Prehistoric Investigations in Southwestern Asia Author(s): Robert J.

Braidwood Reviewed work(s): Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 116, No. 4 (Aug. 15, 1972), pp. 310-320 Published by: American Philosophical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/985901 . Accessed: 01/07/2012 01:18
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PREHISTORIC INVESTIGATIONS IN SOUTHWESTERN ASIA

ROBERT J. BRAIDWOOD
Professor, Oriental Institute and Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago (Read April 23, 1971)

I. BACKGROUND THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Oriental In-

stitute's Prehistoric Project was formally activated in 1947. Its focus of interest was, and has remained, centered about the origins of plant and animal domestication and of a settled villagefarming community way of life in southwestern Asia. Other and independent experiments in the achievement of food-production took place elsewhere in the world, but the Near Eastern instance may well have been the earliest such experiment.2 Further, within the new ways of life which developed in the context of early food-production in the Near East, we may see the beginnings of the western cultural tradition. Farming-food-production-implies an effective level of domestication. In southwestern Asia this meant wheat, barley, certain legumes (especially peas and lentils), sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, the dog, with horses and camels coming later. After hundreds of millennia of predatory food-gathering, hunting and collecting, how did men move on to the next stage of actually controlling their own food supply, and what were the sociocultural consequences of this major new stage in human history ? The notion of the importance of an effectively produced food supply, in human history, is not new.3 However, until about 1925 when the late great British prehistorian V. Gordon Childe began to stress what he called the food-producing
1 A shorter and popularized version of some of the ideas offered here appeared under another title in an alumni magazine, Chicago Today 2, 3 (1965): pp. 14-26. 2 A recent world-wide survey of the botanical evidence

In Noncenters," Science 174 (1971): pp. 468-474. January, 1972, Reiner Protsch and Rainer Berger submitted an article to Science, entitled "Earliest Radiocarbon Dates for Domesticated Animals from Europe and the Near East" which surveys the available evidence on animals in the regions named. 3 E.g., G. de Mortillet, Le Preh.istorique Antiquite de l'Homme (Paris, 1885), p. 576, "La domestication, dans l'histoire de la civilisation, est un fait immense, une decouverte des plus importantes . . ."
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL

is in Jack R. Harlan, "AgriculturalOrigins: Centers and

or "neolithic" revolution, the matter had received little attention. Childe 4 was first interested in the impact which a newly introduced food-producing way of life had upon the still savage hunters and food-collectors of Europe following the end of the last ice age. However, he very presently became fascinated with the Near East as the probable center of origin from which food-production was diffused, several thousand years before conventional ancient history began. Within the Near East itself, on the other hand, archeological attention had remained predominantly concerned with the chronological ranges of conventional ancient history. "History began," it was said, with the rise of the early dynasties of Mesopotamia and Egypt, some short time before ca. 3000 B.C. In this sense, "history" dealt only with growth of literate urban civilization. V. Gordon Childe's writings 5 clearly urged consideration of the foundations-in the still earlier villagefarming way of life-upon which these urban civilizations must have arisen and from which diffusionary influences undoubtedly moved to Europe. Nevertheless, as the World War II interim in archeological activity began in the Near East, no field expedition had yet been activated with the examination of evidence for the beginnings of food-production and the village-farming community way of life as its specific goal. One might name one or two highly qualified and conceptually accidental exceptions to this generalization.6 The far more usual procedure had been the excavation of a restricted deep pit or two by archeologists working on one of the enormous Near Eastern mounds with a massive overburden of later his4 Childe himself looked thoughtfully back over his scholarly life in an article titled "Retrospect,"Antiquity 32 (1958): pp. 69-74. 5 E.g., The Most Ancient East (London, 1928), four editions of its successor, New Light on the Most Ancient East (London, 1934-1952). Cf. also Childe's bibliography in Proc. Prehistoric Soc. 21 (1955) : pp. 295-304. 6 E.g., M. E. L. Mallowan and J. Cruikshank Rose, "Excavationsat Tall Arpachiyah 1933,"Iraq 2, 1 (1935). 116,
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FIG.

1. The "gap chart," which was drawn in 1945. The gray portion suggests the existence of a period of development completely unknown at that time. The "roots" and "stems" represent a scheme for ordered speculation regarding developments, which was then current in the American southwest, and should now be disregarded. The (lates were pure "guess dates," reckoned before the developmentof radioactivecarbon age determination.

torical material. Conceptually, this amounted to little more than a fascination with the principles of stratigraphy (the deeper you dug, the earlier material you had) and curiosity as to "the earliest stuff in this great hunk of mound." This "reaching backwards from the known" might be said to have culminated-in fact during the actual years of the war-in the work of a joint BritishIraqi team on a modest-sized mound near Mosul.7 The inventory of materials from this site, Hassuna, gave northern Iraq an apparent antiquity equivalent to that already exposed in the restricted deep pit excavations in Iran, northern Syria, and Palestine, and in the traces of settlement along the dry beach of an extinct higher phase of the Fayum lake in Egypt. The World War II years allowed at least some of us time for reflection on the general state of Near Eastern archeology. The late Professor Henri Frankfort ran a magnificent seminar in the
7 Seton Lloyd and Fuad Safar, "Tell Hassuna," Jour. Near East Stud. 4 (1945): pp. 255-289.

