The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent by Roger Matthews

The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent by Roger Matthews

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.

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.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781789255263
ISBN 10	1789255260
Title	The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent
Author	Roger Matthews
Series	Central Zagros Archaeological Project
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxbow Books
Year published	2020-07-31
Number of pages	688
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.