Pre History – the archaeology of the ancient Near East

As we finish off the Neolithic we must first go backwards to one of the less well known but vastly important cultures of the Neolithic Near East - the Samarra. As the first known Neolithic culture of Southern Mesopotamia the Samarra gave rise to many developments which underpinned the later civilisations of this part of the ancient Near East. It is also an ancient culture for which we have perhaps as many questions as answers. Hopefully more answers will come in time as more sites are excavated and studied. Even today, though, there is still a fair bit which we do know about the Samarra.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

In the east of Anatolia and off to the north of Mesopotamia is the southern Caucasus, which is also known as Transcaucasia. This region combines being one of the last parts of the Near East to have mobile hunter-gatherers, and one of the first regions of the Near East to practice copper metallurgy. In between we have the sixth millennium cal BCE, when Transcaucasia has its own unique Neolithic.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

After all of the arguments that we saw for the Wadi Rabah as to whether it was part of the Late Neolithic or part of the Early Chalcolithic, this time we shall have a look at Anatolia in the first half of the sixth millennium cal BCE - which is widely agreed here to the Early Chalcolithic. Unlike the more widespread cultures of the Halaf or the Wadi Rabah, each of which spanned multiple modern-day countries, Anatolia in the Early Chalcolithic is home to multiple smaller cultures across its different regions.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

In this episode we head south to look at one of the major cultures of the Southern Levant during the sixth millennium BCE - the Wadi Rabah. While there is a lot that we know about the Wadi Rabah culture, there is also a lot that we argue about. 

Really, a lot.  

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

The Halaf culture was first discovered on the eve of the first world war at Tell Halaf in eastern Syria. The beautifully made and elaborately decorated pottery of this culture made it a sensation in the archaeology of the ancient Near East in the early twentieth century, as no one had previously imagined that small and simple farming villages could have produced such beautiful vessels, nor in such large numbers. What is equally impressive today at the beginning of the twenty-first century is that the Halaf not only produced pretty things, but that this culture reversed the trend of small, regional cultural groups that we saw in the seventh millennium and grew to cover all of northern Mesopotamia, most of central Mesopotamia, and heavily influenced or even incorporated groups of people in south-eastern Anatolia and the northern Levant.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com. 

After having a look at the seventh millennium BCE across Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia, it is time to come back to Cyprus and see how life changed here after 7000 cal BCE. After the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic on Cyprus we see the development of the Khirokitia culture. Unlike with the regions which we have talked about on the mainland, the Khirokitia culture lasts not only until 6000 cal BCE but until at least 5300 or 5200 cal BCE, giving us a two thousand year view of life on Cyprus after the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Or rather, after 7000 cal BCE - because Cyprus goes its own way over the course of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and never more so than during the Khirokitia culture.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Now that we have seen how societies changed over the seventh millennium BCE in Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia it is time to have a look at a couple of important and common developments that we see in these regions during this later part of the Neolithic. While groups of people across these regions seem to drift apart during the seventh millennium, there are a couple of things that archaeological cultures across these parts of the Near East - and others - seem to have in common, developing across all of them during this critical but often neglected thousand years just after the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Now that we have had a look at the seventh millennium BCE in Anatolia and the Levant, this time I want to have a look at the change from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Pottery (or Late) Neolithic across the large area of Mesopotamia - the land between the rivers.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Following our look at the change into the Pottery (or Ceramic) Neolithic in Anatolia, this time we are having a look at the Pottery Neolithic (also the Late Neolithic) in the Levant. Actually, this is the Pottery Neolithic of two Levants - the northern and southern Levant. Here we have two different sets of changes after 7000 cal BCE, happening in two regions right next to one another where some things are surprisingly similar despite major differences to the timing of changes and the fashions, techniques and structures of daily life.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

With the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic the Near East moved into the Pottery Neolithic - also called the Ceramic Neolithic or Late Neolithic depending on the region. Today we can have a look at this change into the Ceramic Neolithic across Anatolia.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Today we say goodbye to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B with a look at the collapse of the PPNB world system. Of course, as it is still up in the air as to whether we ever actually HAD a PPNB world system, we can also have a look at whether or not we actually have a PPNB collapse. Have a listen and tell me what you think. Does the PPNB collapse, or not?

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Now that we have had a good look at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in most of the Near East, this time we are travelling over to Cyprus. Cyprus also has a Pre-Pottery Neolithic, but it isn't exactly what we might expect based on what we know about the Neolithic in the rest of the Near East. Looking at the wonderful Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Cyprus changes the way that we think about the process of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and Neolithic life, in all of the Near East.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Now that we have seen how people moved over to growing rather than gathering their own food, and settled into villages with the birth of communal village life, we can have a look at some of the other developments happening across the Near East during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. We can also see how the scale of these changes happening across the Near East has impacted how we understand the scale of social networks between people and between communities in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Depending, of course, on how you look at it.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

This week we are looking at what life was like in Neolithic settlements, and how these have changed from the first permanent houses that we found in the Late Epipalaeolithic. Both time periods have houses, and in some cases the houses are not all that different. However, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic we no longer just get houses, we get villages - and the village life that goes along with it.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Last week we looked at the move from collecting to growing our own food during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic by discussing the process of plant domestication. This week we complete this change in how we fed ourselves by looking at the process of domesticating food that has a tendency to wander off a bit more than plants do - animals.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

This week we will be starting on the Neolithic, the last of our three stone ages. As a lot of big things happen in the Neolithic, we can't do everything in one episode so I am breaking it up and spreading the Neolithic across a series of episodes which will deal with the different big events. This week, we start with the first of these big changes: the change from gathering our food to growing it ourselves.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Last time we looked at whether or not we could really think of the earlier Epipalaeolithic as being something distinctly different from the later Upper Palaeolithic. This week we look at the later Epipalaeolithic, which is definitely different from the Upper Palaeolithic and even pretty distinct from the earlier Epipalaeolithic. We look at the end of the ice age and the beginning of the Holocene, some animals which we domesticated - or which may have domesticated us - and how we settled down into the Holocene world of the Near East in the later Epipalaeolithic.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

The Epipalaeolithic - the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to just before the beginning of farming - is an awkward period to characterise in the prehistory of the Near East. Mostly this is because the division between the Upper Palaeolithic and the earlier part of the Epipalaeolithic is a bit murky. This week we will look at this division, and see what changes, and what actually does not change as we move into the Epipalaeolithic.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me [email protected] or reach me on the website at prehistorypodcast.com

This week we continue our look at the Upper Palaeolithic of the Near East with a look at what people were eating, and how they were eating it. Life is not just about food though, even for Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. So, we will also look at how Upper Palaeolithic people dressed and decorated themselves, visited with other people and swapped goods and ideas in their extensive social networks.

If you have any comments or questions you can reach me at [email protected] or on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.

Last week we said goodbye to our cousins the Neanderthals and stood along as the only people species in the Near East. This week we shall see what we humans got up to in the Upper Palaeolithic now that we had the whole place to ourselves.

If you have any comments or questions you can reach me at [email protected] or on the website at prehistorypodcast.com.