The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent: Excavations at Bestansur and Shimshara, Iraqi Kurdistan...

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Roger Matthews Wendy Matthews

The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent

Excavations at Bestansur and Shimshara, Iraqi Kurdistan

Roger Matthews, Wendy Matthews, Kamal Rasheed Raheem , Amy Richardson

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English

Oxbow Books
01 September 2020

Landscape archaeology; Environmental archaeology

Series: Central Zagros Archaeological Project

The Eastern Fertile Crescent region of western Iran and eastern Iraq hosted major developments in the transition from hunter-forager to farmer-herder lifestyles through the Early Neolithic period, 10,000-7000 BC. Within the scope of the Central Zagros Archaeological Project, excavations have been conducted since 2012 at two Early Neolithic sites in the Kurdistan region of Iraq: Bestansur and Shimshara. Bestansur represents an early stage in the transition to sedentary, farming life, where the inhabitants pursued a mixed strategy of hunting, foraging, herding and cultivating, maximising the new opportunities afforded by the warmer, wetter climate of the Early Holocene. They also constructed substantial buildings of mudbrick, including a major building with a minimum of 65 human individuals, mainly infants, buried under its floor in association with hundreds of beads. These human remains provide new insights into mortuary practices, demography, diet and disease during the early stages of sedentarisation. The material culture of Bestansur and Shimshara is rich in imported items such as obsidian, carnelian and sea-shells, indicating the extent to which Early Neolithic communities were networked across the Eastern Fertile Crescent and beyond. This volume includes final reports by a large-scale interdisciplinary team on all aspects of the results from excavations at Bestansur and Shimshara, through application of state-of-the-art scientific techniques, methods and analyses. The net result is to re-emphasise the enormous significance of the Eastern Fertile Crescent in one of the most important episodes in human history: the Neolithic transition.

Edited by: Roger Matthews, Wendy Matthews, Kamal Rasheed Raheem, Amy Richardson
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Volume: 2
Dimensions: Height: 297mm, Width: 210mm,
ISBN: 9781789255263
ISBN 10: 1789255260
Series: Central Zagros Archaeological Project
Pages: 688
Publication Date: 01 September 2020
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Roger Matthews is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Reading and Co-Director of the Central Zagros Archaeological Project (CZAP). He is President of RASHID International, an organisation concerned to protect and promote the cultural heritage of Iraq. He has directed excavations and surveys in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, and has published many books and articles on the archaeology of the Middle East with a focus on the Neolithic and the Bronze Age Wendy Matthews is Associate Professor in Archaeology at the University of Reading. She completed her PhD and was a Research Associate and Fellow at the University of Cambridge 1992-2000. She is Co-Director of the Central Zagros Archaeological Project. Her interdisciplinary research interests are in the built environment and sustainability from the origins of agriculture to today. Kamal Rasheed Raheem is Director of Sulaimaniyah Antiquities Directorate in the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq. He studied Archaeology at the University of Baghdad and under his supervision Sulaimaniyah Antiquities Directorate supports a broad spectrum of international, collaborative archaeological and heritage projects across Sulaimaniyah province Amy Richardson is a Senior Researcher at the University of Reading, where she completed her PhD in 2010. Between 2011 and 2014, Amy was CZAP Project Manager, before spending three years as the Wainwright Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research examines prehistoric material networks through the analysis of clay and stone artefacts, with a focus on knowledge exchange and social organisation.