Oriental Institute from the autumn of 1938 until the United States became actively engaged in the war. Here we considered the details of the later prehistoric, protohistoric, and early historic materials which were then available from the Near East.8 As the war ended, and the Department of Anthropology at Chicago began to retool its curriculum for the expected G.I. load of students, I found myself involved with the construction of a new three-quarter course on "Human Origins" with W. M. Krogman, physical anthropology, and Sol Tax, cultural anthropology. To the degree that my ideas on where we stood in such matters as the appearance of food-pro8 Certainregional summariesresulted from this seminar, e.g., Donald E. McCown, The ComparativeStratigraphy of Early Iran, Stud. Anc. Orient. Civ. 23 (Chicago, Archeology 1942); Ann Louise Perkins, The Comparative of Ancient Mesopotamia, Stud. Anc. Orient. Civ. 25 (Chicago, 1949); the chapters by Kantor, Braidwood, Perkins, McCown and Weinberg in the original Relative Chronologies in Old World Archeology, Robert W. Ehrich, ed. (Chicago, 1954).

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and Charles Leslie, "Matarrah," Jour. Near East. Stud.

By 1950,11if not earlier, we were already shifting away from the notion elaborated by Childe, that the scene of men's earliest experiments with the domestication of plants and animals lay in the great alluvial river valleys and the oases of the Near East. We were suggesting, rather, the importance of "the hilly flanks of Breasted's 'Fertile Crescent'" in its southwestern Asiatic reaches.12 Certainly Breasted's primary interest had been II. PREHISTORICPROJECTFIELD ACTIVITY with the developments of the literate urban civilizations of conventional ancient history. His For our first postwar field work, my wife and "Fertile Crescent" arched up from the head of I proposed a return to Syria where we had our- the Persian Gulf through the Tigris-Euphrates selves been involved in the "deep pit phase" of basin, crossed to the eastern Mediterranean littoral prehistoric exploration before the war.9 But, and then ran southward into Palestine. We ourthrough a combination of political circumstances selves were beginning to be drawn, rather, to the and the foresight of the then director of the In- flanks of the crescent; the piedmonts and interstitute, Thorkild Jacobsen, we actually went to montane valley fringes of the Zagros, Tauros, and northern Iraq in 1947. Our old friends and col- Lebanon mountain ranges. It appears to me now leagues of the Iraq Government's Directorate that we must already have been acquiring some General of Antiquities, Fuad Safar and Seton keener sense for the sorts of environments within Lloyd-the excavators of Hassuna and respectively which the plants and animals, potentially domestica Chicago M.A. and an ex-Oriental Institute able, were at home in nature. field architect-quickly comprehended the field We have been on record for over ten years that problem we proposed to examine. Furthermore, our original "hilly flanks of the crescent" notion they already had two sites to suggest in the hill was rather too restrictive (although the phrase country near the oil-producing town of Kirkuk. still tends to hang about our necks like a dead One, Matarrah, on the piedmont, had surface in- albatross),13 but the major point is important dications of the Hassuna type and would give us and different. As I reconstruct our thinking more experience with the earliest then known village than two decades later, the major point was one materials of Iraq. The second, with evidently still 11Robert J. and Linda S. Braidwood,"Jarmo: a earlier (and to their eyes, "mesolithic") surface 24 in Antiquity (1950): Villageof Early Farmers Iraq," indications, lay in a pleasant intermontane valley pp. 189-195. 12 James Henry Breasted first suggested the term east of Kirkuk. It was called Jarmo, after the in historytext, Ancient name of the nearest natural feature which had a "FertileCrescent" a high-school name. We elected to excavate at both sites before Times (Boston,1916) and the term is now widelyused. is thought The westernend of the semicircle sometimes ever having visited them. to proceeddowninto the Nile valley,but BreastedhimThe first pick went into Matarrah in the early self ended it in Palestine; cf. his The Conquest of Civilispring of 1948, and the yield was as anticipated.10 zation (New York, 1938),p. 116. 13 Already by 1960, we had become uncomfortable About May 1, we moved up-country to Jarmo, set of for aboutour earlierenthusiasm a precisedelimitation up a tent camp on the site, and excavated until the zone, RobertJ. Braidwood Bruce Howe, et al., and was certainly of a Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan, Stud. Anc. early June. The inventory Civ.31 (Chicago, 1960),esp.p. 181. Ourattempt typologically simpler and presumably earlier as- Orient. early of village materials than any then available. to relocateTepe Ali Abad,becauseof apparently pect Ali Kosh, at there, We returned to Chicago that summer with the microblades in led to the discoveryof a low altitude Khuzestanand to OrientalInstitute assurance that we were well within the "gap" of instigation excavations there. Cf. Frank Hole, Kent of the "gap chart" and that Jarmo was a site which V. Flannery, James A. Neely, Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Deh Luran Plain, Mem. Mus. Anthrop. demanded a long-range field program. Univ. Mich. 1 (Ann Arbor, 1969). By 1962,we were 9 Robert J. and Linda S. Braidwood, Excavations in of [of that ". . . the delimitation the boundary declaring the naturalhabitat zone] is still very impreciseanythe Plain of Antioch, I, Orient. Inst. Pub. 61 (Chicago, where," Robert J. Braidwood,"The Earliest Village 1960). of 10Robert J. and Linda S. Braidwood, James G. Smith Farming Communities SouthwesternAsia Recon11 (1952): pp. 1-75.

duction (in the Near East and elsewhere) had not yet crystallized, Krogman and especially Tax saw to it that they soon did. The conception for the Oriental Institute's Prehistoric Project itself came to be crystallized in something we call "the gap chart" (fig. 1), an illustration for a paper in a series of readings prepared for the "Human Origins" course.

