly reused for interment. A variety of (contemporary) burial cairns is also found, although it is often difficult to distinguish between these types through survey data alone due to issues of preservation, reuse, reconstruction, and looting. Hence, typological order depends in many cases wholly on excavation.

By Peter M.M.G. Akkermans & Merel L. Brüning (2023)

By Jacques Connan, Bonnie Nilhamn, Michael H. Engel, Alex Zumberge, Peter M.M.G. Akkermans and Rz... more By Jacques Connan, Bonnie Nilhamn, Michael H. Engel, Alex Zumberge, Peter M.M.G. Akkermans and Rzger A. Abdula

TMA64, 2020

Tell Sabi Abyad is a key archeological site in Northern Syria, extensively excavated from 1986 to... more Tell Sabi Abyad is a key archeological site in Northern Syria, extensively excavated from 1986 to 2010. The excavations give evidence for a continuous settlement in the Neolithic period, from about 7200 to 5500 BC. Significantly, substantial change in the nature of settlement and the associated material culture was found to occur at about 6200 BC. There were alterations and innovations in, for example, settlement area, architecture, pottery production, ceramic symbolism, use of seals, farming strategies, and burial practices. The many changes predominantly occurred at a time of substantial climate change, associated with cold and drought: the so-called 8k2 climate event. Often, changes in climate are associated with societal crisis, culture collapse and forced migration. However, the research at Tell Sabi Abyad indicates a remarkable resilience of the local Neolithic population: the community did not collapse but successfully adapted to the changing environmental conditions.