Social Life and Social Landscapes Among Halaf and Ubaid Communities: A Case Study from the Upper Tigris Area

Settlement patterns and related types of investigation (e.g., site densities, site dimensions and land-use) have in the last 50 years shed light on a number of archaeological issues previously underestimated or ignored by archaeologists. By means of survey projects it has been possible to reconstruct several crucial aspects of the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. A major consequence has been a growing awareness of the landscape as a fundamental subject for modern archaeological research, of great significance for understanding ancient complex societies, especially from the 3rd millennium BC onwards (Adams 1981; Adams and Nissen 1972; Smith 2014; Wilkinson 2003). Pre- and proto-historic periods have received somewhat less attention, probably due to the absence of solid and well-established human communities that acted on the surrounding landscape by exhibiting the traditional markers of ‘complexity’ common in later periods, e.g., hierarchy, power, and prestige, (Smith 2014; Wilkinson et al. 2005)1. Using the Upper Tigris as a case study and investigating it by means of statistical analyses I intend to explore the possible occurrence of a ‘social landscape’ as far back as the 6th and 5th millennium BC, in this area associated with the Halaf and Northern Ubaid Periods. I propose that societies with a lower level of socioeconomic complexity still had an impact on the territory and worked, perhaps unintentionally, to modify it. The outcome of such modifications might have been different and indeed visually less clear and direct than those created by later and more complex entities, but were likely perceived by the inhabitants of the landscape and are still visible today, though their identification requires a more subtle investigation of the evidence still visible in the landscape