1 Protostoriche (Firenze,1962): p. 116.

sidered," Atti del VI Cong. Int'l. Sc. Preistoriche e

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of realizaton that we would quickly need field colleagues with such competences in the natural sciences as archeologists seldom if ever have. It became increasingly clear that to understand the origins of effective food-production, a firm grasp of the details of ancient environments, their climates, land forms, and the plants and animals which flourished in them would be necessary. Curiously, and most fortunately, it was following our second (1950-1951) field season at Jarmo that we were approached by representatives of the National Science Foundation. As it was originally enacted, the N.S.F. was restricted to supporting the biological and physical sciences. A few of the Foundation's officials believed, however, that an eventual breakthrough towards support of the behavioral sciences might be made by attaching scholars interested in various aspects of past environments to archeological field research. Although the archeologists themselves were concerned with human beings, the human beings were long dead and hence politically neutral (an issue of some importance in the time of the first McCarthy!). Along with several other archeological colleagues, we were already intellectually well prepared to serve as guinea pigs. The first of the natural scientists, Herbert E. Wright (Minnesota: 1950-1951, 1954-1955, 1959-1960, 1963-1964, and 1968-1970 field seasons) is a Pleistocene geologist. His field study has been the ancient land forms and climates of the region. Three zoologists have been concerned with the problems of animal domestication, Fredrik Barth (Bergen: 1950-1951), Charles A. Reed (Illinois at Chicago: 1954-1955, 1959-1960, 1970), and Barbara Lawrence (Harvard: 19631964, 1968, 1971), and one, a limnologist, Robert 0. Megard (Minnesota: 1963-1964) concerned with the microfauna of lakes and ponds as indicators of past climates. Both Wright and Barth were in the field before our first N.S.F. grant; Barth has not, of course, since functioned primarily as a zoologist.14 Hans Helbaek (Danish National Museum: 1954-1955, 1959-1960) undertook the study of both the excavated traces and the modern wild relics of the food-plants. Jack R. Harlan (Illinois at Urbana: 1959-1960, 1963-1964) then added his competence in agronomy and plant genetics to the field staff, and Robert B. Stewart (Sam Houston State University: 1963-1964,
14 E.g., Fredrik Barth, Principles of Social Organization in Southern Kurdistan, Universitetets Etnografiske

1968) has begun microbotanical studies of the plant materials recovered. Marvin Mikesell (Chicago: 1963-1964) is investigating the history of changing forest patterns and Willem van Zeist (Groningen: 1963-1964, 1970) has joined Wright in a detailed pollen analysis of the vegetational history of the Zagros-Tauros region and has also become involved in the identification and interpretation of plant materials from our excavations. Albert A. Dahlberg (Chicago: 1959-1960), a dental paleontologist, was with the expedition in Iran. In 1968, Richard A. Watson (Washington at St. Louis) and Gary A. Wright (State University of New York-Albany)15 began a survey of the source deposits of raw obsidian in Turkey, which Watson continued in 1970. Our archeological "base line" in the culture history of the late paleolithic hunters and collectors has been in the hands of Bruce Howe (Harvard, Oriental Institute: 1950-1951, 19541955, 1959-1960, 1963-1964, 1968, 1970), supported at first by the Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research and by the American Philosophical Society. In 1968, the Baghdad School sponsored Patty Jo Watson (Washington at St. Louis), now one of the Prehistoric Project field staff who has finished her fourth campaign (1970) at a senior level. We have also benefited by general support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and graduate student field assistants have come to us on Department of Anthropology research funds and through traveling fellowships, most recently through a Ford Foundation field training grant. In the 1950-1951 season, both Jarmo and two still earlier nearby sites were worked. The first of these, the shallow traces of a small settlement possibly of no great duration, was called Karim Shahir. Its inventory indicated what is probably to be seen as a level of incipient cultivation and domestication, antecedent to the Jarmo phase but still within the "gap" of the old "gap chart." The earlier of the two, Palegawra, was a small cave, with materials pertaining to hunters and food collectors who had lived at some time before the "gap" on the chart. During the 1954-1955 season, a broad region of the basin of the greater Zab River, a northeastern tributary of the Tigris about 100 miles north of Jarmo, was surveyed and a number
15 Gary A. Wright, Obsidian Analysis and Prehistoric Near Eastern Trade: 7000 to 3500 B.C., Anthrop. Papers Mus. Anthrop. Univ. Mich. 37 (Ann Arbor, 1969).

Mus. Bull. 7 (Oslo, 1953).

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FIG. 1. The "nearer" portions of southwestern Asia, with sites pertinent to a ca. 12000 to 5000 B.C. time range.

Robert J. Braidwood, Bruce Howe and Charles A. Reed, "The Iranian Prehistoric Project," Science 133 (1961): pp. 2008-2010. The Sarab materials have been taken over by T. Cuyler Young, Jr., chief of the West Asian 16The final reports on the Iraqi field seasons are Department, Royal Ontario Museum, for processing nearing completion, meanwhile see Robert J. Braidwood together with the materials from his continuing excavations at the nearby Godin Tepe. and Bruce Howe, et al., op. cit.

of early village sites and caves were tested. In the spring of 1955, we had what was to be our last campaign on Jarmo.16 Following the establishment of the republic in Iraq in 1958, the slopes of the Zagros range in that country have tended to remain politically unstable. In 1959, after unsuccessful preliminary overtures for permission to work in southeastern Turkey, we were granted permission to undertake field work in the Kermanshah region on the Zagros flanks of southwest central Iran. Examination of a physiographic map (fig. 1) will indicate that the accident of modern political boundaries allowed us to shift from Iraq to Iran without moving to a significantly different environmental zone on

the Zagros flanks. Following an autumn of survey in the valleys about Kermanshah, we worked in several caves and on several village sites in the spring of 1960. Of these, the Warwasi cave, the site of Asiab (with a Karim Shahir type of inventory) and the site of Sarab (with a late or immediately post-Jarmo type of inventory) proved the most important.17 Finally, for the
17

