Paper

UPPER MESOPOTAMIA IN ITS REGIONAL CONTEXT DURING THE EARLY NEOLITHIC

Harald HAUPTMANN                                                                                
Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Karlstrasse 4, 69017 Heidelberg, DE.
adw.kkh@gmx.de                                                                                      

The neolithisation period in postglacial times covers the transition from pure hunter-gatherer communities to fully developed sedentary societies depending on mixed farming or fully agricultural economic basis. This period from the Epi-Palaeolithic to the Ceramic Neolithic in the Near East lasted for more than 2000 years, when the fundamental change in the economic system took place that V.G. Childe in 1935 designated with the term ‘Neolithic Revolution’ (Childe 1928:42ff., 1936:67ff.). But Childe himself had credited Elliot Smith with the recognition of this decisive transition in the history of humankind. And it was Gabriel de Mortillet, one of the fathers of European prehistoric archaeology, who in 1885 emphasised the importance of domestication (both of cereals and animals) as the main basis for the development of the earliest civilisations (De Mortillet 1885:576). The idea of a ‘food production revolution’ as steps towards new life strategies having developed in a restricted nuclear area in the Levant and Palestine, spreading from there through a kind of ‘Levantine corridor’ along the Middle Euphrates to the ranges of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains and through the valleys into the plains of Central Anatolia, has now been abandoned as a result of the excavations in the ‘hilly fringes’ of the Fertile Crescent (Braidwood and Howe 1960:3ff.; Cauvin 1997). It has become apparent that humans in this region found the ideal environmental conditions to support sedentary life even for larger groups of settlers. Excavations in the western Zagros, at Jarmo since 1948 and other sites, and in the foothills of the Taurus since 1964 at Çayönü, Demirköy, Göbekli Tepe, Hallan Çemi, Körtik Tepe and Nevali Çori, have totally changed the concept of the neolithisation of Western Asia.

The stages of development of the Early Neolithic in Upper Mesopotamia – the region covering the foothills of the middle and eastern Taurus with the vast steppic plains and grasslands along the Upper Tigris and Middle Euphrates including the Balikh – can now be traced back to the 10th millennium cal BC. Even Central Anatolia with its high arid basins is no longer a dark corner of the Fertile Crescent, as Asikli Höyük and Canhasan III are indicating. A central obstacle concerning the problem of how the new ways of life started to spread through Anatolia, across the Aegean islands up to Southeastern Europe, or along the Mediterranean coasts to the west of Europe, is the correlation of the earliest communities in Upper Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia. As M. Özdogan has stressed, this period of the Aceramic Neolithic and Mesolithic in Central and Western Anatolia has many different facets (M. Özdogan 1999:226f.).

The earliest settlements in Upper Mesopotamia are fully sedentary, even when the population is not dependent on food production. These groups of hunters and gatherers are depending on subsistence strategies that show a vast variety in their economy. Sites of the ‘round building phase’, such as Demirköy, Hallan Çemi and Körtik Tepe, seem to have been ‘clearly occupied on a year-round basis’ according to M. Rosenberg (Rosenberg 1999:26ff.), and therefore can be termed as fully sedentary villages. The existence of long-distance trade is known from Hallan Çemi. The rich industry of obsidian has its nearest source in the Bingöl Mountains or around the Lake of Van. Differences in the percentage of obsidian in the lithic material of these sites indicate the problem of availability of this raw material (Hallan Çemi 58 %, Çayönü 20 %, Göbekli less than 1 %). The non-egalitarian character of this ‘protoneolithic’ society is seen in special buildings containing stone-platforms, plastered floors and pillars made of clay. In connection with zoomorphic stone pestles at Hallan Çemi, Nemrik 9 and Abu Hureyra these elements may indicate domestic rituals. The special structures in a domestic context at Jerf el Ahmar, Hallan Çemi and Nemrik seem to be the forerunners of the monumental round buildings of Göbekli Tepe (Kozlowski and Kempisty 1990; Aurenche and Kozlowski 1999, Pls. 7-1, 7-2; Schmidt 2000:20–26, Figs. 8–12) in a non-domestic context. But this notion of a domestic rite should not be termed as the initial model of the later freestanding cult buildings at Çayönü or Nevali Çori (Hauptmann 1993). The oval and round structures there rather seem to reflect a concept similar to the one expressed in the so-called shrines of Çatalhöyük, which were used also for living. The decorated pillars and sculptures of Göbekli Tepe possibly represent a materialisation of the imaginative world and spiritual beliefs of this hunter-gatherer society, which shows traditions similar to those apparent in the Late Palaeolithic cave-art of the Franco-Cantabrian region.

