Where did Late Chalcolithic Chaff-Faced Ware originate? Cultural Dynamics in Anatolia and Transcaucasia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (ca 4500-3500 BC)
2010; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3406/paleo.2010.5387
ISSN1957-701X
Autores Tópico(s)Eurasian Exchange Networks
ResumoFollowing the discovery of ceramic assemblages related to “ Chaff-Faced Ware” (CFW) in Transcaucasia, this article questions the origins of this ware production, which is often implicitly associated with Upper Mesopotamia and Northern Syria. After a thorough comparison of CFW assemblages attested from the Caucasus down to the Fertile Crescent, it is argued that the presence of CFW over this wide territory does not result, counter to a frequent opinion, from the migrations of Mesopotamian groups into Transcaucasia : rather, it developed from a local evolution dating back at least to 4500 BC. The territory spanned by CFW thus constitutes some kind of oikoumene, whose centre of gravity is probably located in the Highlands, between the Euphrates and the Kura Basins, but not in the Fertile Crescent. This analysis opens new perspectives, as the study of the processes at work in the development of the first urban societies of the Fertile Crescent should now be focussed on this oikoumene as a whole, and not only on Northern Syro-Mesopotamia, in order to understand this fundamental evolution in all its complexity.
Referência(s)