There

have

been

several

short

reports

on

the

Kermanshah Valley sites, e.g., Robert J. Braidwood,

"Seeking . . . Farmers in Persian Kurdistan . . . ," Illust. London News 237 (Oct. 22, 1960): pp. 695-697;

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field season of 1963-1964, it became possible to begin operations in the completely unexamined reaches of southeastern Turkey, in the lower hill fringes of the eastern Tauros. These operations were resumed and expanded in the autumn of 1968, and continued in the autumn of 1970. At this point, we have pride in recording what we take to be one of the most significant innovations of the Prehistoric Project. Our relations with the Iraqi government's Directorate General of Antiquities had indeed been warm, but we had no contact with a sister university in Iraq. In Iran, Dr. Ezat Negahban, an old graduate student of ours in Chicago, had become professor in the University of Tehran and director of its Institute of Archaeology. Negahban served as an associate director of the expedition, was able to spend some time in the field with us, and also to provide some students as field assistants. In February of 1960 we together organized a very successful seminar in the University of Tehran.18 Thus a pattern of warm interuniversity cooperation was set which remains in Iran and which was, in fair part, to assure our success in Turkey. For reasons of national policy, the southeastern provinces of Turkey-long a military zone-had been closed to foreigners. Our ability to mount an expedition there depended entirely on the interest and enthusiasm of an old friend and colherself a professor and head league, Halet (Qambel, of the Department of Prehistory of Istanbul University, who knew of the Tehran experiment in interuniversity cooperation. Istanbul joined Chicago on equal grounds, committed both finances and staff to the venture, and I myself was made a visiting professor there for the 1963-1964 academic year. Professor Q(ambelhas continued to serve as full co-director of the field project. After some preliminary discouragement, she took the matter of our joint work in the southeast directly to Prime Minister Inonii himself, and with success. As matters now stand for the future, the Prehistoric Project remains a joint IstanbulChicago venture and the liaison between the staff and graduate student bodies of the two universities -already successfully established-is a matter for considerable satisfaction. The autumn of 1963 was given over to a general surface survey in the provinces of Siirt,

Diyarbakir, and Urfa, the winter to research and teaching in Istanbul, and the spring of 1964 to excavation. The surface survey in an otherwise archeologically unknown region, naturally resulted in what was almost an embarrassment of riches. Bruce Howe chose to work two open sites in the low hills north of Urfa, which yielded materials of the final food-collecting phase, somewhat reminiscent of those of the Palegawra cave near Jarmo. The rest of us concentrated on a small mound called Qayonui, northwest of Diyarbakir. The Qay6nii inventory includes items comparable to some from Jarmo, others comparableto some from the Mediterranean littoral, and some surprises such as a fair degree of architectural sophistication and tools of beaten native copper. But our six weeks of excavation there were merely enough to ensure us that here again was a site which needed a series of well-planned campaigns. The first of these following campaigns in the autumn of 1968, was somewhat abbreviated by bureaucratic delays and the early onset of the winter rains. Nevertheless, enough new exposures were made on ?(ay6nii to re-emphasize its importance. Further, Patty Jo Watson undertook the testing of a nearby site, Gerikihaciyan, which had yielded surface indications of the Halafian phase. During the 1970 campaign, the Gerikihaciyan exposures were enlarged and most gratifying results were secured at Qay6nii.19 III. SOME GENERALITIES Suppose we look again at the old 1945 "gap chart" (fig. 1). What have more than two decades of attention to the "gap" yielded in new knowledge ? In the first place, concern with the establishment of effective food-production and its sociocultural consequences has become a general focus of research interest. As regards the Near East, from Palestine to northern Greece and eastwards into Turkmania and Baluchistan, one can now count approximately a dozen and a half other excavators who, either wholly or in part, have turned their attention toward the beginnings of the early village stage. Naturally, some dust has almost literally to settle before even these preliminary efforts allow a crisp new picture to be drawn, but it is certainly clear that much is being learned. 18The proceedings the seminarwere brieflynoted, of 19RobertJ. Braidwood, Halet Cambel, Charles RedL. RobertJ. Braid-wood, BruceHowe and Ezat 0. Negah- man and Patty Jo Watson, "Beginnings Villageof Science131 (1960): pp. Farming Communities Southeastern ban,"NearEasternPrehistory," in Turkey,"Proc. 1536-1541. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 68 (1971): pp. 1236-1240.