On the one hand, some regional similarities should be quoted: Rosenberg has pointed out the obvious similarities between the lithic technologies of these sites in Upper Mesopotamia and the Zawi Chemi industries in the Zagros-region (Rosenberg 1999:29). The geometric forms and Nemrik type points are termed by S. K. Kozlowski and O. Aurenche as Trialetien (Aurenche and Kozlowski 1999:21, 146). On the other hand, there are no clear connections with the industries of Natufian or other Levantine traditions. On the contrary, elements of Trialetian traditions are evident in the Central Anatolian lithics of Asikli Höyük (Balkan-Atli 1994)

The resemblances in the settlement pattern, the architectural design of the freestanding buildings and the symbolic artefacts are connecting both regions; the foothills of the Taurus and Upper Mesopotamia link with the Jezireh and the Zagros, forming one of the grands ensembles régionaux of the Early Neolithic of Western Asia, the ‘triangle d’or’ (Aurenche and Kozlowski 1999:53). The occurrence of Epi-Palaeolithic sites in this region seems to strengthen the hypothesis of a foreign provenance for these Early Neolithic communities, and may even imply a population movement from another region. As in the other part of the ‘eastern wing of the Fertile Crescent’, that is on the southern flanks of the Jebel Sinjar and in the region of the Upper Tigris, the development of the Epi-Palaeolithic into the Early Neolithic in the Zagros is confirmed. Zawi Chemi, which is nearly contemporary with the Natufian and the Zarzian, which is parallel to the geometric Kebarian, represents one of the ancestors. The long-expected analysis of the material from the twin-sites in the lake district of Bozova, Biris Mezarligi and Sögüt Tarlasi, could also substantiate a continuous development from the Epi-Palaeolithic into the Aceramic Neolithic, showing an independent evolution in the foothills of the Taurus (Hauptmann 1999:68f.). Further evidence is increasing with the discovery of microlithic industries in other sites in the regions of Urfa and Adiyaman, as is the case on the virgin soil of Nevali Çori. And there are few regions showing a comparable density of Palaeolithic presence as in the Taurus piedmont, indicating the optimal environmental background for a continuous occupation.

The Urfa Region (Hauptmann 1999), with its earliest occupation represented in Göbekli Tepe that presents an until now unknown type of settlement (Schmidt 1998, 1999, 2000; Hauptmann 1999: 78ff.), is located between the steppic grasslands of the Balikh Basin or Urfa–Harran Plain and the open forest lands of the southern foothills of the Taurus. In contrast to other early villages like Hallan Çemi, the dense outline of Göbekli is of a much higher complexity. This large site, lying on a 800m high hilltop of the Germis Daglari, measures 300m in diameter. During the round building phase (or Old Phase), partly dated to the PPNA period by the occurrence of Nemrik, Helwan and Aswad points, the site seems to have had the function of a central place for a large community. Besides the control of game in the region, the inhabitants used the flint outcrops to produce and to distribute implements for a more or less wider region. Easily workable limestone stimulated the production of sculpture, which represents an until-now unique art province in the Early Neolithic of the Near East. The occurrence of a series of wild animals and predators in the iconography, notably represented in flat or high reliefs on T-shaped pillars set in monumental round or oval enclosures, seem to reflect the animalistic conception of the spiritual world in this hunter-gatherer society. All of the until now uncovered round structures and of the oval building from the Old Phase (buildings with circular structure with pillars/stelae in their centre and engaged T-shaped pillars in the enclosure wall) contain a series of monumental T-shaped pillars.

