Figurines in Transition. Changes in Figurine Practices at Tell Sabi Abyad from the Initial Pottery Neolithic to the Transitional phase (ca. 7000 – 5900 BCE) (original) (raw)
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2019
Information about the lifestyles of ancient cultures, their daily activities, religious beliefs, close or long distance trade relations, or cultural interactions come from their products. Ancient material productions can be briefly mentioned by examples such as stone tools, pottery, and secular or religious buildings. Thanks to excavations or socio-cultural surveys, we are able to make comments on the ancient societies' materials. Wall paintings, motifs or scenes on pottery provide us important information about the lifestyles or religious beliefs of ancient cultures. The aim of this thesis is to give information about the motifs on Halaf pottery, which belongs to the Late Neolithic period and spread over a wide area in Northern Mesopotamia. First, the socio-cultural structure of the Halaf culture will be examined. It will turn to animal motifs, human motifs or narrative scenes on Halaf pottery for the information about Halaf culture that it presents to us. It also examines the role of dancing figures and feasting in the Halaf culture.
Re-figuring the Past: Interpreting Early Halaf Figurines from Tell Sabi Abyad (Syria)
Figurines have been the subject of many archaeological studies and publications since the early 20th century. Studies in the past tended to be universalistic in nature and studied figurines mostly as art objects. In recent years there has been a move towards more contextualised research and a move away from universalistic explanations. However, there are still some shortcomings in figurine literature. Site publications often lack synthesis into a larger temporal and geographical framework. Also figurines are sometimes still presented out of context and treated separately, as if they fall into a singular, special category, instead of being part of the artefact assemblage as a whole. New interesting themes in figurine theory have emerged, but these have to be critically reviewed and assessed for their practical use. Turning to other fields like sociology and psychology can lead to interesting viewpoints, but can also result in generalising statements which, in the end, do not help with interpreting an individual dataset. In this thesis some of the new themes in figurine theory have been chosen, namely: fragmentation, figurines and fire-related contexts, miniaturisation and schematisation and finally, materiality. The literature on these themes has been reviewed and subsequently the value and usability of these themes has been assessed by applying them on a case study – the (Early) Halaf figurines of Tell Sabi Abyad, Operation III. The case-study showed that these themes can lead to new insights, but only when taking a more contextual and practical approach. Some new research questions were also formulated which can be dealt with in future research.
FROM HUNTER-GATHERERS TO FARMERS Human adaptations at the end of the Pleistocene and the first part of the Holocene, 2017
Abstract: The Early Neolithic settlement at the site of Aria Babi (the Danube Gorges or Iron Gates area, northeastern Serbia) is chronologically contemporaneous with the Starčevo horizon at Lepenski Vir, and it is located in its immediate vicinity. Our analysis of the stone tools encompassed the material from trench 1–2/2005, investigated in 2005 and 2006. Judging on the basis of the ground stone assemblage from this site, and with the same conclusion reached based on the ceramic analysis, a rural household was identified in this place, in a small settlement with dispersed dug-in features, typical of the Starčevo culture. In this household, the every-day life of the community was probably focused on farming. There were items found which were used for food preparation – aside from pottery, such as stone querns – but there were also tools and household items produced from materials softer than stone, such as wood and bone, which were not preserved. Various fragments of raw material, not so numerous in this assemblage, indirectly point to a small-scale ground stone tool production at this place. The secondary use of fragmented abrasive tools bears witness to, in most cases, expedient tools used by the inhabitants of this household. It is probable that in the mountainous hinterland of the Early Neolithic sites discovered along the Danube’s banks in this region existed smaller villages which provided both agricultural and perhaps also some artisanal products.
Southeast European Neolithic figurines: beyond context, interpretation, and meaning (2017)
Published in In T. Insoll (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines, pp. 823-50. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 2017
In this article, I review recent work on figurines from Neolithic southeastern Europe and suggest an alternative approach. I argue that we should abandon searches for explanation and for meanings of figurines as pieces of the past. The alternative is to work with figurine material in the present, disarticulated from prehistory, and to make new work that recognizes figurines’ position in the present.