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Secondly, more than two decades ago, the radioactive carbon age-determination method was discovered by Willard Libby at Chicago and has since been under refinement. I believe it was at a luncheon at the faculty club in the spring of 1947 that some of us from Anthropology and the Oriental Institute first heard Libby describe his ideas. I recall that one of us remarked something to the effect that "now the shackles of imprecise chronology will be struck from our wrists, and we may get down to the real business of understanding the ancient cultures themselves." The matter has not proved to be quite so simple, of course, and it is hardly true that a radiocarbon age determination is a firm date in a real chronological sense. If anything, most of the charcoalbased determinations now available are probably somewhat "short" and need to be corrected toward the early side.20 Making allowance in the socalled "calibration" sense, the general pattern of age determinations does appear to indicate that the Karim Shahir type level of incipience of cultivation and domestication (and its apparent counterpart along the east Mediterranean littoral, the Natufian) was at least underway by 9000 B.C. The primary phase of the village-farming communities, such as that seen at Qay6nii and Jarmo, had probably begun to crystallize at least by 7500 B.C. A still more firmly consolidated village level, such as that of Hassuna, probably was underway soon after 6500 B.C. The choice of the above reckonings depends admittedly on my personal assessment of what the true dates might be, given the general comparative typological evidence from sites now excavated and reported and the "calibrated" radiocarbon age determinations now availand H. E. Suess) in Ingrid U. Olsson, ed., Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology, Nobel Sympos. 12 (Stockholm, 1970) discuss the bearing of the bristlecone-pine dendrochronology on radioactive carbon age determinations and the likelihood that many C-14 "dates" may be "short" (i.e., not old enough in terms of real years). In the work cited, Suess presents charts (pls. I and II) allowing the calibration of C-14 age determinations against the dendrochronology, so that the earlier real year dates of the C-14 samples may be assessed. There is a separate matter of concern, however, in the suggestion that radioactive carbon age determinations made on samples of bone collagen may fall even "shorter" than determinations of charcoal based samples from identical archeological contexts, vide Reiner Protsch and Rainer Berger, op. cit. If this apparent trend is substantiated, it would tend to cancel out at least part of the corrections towards earliness gained by bristlecone-pine calibrations on charcoal-based determinations.
20 The

able. Were allowance for the bristlecone-pine correction not to be included, I'd subtract ca. 750 years from the above suggested dates.21 One final observation on chronology. Although the new way of life based on food-production had apparently begun to move through Anatolia towards the Aegean Islands and Greece at least by the seventh millennium B.C., such was evidently not yet the case for classic southern Mesopotamia and for Egypt. Our guess has been that the earlier domesticates, both plant and animal, would not at first tolerate the hot and dry environmental regimes in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates and of the Nile. Presently, however, both tolerant mutant strains and new ways of their manipulation by men must have appeared, since by about 5000 B.C. (+) in southern Mesopotamia (and somewhat later in Egypt) a new pace in cultural acceleration was set. Developments soon surpassed those in the adjacent piedmonts, hilly regions, and littorals, and literate urban civilizations appeared in southern Mesopotamia and Egypt. I might note, in passing, that the notion of Egypt's "retardation"as regards the beginnings of food-production, has recently been questioned on several counts.22 My own interest remains fixed on the primary evidence for food-production
21 From this point onwards, here, I suggest "dates" in terms of conventional (Libby half-life) charcoal-based radiocarbon age determinations, followed by "(+)," to suggest that corrections may be necessary. 22 Neither Philip E. L. Smith, "The Late Paleolithic of Northeast Africa," Amer. Anthrop. 68, 2, pt. 2 (1966): pp. 326-355 nor the several authors in Charles A. Reed et al., "Preliminary Report of Archeological Aspects of the Research of the Yale University Prehistoric Expedition to Nubia, 1962-1963," Fouilles en Nubie (1961-1963) (Antiquities Department of Egypt, Cairo, 1967): pp. 145-156, make much of the appearance of food production in Egypt although they are conscious of the issue. A. J. Arkell and Peter J. Ucko, "Review of Predynastic Development in the Nile Valley," Current Anthrop. 6 (1965): pp. 145-166 show somewhat more concern in the matter, as do their commentators. For some years Fred Wendorf and his associates, e.g., Fred Wendorf, Rushdi Said, Romuald Schild, "Egyptian Pre-history: Some New Concepts," Science 169 (1970): pp. 1161-1171, have referred to the early use of "grain," primarily on the basis of such secondary evidence as "heavily worn grinding stones and small flaked pieces with lustrous edges, possibly 'sickle blades'" and ". . . the presence of wheat rust and cells from an unidentified (italics ours) large grass" (p. 1161). It has sometimes seemed to me that this is an attempt to make a case for early food-production by innuendo rather than evidence. The use of the word "grain" may seem to imply more than the collection of plant foods, which can hardly be questioned for men in the Pleistocene, cf. Jack R. Harlan, op. cit.

authors of several papers (esp. C. W. Ferguson

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(i.e., identifications on morphological grounds, by competent specialists, of domesticated animal or plant remains) from reliable archeologicalchronological contexts. It may well be that very early primary evidence will yet come from lower Mesopotamia or Egypt, but as I understand the matter at the moment, such is not the case. Very much has indeed been learned through the field efforts of our natural science colleagues. They have not, however, completely simplified the whole matter. Part of our original strategy in seeking competences in the collection and interpretation of natural data was a certain naive assumption. These colleagues would, rather quickly we assumed, be able to give us a firm and unambiguous description of the ancient environments, climates, flora, and fauna. Upon this firm foundation of natural historical understanding, we archeologists could then address ourselves to the much more difficult task (we were persuaded!) of interpreting the evidence for culture history. Again the matter has proved to be far from simple. For one thing, too little evidence-say of reasonably intact ancient specimens or of contemporary materials for comparative purposes-is yet in hand and some of it (such as wild cattle) has become extinct. Again, one expert interprets the available evidence in one way, another in a significantly different way. Nonetheless, we are far beyond where we stood twenty years ago.23 At the same time, it is sobering to observe how quickly ideas need reconsideration as more is learned by the natural scientists. It begins to look now as if we ourselves at first underplayed the role of environmental change at the time of the appearance of food-production, as well as that our early attempts to delineate the boundaries of the "natural habitat zone" were too restrictive. These are points to which we shall return below. On the culture historical side, we are still far, far from the dangers of unemployment. On the basis of the Karim Shahir and Jarmo materials alone, I could (and did, for a series of lectures at the University of Oregon in 1952) draw a very pretty and comprehensible picture of developments.24 But given still newer information from 23There are a varietyof usefulpaperson the subject in Peter J. Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby, The Domestica-

