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Ancient Civilizations and Cultural Resources, vol. 1 (2023), pp.1-22, 2023

The Shahrizor Plain is in a mountainous basin in the eastern part of the Sulaymaniyah Governorate... more The Shahrizor Plain is in a mountainous basin in the eastern part of the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where evidence of prehistoric occupations has been increasingly accumulated by recent investigations. Regarding the chronology of its late prehistory, however, there are some ill-defined archaeological gaps yet to be filled, the most critical of which lies in the early 6th millennium cal. BC. To address this issue, new excavations began at Shaikh Marif in 2022, following investigations at Shakar Tepe in 2019. Our work in 2022 successfully uncovered cultural deposits that yielded artefact assemblages typical of the Late Neolithic period. The dates of the site were estimated to be approximately 6000 cal. BC and thus fill a part of the chronological gaps in the archaeological records of the late prehistory in this region.

Proceedings of the 12 th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 2023

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (BY-SA) which means t... more This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (BY-SA) which means that the text may be used for commercial use, distribution and duplication in all media.

Tracking the Neolithic in the Near East, 2022

Recent archaeological investigations of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period in the upper Ti... more Recent archaeological investigations of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period in the upper Tigris valley in Southeast Anatolia have shed new light on the local PPNA culture. While archaeological evidence, such as the establishment of sedentary villages, construction of round subterranean buildings and symbolic depiction of geometric and animal motifs, demonstrates a certain link between the upper Tigris and the middle Euphrates and the upper Balikh valley, it has become clear that the lithic industries in the upper Tigris valley show a distinct local character. It is well represented in the new evidence from several PPNA sites in this area and Hasankeyf Höyük is one of these sites, which provides us with detailed information for the use of lithics through time. Although the general characteristics of the lithic artefacts of Hasankeyf Höyük and their changes and continuities through time have already been studied elsewhere, the additional evidence made available in the last few years makes it possible for us to consider the chronological trend across a longer time span and improve our understanding of the lithic industry in the upper Tigris valley in the later half of the 10 th millennium cal. BC.

Orient 57: 79-92., 2022

It has been 40 years since the excavations of Qminas in northwest Syria were carried out in 1981 ... more It has been 40 years since the excavations of Qminas in northwest Syria were carried out in 1981 by a Japanese-Syrian team, who uncovered a Neolithic settlement with an occupational sequence from the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Pottery Neolithic periods. However, during a long time after the excavations, the results of the investigation have only been briefly reported, and the artifacts recovered during the excavations have never been studied in detail. This paper provides basic information on the 1981 excavations and the material artifacts recovered from this site. It is mainly based on the re-investigation of the archive of the original excavations and the artifact studies conducted during the excavation, as well as some additional studies of the artifacts currently stored at the University of Tsukuba. It can be argued that archaeological evidence acquired from Qminas demonstrates a tradition of local material culture that was shared in northwest Syria through the transition from the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Pottery Neolithic.

Journal of Lithic Studies, 2021

This paper investigates the heat treatment of flint practiced at the Neolithic site of Hasankeyf ... more This paper investigates the heat treatment of flint practiced at the Neolithic site of Hasankeyf Höyük in southeast Turkey. It does not involve petrographic or geochemical analysis to identify the physical and chemical evidence of heat treatment but aims to understand cultural aspects of the use of ancient lithic technology, using heat treatment as a case study. Heat treatment is a lithic production technique in which siliceous rocks are heated by controlled fire in order to improve their flaking quality. Archaeological evidence of heat treatment is seen all over the world, and numerous studies have contributed to the better understanding of this technique. However, what is particularly intriguing in the case of Hasankeyf Höyük is that there are many flint artefacts which were apparently overheated and unusable due to the frequent failure in achieving successful heat treatment. On the other hand, experimental studies using an electrical furnace and open fire show that once the appropriate heating time and temperature are learnt, the heat treatment of local flint at Hasankeyf Höyük is an easy process and does not require high technical skill. It is therefore suggested that heat treatment at this site was exercised along non-economic principles by people who were not very keen on improving technological efficiency, even when they could have easily done so.

Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Volume 150, Near Eastern Lithic Technologies on the Move. Interactions and Contexts in Neolithic Traditions, edited by Laurence Astruc, Carole McCartney, François Briois and Vasiliki Kassianidou, 2019

NICOSIA 2019 FB ii STUDIES IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY Volume CL Founded by Paul Åström Cover im... more NICOSIA 2019 FB ii STUDIES IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY Volume CL Founded by Paul Åström Cover image: Parekklisha Shillourokambos, Cypro-PPNB bipolar blade core technology (drawing by F. Briois)

Quaternary International, 2020

As a means of contributing to discussions on regional diversity in the earliest Neolithic lifeway... more As a means of contributing to discussions on regional diversity in the earliest Neolithic lifeways of the Fertile Crescent (10th millennium cal BC), this article presents an EDXRF-based sourcing study of 332 obsidian artifacts from the hunter-fisher-gatherer village of Hasankeyf Hoyük in southeastern Anatolia. While the techno-typological
choices detailed conform largely to a pre-defined Upper Tigris cultural tradition, the distinctions in raw material selection reflect the “mosaic of exploitation strategies” that have come to typify the socioeconomic
practices of Early Holocene communities in the larger region (southwest Asia). Five obsidian sources are represented in the analyzed sample, with Nemrut Dag products being dominant, plus smaller amounts of
Bingol A, Bingol B, Mus¸ and ‘Group 3d’ obsidian. The preference for Nemrut Da˘g obsidian distinguishes this village from others of the Upper Tigris. By using a GIS-based least cost-path analysis, we suggest that community specific traditions of raw material choice were part-influenced by these hunter-fisher-gatherers’ use of rivers as their primary means of reaching the obsidian sources. The importance of the Tigris and its tributaries for transportation and cultural interaction is supported by various proxy data that lead us to argue that riverine movement and communication was an important aspect of Early Holocene lifeways in southwest Asia that has hitherto been largely ignored by archaeologists.

Decades in Deserts: Essays on Near Eastern Archaeology in honour of Sumio Fujii, 2019

Antiquity, 2018

Antiquity 92 (361): 56-73. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2017.219

Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of Manchester, 2009

Domestication is the process by which plants or animals evolved to fit a human-managed environmen... more Domestication is the process by which plants or animals evolved to fit a human-managed environment, and it is marked by innovations in plant morphology and anatomy that are in turn correlated with new human behaviours and technologies for harvesting, storage and field preparation. Archaeobotanical evidence has revealed that domestication was a protracted process taking thousands of plant generations. Within this protracted process there were changes in the selection pressures for domestication traits as well as variation across a geographic mosaic of wild and cultivated populations. Quantitative data allow us to estimate the changing selection coefficients for the evolution of non-shattering (domestic-type seed dispersal) in Asian rice (Oryza sativa L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccon (Shrank) Schübl.) and einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum L.). These data indicate that selection coefficients tended to be low, but also that there were inflection points at which selection increased considerably. For rice, selection coefficients of the order of 0.001 prior to 5500 BC shifted to greater than 0.003 between 5000 and 4500 BC, before falling again as the domestication process ended 4000–3500 BC. In barley and the two wheats selection was strongest between 8500 and 7500 BC. The slow start of domestication may indicate that initial selection began in the Pleistocene glacial era.

This article is part of the themed issue ‘Process and pattern in innovations from cells to societies’.

For the first time we integrate quantitative data on lithic sickles and archaeobotanical evidence... more For the first time we integrate quantitative data on lithic sickles and archaeobotanical evidence for domestication and the evolution of plant economies from sites dated to the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene (ca. 12000e5000 cal. BCE) from throughout the Fertile Crescent region of Southwest Asia. We find a strong correlation in some regions, throughout the Levant, for increasing investment in sickles that tracks the evidence for increasing reliance on cereal crops, while evidence for morphological domestication in wheats (Triticum monococcum and Triticum dicoccum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) was delayed in comparison to sickle use. These data indicate that while the co-increase of sickle blades and cereal crops support the protracted development of agricultural practice, sickles did not drive the initial stages of the domestication process but rather were a cultural adaptation to increasing reliance on cereals that were still undergoing selection for morphological change. For other regions, such as the Eastern Fertile Crescent and Cyprus such correlations are weaker or non-existent suggesting diverse cultural trajectories to cereal domestication. We conclude that sickles were an exaptation transferred to cereal harvesting and important in signalling a new cultural identity of " farmers ". Furthermore, the protracted process of technological and agricultural evolution calls into question hypotheses that the transition to agriculture was caused by any particular climatic event.