Material Images of Humans from the Natufian to Pottery Neolithic Periods in the Levant
2014
Map of the levant chronology 4. Archaeological Background to the End of the Natufian 4.1 Paleoperspective-out of africa 4.2 terminal Pleistocene cultures 4.3 The Natufian culture ~ 12,500 to 10,200 years ago. shamanism Natufian imagery 5. Archaeological Background Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic Periods 5.1 Pre-Pottery neolithic period ~10,200-7,600 years ago Pre-Pottery neolithic a ~10,200-9,500 years ago PPna imagery red coloured skulls 5.2 Pre-Pottery neolithic b and Pre-Pottery neolithic c ~9,500-7,600 years ago PPnb imagery Pre-Pottery neolithic c 5.3 the Pottery neolithic Period ~7,500-6,300 years ago the yarmukian culture ~7,500-6,900 years ago the lodian (Jericho iX) culture the Wadi raba culture ~6.900-6,300 years ago 6. Interpretation 6.1 sexual imagery 6.2 'gender of power' 6.3 genital shapes ambiguous shapes and combined shapes Parure assemblage-shell beads conventions for male and female assimilation of genitals and eyes 7. Interpretation-Male Gods 7.1 elaboration of phallus, thigh and skull 7.2 axe gods and solar gods genital metaphor in tools genital analogy lozenges 7.3 therianthropic images 7.4 Posture and gesture-body art open legs-display position trihedral 8. Other Theories 8.1 evolutionary origin theories 8.2 blood meanings 8.3 entoptic imagery 9. Implictions for the Neolithic 9.1 original social contract-Hunter-gatherers 9.2 new social contract 9.3 Sacrifice ritualization of material objects Archaeological recognition of sacrifice violence separation Sacrifice as a Fertility Ritual Political implications 9.4. lineage 9.5 continuity of symbols-changing meanings 9.6 conclusion bibliograPHy PART II: Illustrations figures 1-125; figure references Period~Dates Duration Features Wadi Raba** 6,900-6,300 years ago~6 years Cluster of regional variants; recognized by pottery assemblage, domesticated sheep and goats, cattle and pigs; domesticated cereals, legumes, secondary products, milk products? olives, spinning and weaving. Yarmukian** 7,500-6,900 years ago~6 00 years Earliest pottery assemblage in S. Levant; culture recognized by distinctive pottery, imagery, flint tools; mostly domesticated sheep, goat, cattle, pigs. Domesticated cereals, legumes, flax. Pre-Pottery Neolithic B 9,500-7,600 years ago~1 ,900 years Emergence of village societies; population increase; broad cultural interaction zone "koine" over entire Levant and beyond. Large settlements; rectangular architecture; farming domesticated cereals, pulses. Domesticated sheep, goats, cattle and pigs. Intensive ritual and mortuary practices. Pre-Pottery Neolithic A 10,200-9,500 years ago~7 00 years Systemic cultivation, perhaps domestication supplemented by continued foraging and hunting; architecture; hierarchy of site sizes; earliest tel sites in the region. Intensive ritual and mortuary practices. Natufian (Late Epi-Palaeolithic)* 12,500-10,200 years ago ~2,300 years Complex hunter-gatherer society; from large sedentary communities to mobile communities; circular stone architecture. Broad spectrum foraging; intensive plant exploitation; hunting; domesticated dogs. Elaborate mortuary practices. Dates are calculated to: * Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic dates based on Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen 1998:75. ** Pottery Neolithic dates are based on Gopher 1995a:208. cHronology Symbolic culture origins-the FCC model Central to the definition of the symbolic realm is: "… the invention of a whole new kind of things, things that have no existence in the 'real' world but exist entirely in the symbolic realm.' Chase (1994: 628). cHaPter one 1.2 The contribution of history Researchers debating the appearance, origin and significance of monotheism and female deities in ancient israel (e.g. keel 1980, lang 1981 and Haag 1985) draw increasingly on visual depictions recovered from archaeological excavations, identifying religious concepts and symbols of divine pantheons. thus for historical periods, a rich repertoire of symbolic material has been collected with which to identify gods (keel, 1997[1972]; keel and uehlinger 1998). these symbols are extremely conservative and keel (1998) takes the view that the generally accepted view of this period in the southern levant is one of changed subsistence, an economy of domesticated resources and sedentary living (e.g. bar-yosef and belfer-cohen 1989b; bar-yosef and Meadow 1995).