Jarmo and then from Asiab, Sarab, Qay6nuiand from the sites which some of our colleagues have been excavating, that pretty picture no longer holds. Naturally, just as I myself first did, some of our colleagues tend to see everything as having started in the particular region where they happen to be excavating at the moment. This is a wellknown and very common failing among archeologists. New information is coming to hand so rapidly in this research focus that a general picture is out of date almost before it is printed. What follows should be taken only as a few general observations, based on the present trends of the evidence, set down as I see them at this moment, without too elaborate an attempt to document each point. IV. THE GENERALTRENDS OF THE EVIDENCE Although it has been traditional to seek evidence for the terminal hunting and collecting level (such as the Zarzi-Palegawra phase) in caves, it becomes increasingly likely that the people of that level of development also lived in open encampments. It is also increasingly likely that they became ever more "specialized" in the sense of making cultural and seasonal adaptations to regional and even sub-regional environmental opportunities as time went on.25 The conceptualization of a level of incipient cultivation and domestication-as distinct from that of a terminal specialized hunting and collecting level-has always remained difficult, and the field identification of the incipient level has been even more difficult. As a heuristic device, the idea of of Earliest Village Communities SouthwesternAsia loc. Reconsidered," cit., and Linda and Robert Braidwood, "Current Thoughtson the Beginningsof Foodin Production Southwestern Asia," MelangesUniv. St. Joseph45, 8 (1969): pp. 149-155. 25This generalization began at least as early as on Dorothy Garrod'sobservation "The speedingup of betweenSouth-West change. . ." in her "TheRelations Asia and Europe in the Late PaleolithicAge," Jour. WorldHistory1 (1953): p. 14. The ideawas elaborated in Braidwood Howe et al., op. cit., pp. 179-183and and in RobertJ. Braidwood Gordon Willey, Courses and R. Toward UrbanLife (Chicago,1962), pp. 331-343,and has recentlybeen called "the 'broadspectrum' revolution" by Kent V. Flannery,"OriginsandcEcological Effects of early Near EasternDomestication" Ucko in and Dimbleby, cit., pp. 73-100. I am not persuaded op. that thereis yet sufficient in evidence southwestern Asia to justify Flannery'strinitarianscheme of settlement types.

tion and Exploitation of Plants and Animals (Chicago, 1969). 24Robert J. Braidwood, The Near East and the Foundations of Civilization (Eugene, 1952). Our most

recentgeneralsummaries RobertJ. Braidwood, are "The

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[PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC.

a level of incipience may have convenience for us,26 but would have meant little to the people who were living in it, doubtless still by predominantly very specialized patterns of hunting and collecting. To compound our difficulties here, about a decade ago Jean Perrot began to suspect that some of the earlier "village" (i.e., an evidently permanent architecturally expressed open-air settlement) inventories of the Mediterranean littoral region did not include primary evidence of produced food and that their economic basis may have depended on intensified food-collection alone.27 With the report of van Loon's testing of Mureybit (middle Euphrates, in Syria) now available,28the "Perrot Proposition" is increasingly credible. We have evidently held too easily to the notion that mound sites containing the architectural traces and basic inventories of a succession of presumably yearround village communities were inconceivable save as the manifestation of an effective food-producing level. The question then arises-can we, should we, attempt to distinguish between a level of incipient cultivation and domestication and a highly intensified village-dwelling level of specialized collecting and hunting? In this connection, too, the observations of Harlan and Zohary 29 as to the two Near Eastern races of emmer wheat and the dense stands characteristic of the Palestinian race, and their caveat that domestication need not have taken place where the cereals were most abundant intrigued us. More recently, Zohary has concluded that this separation was more apparent than real.30 It was largely in relation to the distribution of the early
26 To the degree that I was ever completely consistent in matters of prehistoric nomenclature, my doodle in "Levels in Prehistory: A Model for the Consideration of the Evidence" in Sol Tax, ed., The Evolution of Man (Chicago, 1960), pp. 143-151 probably approaches the way I still think in terms of a succession of "levels." 27 Perrot offered the idea in lectures and certainly as early as mid-1964 in a privileged communicationto the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. It has now been refined and documented in his excellent "La Prehistoire Palestinienne," Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible (Paris, 1968), pp. 286-446. 28Maurits van Loon, James H. Skinner and Willem van Zeist, "The Oriental Institute Excavations at Mureybit . . . ," Jour. Near East. Stud. 27 (1968): pp. 265290; 29 (1970): pp. 167-176. 29Jack R. Harlan and Daniel Zohary, "Distributionof Wild Wheats and Barley," Science 153 (1966): pp. 1074-1080. 30 Daniel Zohary, "The Progenitors of Wheat and Barley . . ." in Ucko and Dimbleby, eds., op. cit., pp. 47-66.