The recent discovery of EPPNB occupation at Tell Ain el-Kerkh in northwest Syria provides a new p... more The recent discovery of EPPNB occupation at Tell Ain el-Kerkh in northwest Syria provides a new perspective of the early stage of Neolithisation in the north Levant. The archaeological evidence from Kerkh shows first that the earliest Neolithic occupation in northwest Syria goes back to the EPPNB period and revises the generally accepted hypothesis that the Neolithisation in this region started in the LPPNB. In addition, the narrow naviform cores and Aswad points evidenced at Kerkh appear to be chronological markers of this period and imply the existence of other earlier PPNB sites in northwest Syria. When comparing the subsistence economy and the chipped stone industry of Kerkh with those of other contemporary sites, regional variations between the EPPNB sites become clear and possibly indicate the importance of local traditions in the development of the PPNB cultural horizon. Discovery of an EPPNB site in northwest Syria is also interesting in considering the origin of Cypriot PPN culture, but at the moment direct relationships between Kerkh and Cypriot PPN sites are rare.

Ancient Civilizations and Cultural Resources, vol. 1 (2023), pp.1-22, 2023

The Shahrizor Plain is in a mountainous basin in the eastern part of the Sulaymaniyah Governorate... more The Shahrizor Plain is in a mountainous basin in the eastern part of the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where evidence of prehistoric occupations has been increasingly accumulated by recent investigations. Regarding the chronology of its late prehistory, however, there are some ill-defined archaeological gaps yet to be filled, the most critical of which lies in the early 6th millennium cal. BC. To address this issue, new excavations began at Shaikh Marif in 2022, following investigations at Shakar Tepe in 2019. Our work in 2022 successfully uncovered cultural deposits that yielded artefact assemblages typical of the Late Neolithic period. The dates of the site were estimated to be approximately 6000 cal. BC and thus fill a part of the chronological gaps in the archaeological records of the late prehistory in this region.

Proceedings of the 12 th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 2023

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (BY-SA) which means t... more This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (BY-SA) which means that the text may be used for commercial use, distribution and duplication in all media.

Tracking the Neolithic in the Near East, 2022

Recent archaeological investigations of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period in the upper Ti... more Recent archaeological investigations of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period in the upper Tigris valley in Southeast Anatolia have shed new light on the local PPNA culture. While archaeological evidence, such as the establishment of sedentary villages, construction of round subterranean buildings and symbolic depiction of geometric and animal motifs, demonstrates a certain link between the upper Tigris and the middle Euphrates and the upper Balikh valley, it has become clear that the lithic industries in the upper Tigris valley show a distinct local character. It is well represented in the new evidence from several PPNA sites in this area and Hasankeyf Höyük is one of these sites, which provides us with detailed information for the use of lithics through time. Although the general characteristics of the lithic artefacts of Hasankeyf Höyük and their changes and continuities through time have already been studied elsewhere, the additional evidence made available in the last few years makes it possible for us to consider the chronological trend across a longer time span and improve our understanding of the lithic industry in the upper Tigris valley in the later half of the 10 th millennium cal. BC.

Orient 57: 79-92., 2022

It has been 40 years since the excavations of Qminas in northwest Syria were carried out in 1981 ... more It has been 40 years since the excavations of Qminas in northwest Syria were carried out in 1981 by a Japanese-Syrian team, who uncovered a Neolithic settlement with an occupational sequence from the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Pottery Neolithic periods. However, during a long time after the excavations, the results of the investigation have only been briefly reported, and the artifacts recovered during the excavations have never been studied in detail. This paper provides basic information on the 1981 excavations and the material artifacts recovered from this site. It is mainly based on the re-investigation of the archive of the original excavations and the artifact studies conducted during the excavation, as well as some additional studies of the artifacts currently stored at the University of Tsukuba. It can be argued that archaeological evidence acquired from Qminas demonstrates a tradition of local material culture that was shared in northwest Syria through the transition from the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Pottery Neolithic.