By way of illustration, Göbekli Tepe, Structure A shows some snakes and a ram on one of the central pillars, while another pillar from top to bottom depicts an aurochs, a fox and a bird. Structure B has foxes sculpted on each central pillar. Both have other animals depicted on the T-shaped pillars inserted in the surrounding enclosure. Structure C presents a different architectural structure: three concentric rings with small pillars engaged in the first and most central ring and big pillars in the second ring wall, the third ring being without pillars. The nicest uncovered pillar from this building shows from the top down, as in Structure A, five water birds, a boar baring its teeth and a fox. As indicated, the depicted animals show a wild range. Because of the monumental buildings with decorated pillars and because of the occurrence of sculpture, Göbekli Tepe seems to have played the role of an important ritual centre in the region. But, although situated in a prominent position dominating the plain of Harran–Urfa, this mountain-settlement is not unique in its importance, as it has been claimed for Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük in the Konya Plain. Göbekli Tepe is not an exception but part of a culture – the Urfa Region culture. The central place of this region may well have been represented by the large site now located underneath the ancient city of Edessa-Urfa near the famous Balikli Göl, the twin pools, that are a sacred place since ancient times. Unfortunately located just underneath the modern garbage dump of Urfa, with a diameter of approximately 800m, it is a flat site where the T-shaped pillars are popping through like mushrooms.

The beginning of the PPNB is marked by the appearance of a new house type, i.e. a freestanding rectangular structure, as well as by a different settlement pattern, both features reflecting a development towards new life styles. The newly planned village with houses having tripartite arrangements of the inner space, as is exposed in Çayönü, as well as the separation of the settled area by the so-called Plaza into an eastern and western part, have ‘resulted from a need for larger closed living spaces partitioned for different functions’ (A. Özdogan 1999:44–52, Pl. 27). The organisation of the settlement is also apparent from the domination of more representative structures in the northeastern part and by clearly separated special buildings, showing a socially more stratified society. This shifting of life styles from the PPNA to the PPNB reached its culmination in the second stage of Çayönü, the Cobble Building Subphase, when specialised technologies, long-distance trade, domestication of sheep and goat, and incipient or even developed agriculture are existent. Nevali Çori is another example of this new type of village, depending for its economy on developed agriculture and the breeding of domestic animals (Hauptmann 1999: 70–78). But hunting of wild animals such as wild cattle, wild boar and goats, now more valued than gazelle and wild ass, is still important for the food supply. The social differentiation of the population is obvious from various house types. The basic type is again the freestanding rectangular house with regular interior divisions for living and storage. One house with larger rooms containing hearth places can be classified as a workshop for the production of flint tools and sculpture carved in limestone.

As was the case at Çayönü, in Nevali Çori a special building is separated from the normal habitation area. By virtue of its building technique and design it clearly differs from the normal rectangular house (Hauptmann 1993, 1999:74ff., Figs. 8–9). Monolithic pillars in the interior are descendants of the T-shaped pillars in the round building phase (Göbekli, Old Phase), and a monumental example in the newly uncovered Structure D of Göbekli Tepe is confirms the shaping of the pillars as stylised human figures. As in Nevali Çori, this stands in the tradition of the ritual architecture of the first half of the 9th millennium cal BC. We could add that the shape itself is a stylised human being. In Göbekli Tepe, such an anthropomorphic stylisation and meaning are present since the Old Phase and are known also from surface finds and from the pillars engaged in the south and north walls of the Löwenpfeilergebäude of the Young Phase at Göbekli Tepe. The ultimate evidence for these special buildings as sacred areas is delivered by life-size limestone figures.

A composite figure from Nevali Çori, being the upper part of a totem pole (or pillar), shows two females crouching back to back and surmounted by a bird, which by comparison can be identified as a vulture (Hauptmann 1999: 76, Fig. 14). The sculpture of a female head grasped by a bird (ibid., 76, Fig. 13) is another symbol-fraught image anticipating the much later wall paintings at Çatalhöyük. This motif – female head grasped by a vulture – apparently provides evidence for ancestor worship, practised throughout the Neolithic period, and depicted in the wall painting of the vulture shrine at Çatalhöyük Level VII (Mellaart 1967:167, Fig. 47). There is no representation of a predominant goddess, of the so-called Great Mother, as seemed to be characteristic for a Neolithic ‘pantheon’.