wheats that the recent revival of interest in the widespread distribution of obsidian from its restricted Turkish sources 31 stimulated us to undertake an ordered survey of the obsidian source areas. Harlan once asked us to suggest a human mechanism which could mix the gene pools of wild wheats about southwestern Asia. Our hunch was (and still is) that the carriers of obsidian may have had pocketfuls of grain to munch on. Another matter bears on the notions of both a level of incipience and the "Perrot Proposition," as these might apply to the Zagros and eastern Tauros flank and piedmont country and to the Euphrates-Tigris basin generally. Until recently, we had been persuaded that earlier theorists had considerably overplayed the role of environment in the appearance of a food-producing way of life.32 We must now reconsider the whole matter in the light of Wright's 33 palynological evidence and his and Van Zeist's interpretation of it that at least the Zagros hill-flanks country retained a cool dry Artemisia steppe type of vegetation until As they suggest, well towards 8000 B.C.(+). this evidence could be read-to mean that environmental change did have a role in the shift towards food production. But the matter raises some real questions. For example, if the region around Shanidar, in the northeastern corner of the Iraqi Zagros, had not yet achieved a relatively modern climate-environment at the time of the Zawi Chemi 34 occupation, shall we be satisfied that Perkins's series of animal bones is large enough to allow the demonstration of sheep domestication before osteological change had set in? In my judgment, one of the most exciting sites to watch for further developments (east of the Euphrates) will be Philip Smith's Ganj Dareh in the eastern end of the Kermanshah Valley, Iran.35 The available radiocarbon determinations would appear to support a general typological assessment of its inventory in suggesting a pre-Jarmoan date for Ganj Dareh. I am not so fully persuaded that the lower Bus Mordeh levels of Ali Kosh are
31 E.g., J. E. Dixon, J. R. Cann and Colin Renfrew, "Obsidianand the Origins of Trade," Scientific American 218, #3 (Mar. 1968): pp. 38-46. See also note 15, above. 32 Cf. Braidwood, Howe et al., op. cit., p. 175. 33 H. E. Wright, Jr., "Natural Environment of Early Food Production North of Mesopotamia,"Science 161 (1968): pp. 334-338. 34Dexter Perkins, Jr., "Prehistoric Fauna from Shanidar, Iraq," Science 144 (1964) : pp. 1565-1566. 35 P. E. L. Smith, "Ganj Dareh Tepe," Iran 10 (1972) (in press) ; "Iran, 9000-4000 B.C.: the Neolithic,"

Expedition13, 3-4 (1971): pp. 6-13.

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quite so early as its excavators propose,36and the site's scattered radiocarbon determinations are almost as whimsical as are those from Jarmo itself. Part of the real interest in Ali Kosh is that it lies well below our original conception of the boundaries of the "natural habitat zone," just as Asiab and Ganj Dareh lie higher that we would first have guessed possible. As to general dating, I believe I would find myself in close agreement with the chronological charts of Perrot37 and Mortensen.38 Also of considerable interest will be Joan Oates's proposed exposures of Jarmolike levels near Mandali, on the Zagros piedmont northeast of Baghdad.39 By the general level of Jarmo-Ali KoshGuran-Sarab, perhaps beginning a bit before the end of the eighth millennium B.C. (+) and lasting essentially throughout the seventh millennium (+), we certainly have primary evidence of food-production and I see no reason not to think in terms of effective village-farming communities. For the littoral regions, it is our great fortune that Perrot was able to make substantial clearances at Munhatta in the upper Jordan valley,40 Kirkbride at Beidha in the Jordanian highlands near Petra 41 and de Contenson at Ramad southeast of Damascus 42 before the onset

of hostilities in June, 1967, and that Cauvin's presentation of the lithic materials from Byblos in Lebanon is now available.43 With Perrot's 44 recent and excellent summary available, I need go no further than to observe that the time and the primary evidence for food-production is of about the same general order as for the Jarmo level east of the Euphrates. Although it lies well within Turkey, the new joint Prehistoric Project site, (aynii,45 is situated on the east Tauros piedmont in high Mesopotamia, and not on the characteristic Anatolian plateau. The site yields primary evidence of animal domestication in the uppermost phases of its prehistoric level, but only the dog-so far-in its deeper phases. Evidence for domesticated plants was available from the beginning. With a substantial architecture, and hammered copper artifacts in this early village context, the site is one of considerable promise. On the Anatolian plateau itself, we have a pair of interesting excavated sites, Hacilar near Burdur (of which only the basal "aceramic" level
pertains),46 and Suberde south of Konya,47 plus

Acta Archeologica 34 (1964): pp. 97-133. 39 In her survey of the Mandali area, Mrs. Oates

one unexcavated one southeast of Aksaray, A?ikli,48 all of the same general time range, mid to early seventh millennium (+) by radiocarbon 36 Frank Hole and Kent V. Flannery, "The Predetermination. In a general study, Helbaek 49 history of Southwestern Iran: A Preliminary Report," also notes emmer wheat for Hacilar but Perkins Proc. Prehistoric Soc. 33 (1967): pp. 147-206; Hole, and Daly50 believe Suberde was a "hunter's Flannery, Neely, op. cit. 37Jean Perrot, op. cit. village" with no animal domestication. A?ikli, 38Fig. 22 in J0rgen Meldgaard, Peder Mortensen and as yet undug, cannot aid us much as to primary Henrik Thrane, "Excavations at Tepe Guran, Luristan," evidence for domestication. As for the later site
Byblos et du Littoral Libanais," M. Dunand, ed., Fouilles de Byblos 4 (Paris, 1968). 44See note 26. We understand that another substantial summary, the Ph.D. dissertation of Ofer Bar-

collected surface material from a site called Tamerkhan. She identified this surface yield as Jarmoan in general type. She very kindly took me to visit the site in December, 1967, and also showed me its yield-I completely agree with her identification. It is her intention to excavate the site after work at a slightly later site, Choga Mami, is well underway. An account of the survey is now published, Joan Oates, "First Preliminary Report of a Survey in the Region of Mandali and Badra," Sumer 22 (1966): pp. 51-60; Prehistoric Investigations Near Mandali, Iraq," Iraq 30 (1968): pp. 1-20. 40Jean Perrot, "La Troisieme Campagnede fouilles a Munhatta,"Syria 43 (1966): pp. 51-63. 41 Diana Kirkbride, "Five Seasons at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Village of Beidha in Jordan,"Palestine Exploration Quart. 1966 (1966): pp. 8-72; "Beidha,"Antiquity 42 (1968): pp. 263-274. 42Henri de Contenson, "Troisieme Campagne a Tell Ramad, 1966, Rapport Preliminaire," Annales Archeologiques de Syrie 17 (1967): pp. 17-24; "Tell Ramad, a Village of Syria of the 7th and 6th Millennia B.C.," Archaeology 24 (1971) : pp. 278-285.