Journal of Lithic Studies, 2021

This paper investigates the heat treatment of flint practiced at the Neolithic site of Hasankeyf ... more This paper investigates the heat treatment of flint practiced at the Neolithic site of Hasankeyf Höyük in southeast Turkey. It does not involve petrographic or geochemical analysis to identify the physical and chemical evidence of heat treatment but aims to understand cultural aspects of the use of ancient lithic technology, using heat treatment as a case study. Heat treatment is a lithic production technique in which siliceous rocks are heated by controlled fire in order to improve their flaking quality. Archaeological evidence of heat treatment is seen all over the world, and numerous studies have contributed to the better understanding of this technique. However, what is particularly intriguing in the case of Hasankeyf Höyük is that there are many flint artefacts which were apparently overheated and unusable due to the frequent failure in achieving successful heat treatment. On the other hand, experimental studies using an electrical furnace and open fire show that once the appropriate heating time and temperature are learnt, the heat treatment of local flint at Hasankeyf Höyük is an easy process and does not require high technical skill. It is therefore suggested that heat treatment at this site was exercised along non-economic principles by people who were not very keen on improving technological efficiency, even when they could have easily done so.

Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Volume 150, Near Eastern Lithic Technologies on the Move. Interactions and Contexts in Neolithic Traditions, edited by Laurence Astruc, Carole McCartney, François Briois and Vasiliki Kassianidou, 2019

NICOSIA 2019 FB ii STUDIES IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY Volume CL Founded by Paul Åström Cover im... more NICOSIA 2019 FB ii STUDIES IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY Volume CL Founded by Paul Åström Cover image: Parekklisha Shillourokambos, Cypro-PPNB bipolar blade core technology (drawing by F. Briois)

Quaternary International, 2020

As a means of contributing to discussions on regional diversity in the earliest Neolithic lifeway... more As a means of contributing to discussions on regional diversity in the earliest Neolithic lifeways of the Fertile Crescent (10th millennium cal BC), this article presents an EDXRF-based sourcing study of 332 obsidian artifacts from the hunter-fisher-gatherer village of Hasankeyf Hoyük in southeastern Anatolia. While the techno-typological
choices detailed conform largely to a pre-defined Upper Tigris cultural tradition, the distinctions in raw material selection reflect the “mosaic of exploitation strategies” that have come to typify the socioeconomic
practices of Early Holocene communities in the larger region (southwest Asia). Five obsidian sources are represented in the analyzed sample, with Nemrut Dag products being dominant, plus smaller amounts of
Bingol A, Bingol B, Mus¸ and ‘Group 3d’ obsidian. The preference for Nemrut Da˘g obsidian distinguishes this village from others of the Upper Tigris. By using a GIS-based least cost-path analysis, we suggest that community specific traditions of raw material choice were part-influenced by these hunter-fisher-gatherers’ use of rivers as their primary means of reaching the obsidian sources. The importance of the Tigris and its tributaries for transportation and cultural interaction is supported by various proxy data that lead us to argue that riverine movement and communication was an important aspect of Early Holocene lifeways in southwest Asia that has hitherto been largely ignored by archaeologists.

Decades in Deserts: Essays on Near Eastern Archaeology in honour of Sumio Fujii, 2019

Antiquity, 2018

Antiquity 92 (361): 56-73. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2017.219

Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of Manchester, 2009

Domestication is the process by which plants or animals evolved to fit a human-managed environmen... more Domestication is the process by which plants or animals evolved to fit a human-managed environment, and it is marked by innovations in plant morphology and anatomy that are in turn correlated with new human behaviours and technologies for harvesting, storage and field preparation. Archaeobotanical evidence has revealed that domestication was a protracted process taking thousands of plant generations. Within this protracted process there were changes in the selection pressures for domestication traits as well as variation across a geographic mosaic of wild and cultivated populations. Quantitative data allow us to estimate the changing selection coefficients for the evolution of non-shattering (domestic-type seed dispersal) in Asian rice (Oryza sativa L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccon (Shrank) Schübl.) and einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum L.). These data indicate that selection coefficients tended to be low, but also that there were inflection points at which selection increased considerably. For rice, selection coefficients of the order of 0.001 prior to 5500 BC shifted to greater than 0.003 between 5000 and 4500 BC, before falling again as the domestication process ended 4000–3500 BC. In barley and the two wheats selection was strongest between 8500 and 7500 BC. The slow start of domestication may indicate that initial selection began in the Pleistocene glacial era.

This article is part of the themed issue ‘Process and pattern in innovations from cells to societies’.