The appearance of female figurines since the Khiamien was seen as a change in the imaginative and spiritual world, which has been connected with the introduction of plant cultivation during the Sultanien. The discussion about the functions of the humanoid clay figurines has brought them in connection with ritual processes, and especially the female figures were usually associated with fertility or even goddesses. But the great number of female and male images at Nevali Çori have no equivalents in the life-size sculpture, whereas a number of the small figurines of limestone can be seen as its miniaturised models showing the same modelling as the big statues (Hauptmann 1999:77, Figs. 18–21). The idea of a ‘great goddess’ has further come into question when K. Schmidt pointed out the similarities in the representation of predators in the art of Göbekli Tepe and of the so-called goddess in the shrines of Çatalhöyük (Mellaart 1967:84–130, Figs. 3, 27, 28, 38, 48; Schmidt 1998:29; Hauptmann 1999:80, Figs. 27, 29). On the contrary, besides the stylised anthropomorphic pillars which were seen also as ‘guardian figures’ (Wächterfiguren), there is clear evidence from Göbekli Tepe, from the cult building of Nevali Çori itself, and from the settlement underneath Urfa for the existence of ithyphallic statues (Schmidt 1998:29, Fig. 7; Schmidt 1999:9, 20, Pls. 2, 3-4; 10, 1-2; Hauptmann 1999:75–76, 80, Figs. 10–11). The monumental head with a snake curling up its reverse immured in the niche of the ritual building III (Nevali Çori) demonstrates clear resemblances with the male statue from Urfa. All combined, this proves the existence of a predominant male cult figure, erected in the niches of sacral buildings.

To summarise, in this world there is no representation of a predominant female goddess for example, as some scholars proposed for the Neolithic in the Old World. On the contrary, the omnipresence of the male element is evident. There are numerous anthropomorphic statues representing ithyphallic figures in life-size. They could have been the dominant cult figures in the niches of special buildings, as indicated. These kind of anthropomorphic figures are spread all over the Urfa Region, but are attested also in the Adiyaman area, as evidenced by a surface find from a site lying near Arsameia, close to Eski Kahta, and found in 1956. From Kilisik we possess also a very developed piece, with better details than similar pieces from Nevali Çori and Göbekli Tepe (Hauptmann 2000:5–9). Other finds such as masks, as retrieved from Göbekli Tepe have counterparts in the Levant, for instance in Nahal Hemar.

This concept clearly antedates the earliest Mesopotamian temples, which were designated for cult ceremonials, at Uruk and in the residential areas of other centers of the late 4th millennium cal BC because of the same ground plan, monumental size and the central fireplaces. The separate cult buildings from Nevali Çori and other sites in Upper Mesopotamia could therefore be seen as possible prototypes for the much late Sumerian temple architecture, but there is no real possibility to connect the known religious structures of Mesopotamia with the Neolithic ritual world in the Taurus. The roots of the spiritual ideas in the Nevaliçorien can be traced back to the PPNA and the Natufian periods, as is obvious from symbols like snake and vulture, assumed to be representatives of the underworld and sky. But there is a clear difference to the densely arranged, so-called ritual buildings A–D at Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt 2000:18–26, Figs. 8–9, 12a), indicating the worship of totemistic animals. This concept of an archaic hunter-gatherer scenario seems to be continued in the ‘shrines’ of Çatalhöyük, where the worship of bull, leopard and ram and some sort of ancestor cult is represented. The symbolic world of the shrines links Central Anatolia with similar structures in the Southeast European Neolithic and Chalcolithic, where the domestic context of hearths, storage pits and ovens in association with clay figurines and anthropomorphic vessels, such as in Sesklo in Thessaly (Gallis and Orphanidis 1997), Nea Nikomedeia in Greek Macedonia (Rodden 1965), Tumba in Madjari in Makedonija (Sanev 1983–84), Dolnoslav in Bulgaria (Radunceva 1991; cf. Lichter 1993:110) or Parta in Romania (Lichter 1993:70–71; Lazarovici et al. 2001) is obvious. In comparison with the freestanding cult buildings of Upper Mesopotamia, these special structures are, by virtue of their architectural design and the archaeological evidence, by no means to be designated as ‘ceremonial or cult centres’ or even ‘temples’.

During the Nevaliçorien the lithic assemblages represent Levantine PPNB traditions in the use of flint, manipulation of naviform cores and the rich production of Byblos projectiles. There are no clear contacts to the industries of Central Anatolia. The spread of farming during the neolithisation of the Anatolian highlands from a common source in Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant may have influenced also the symbolic world of Neolithic Central Anatolia, materialised in the art of Çatalhöyük. We could propose therefore that there is a mental and spiritual continuity within the Near East, as is suggested by the materialisation of the symbolic world of an archaic society of hunter-gatherers; a continuity particularly in evidence at Çatalhöyük with its own symbolic world representing a more ‘achieved’ Neolithic.

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