43Jacques Cauvin, "Les Outillages Neolithiquesde

mitted to the Senate of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Feb., 1970) will presently be formally published. 45Braidwood, Cambel, Redman and Watson, op. cit.
46 James Mellaart, Excavations at Hacilar Occasional

Culturesof Palestine (subYusef, The Epi-Paleolithic

Pub. Brit. Inst. Archaeol. Ankara 9 (Edinburgh, 1970). 47Jacques Bordaz, "The Suberde Excavations, Southwestern Turkey, an Interim Report," Turk Arkeoloji Dergisi 17 (1969): pp. 43-71. 48 Ian A. Todd, "A$ikli Hiiyiik-a Protoneolithic site in Central Anatolia," Anatolian Studies 16 (1966): pp. 139-163. 49Hans Helbaek, "1966-Commentary on the Phylogenesis of Triticum and Hordeum," Economic Botany 20

(1966): pp. 350-360. 50 Dexter Perkins, Jr., and Patricia Daly, "A Hunter's Village in Neolithic Turkey," Scientific American 219, #5 (November, 1968): pp. 97-106.

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of Qatal Hiiyuik south of Konya,51 even with the full report now available I have not seen reason to change the opinions expressed in reviewing a more general book of Mellaart's.52 I still doubt that (QatalHiiyuik calls for discussion along with sites of the first phase of the village-farming community. The gap in the old chart is by no means all filled in. Southwestern Asia is a very large area. On the grounds of environmental probability of pertinence to our problem, considerable portions of it are not yet even adequately explored, let alone known on an adequate time-space systematics level. East of the Euphrates, there is probably still a gap in knowledge between the Palegawra and Karim Shahir phases, and almost certainly another gap between the Karim Shahir and Jarmo phases, although we anticipate that Ganj Dareh may fill at least part of it. We certainly do not have anything of the time equivalent or the typological analogue of either Karim Shahir or the Natufian in the Qayonui region. What happened immediately after the level of either the Jarmo or phase, in Turkish Mesopotamia is still (Qayonuii unclear. An apparently secondary center of specialization in southwest central Anatolia, based perhaps upon special attention to cattle as well as to more developed forms of wheat, probably pertains mainly to the next phase. It may be either a western or a formative variant of the "Halaf," noted on the old chart. In any case, it is clear that the new food-producing way of life had already made its way up into Macedonia and into the isles of Greece well before 6000 B.C. (+) and the important Franchthi cave sequence in Peloponnesian Greece has much
to interest
us.53

Archaeology 22 (1969): pp. 4-9.

in the Netherlands, we know that food-production 51JamesMellaart,(7atalHiiyuiik, London,1967. 52 Robert J. Braidwood, review of James Mellaart, of "EarliestCivilizations the Near East," Antiquity40 (1966): pp. 238-240. See also Dexter Perkins, Jr., Science 164 (1969): pp. 177"Faunaof {atal Hiiyuik," 179,esp.n. 14. 53 Thomas W. Jacobsen, "The Franchthi Cave,"

By about 4500

B.C.

(+),

at least

had followed the Danube up to the Atlantic shores of Europe.54 But there are large areas-of both geography and detailed knowledge-of Europe and the Near East about which we still have everything to learn. Who actually traveled, carrying the new ideas of a food-producing way of life with them? What kinds of men in what kinds of boats moved out to the isles of Greece and beyond ? What chattels did they carry? And even more, what new socio-cultural forms did the new way of life stimulate wherever it moved? "To live in a revolution," said Julian Huxley, "is a dubious privilege." Huxley was, of course, speaking of the dizzy acceleration which has attended the industrial revolution of our own times. We know now that the pace of change following the appearance of food-production was not quite so dizzy, but it must have been just as baffling to the people who lived in it. After nearly two million years of cultural evolution based on predatory food-gathering, hunting, and collecting alone, much had to be changed. The old folkways, the old notions of property, the old gods, the old morals needed renovation as well as did the objects of daily use. As we uncover more, we increasingly see how the material inventories changed and grew vastly more complicated. Our real challenge lies not only in gathering more of such evidence but in devising more adequate ways of interpreting the evidence of the inventories. Our goal is a history of living in a revolution. There is much to be learned of and from it. of the 54Threevery usefulpapersconsider spread food through Europe: J. G. D. Clark, "Radioproduction carbonDating and the Expansionof FarmingCulture Proc. Prehist. Soc. from the Near East over Europe," 31 (1965): pp. 58-73, Carl-Axel Moberg,"Spreadof Science in Periphery," Agriculture the North European "Food152 (1966): pp. 315-319,and H. T. Waterbolk, Science162 (1968): in Production Prehistoric Europe," pp. 1093-1102.The readermightnote the positiontaken 14 by Colin Renfrew,"Carbon and the Prehistoryof Sci. Amer. 225, #4 (1971): pp. 63-72. He Europe," have shown that states that "Tree-ringmeasurements dates are off by as muchas 700 years. early carbon-14 As a result, the view that culturaladvancesdiffused into Europefrom the east is no longer tenable." This refersto levels of culturelaterthanthe spread conclusion of food-production.