For the first time we integrate quantitative data on lithic sickles and archaeobotanical evidence... more For the first time we integrate quantitative data on lithic sickles and archaeobotanical evidence for domestication and the evolution of plant economies from sites dated to the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene (ca. 12000e5000 cal. BCE) from throughout the Fertile Crescent region of Southwest Asia. We find a strong correlation in some regions, throughout the Levant, for increasing investment in sickles that tracks the evidence for increasing reliance on cereal crops, while evidence for morphological domestication in wheats (Triticum monococcum and Triticum dicoccum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) was delayed in comparison to sickle use. These data indicate that while the co-increase of sickle blades and cereal crops support the protracted development of agricultural practice, sickles did not drive the initial stages of the domestication process but rather were a cultural adaptation to increasing reliance on cereals that were still undergoing selection for morphological change. For other regions, such as the Eastern Fertile Crescent and Cyprus such correlations are weaker or non-existent suggesting diverse cultural trajectories to cereal domestication. We conclude that sickles were an exaptation transferred to cereal harvesting and important in signalling a new cultural identity of " farmers ". Furthermore, the protracted process of technological and agricultural evolution calls into question hypotheses that the transition to agriculture was caused by any particular climatic event.

The recent discovery of EPPNB occupation at Tell Ain el-Kerkh in northwest Syria provides a new p... more The recent discovery of EPPNB occupation at Tell Ain el-Kerkh in northwest Syria provides a new perspective of the early stage of Neolithisation in the north Levant. The archaeological evidence from Kerkh shows first that the earliest Neolithic occupation in northwest Syria goes back to the EPPNB period and revises the generally accepted hypothesis that the Neolithisation in this region started in the LPPNB. In addition, the narrow naviform cores and Aswad points evidenced at Kerkh appear to be chronological markers of this period and imply the existence of other earlier PPNB sites in northwest Syria. When comparing the subsistence economy and the chipped stone industry of Kerkh with those of other contemporary sites, regional variations between the EPPNB sites become clear and possibly indicate the importance of local traditions in the development of the PPNB cultural horizon. Discovery of an EPPNB site in northwest Syria is also interesting in considering the origin of Cypriot PPN culture, but at the moment direct relationships between Kerkh and Cypriot PPN sites are rare.

For the first time we integrate quantitative data on lithic sickles and archaeobotanical evidence... more For the first time we integrate quantitative data on lithic sickles and archaeobotanical evidence for domestication and the evolution of plant economies from sites dated to the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene (ca. 12000e5000 cal. BCE) from throughout the Fertile Crescent region of Southwest Asia. We find a strong correlation in some regions, throughout the Levant, for increasing investment in sickles that tracks the evidence for increasing reliance on cereal crops, while evidence for morphological domestication in wheats (Triticum monococcum and Triticum dicoccum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) was delayed in comparison to sickle use. These data indicate that while the co-increase of sickle blades and cereal crops support the protracted development of agricultural practice, sickles did not drive the initial stages of the domestication process but rather were a cultural adaptation to increasing reliance on cereals that were still undergoing selection for morphological change. For other regions, such as the Eastern Fertile Crescent and Cyprus such correlations are weaker or non-existent suggesting diverse cultural trajectories to cereal domestication. We conclude that sickles were an exaptation transferred to cereal harvesting and important in signalling a new cultural identity of " farmers ". Furthermore, the protracted process of technological and agricultural evolution calls into question hypotheses that the transition to agriculture was caused by any particular climatic event.

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2017

Abstract We report here the stable nitrogen isotope composition (δ15N) of individual amino acids ... more Abstract We report here the stable nitrogen isotope composition (δ15N) of individual amino acids and the δ15N and δ13C content of collagen from human and faunal remains collected from Hasankeyf Höyük, an early Neolithic site in the upper Tigris valley. Based on the δ15N of collagen only, the contributions of freshwater resources to the diet of the hunter-gatherers were difficult to clearly identify relative to terrestrial resources. However, analysis of the nitrogen isotope composition of individual amino acids enabled the identification of minor contributions from freshwater resources to the diet in a community primarily dependent on terrestrial resources. Individual variability suggested that some individuals at Hasankeyf Höyük used freshwater resources, whereas others probably depended primarily on terrestrial food resources. The importance of freshwater resources as food for this hunter-gatherer community was variable among groups and depended on burial location and time of burial.