Zarzien

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The old Orient
The city gate of Nimrud
Timeline based on calibrated C 14 data
Epipalaeolithic 12000-9500 BC Chr.
Kebaria
Natufien
Khiamien
Pre-ceramic Neolithic 9500-6400 BC Chr.
PPNA 9500-8800 BC Chr.
PPNB 8800-7000 BC Chr.
PPNC 7000-6400 BC Chr.
Ceramic Neolithic 6400-5800 BC Chr.
Umm Dabaghiyah culture 6000-5800 BC Chr.
Hassuna culture 5800-5260 BC Chr.
Samarra culture 5500-5000 BC Chr.
Transition to the Chalcolithic 5800-4500 BC Chr.
Halaf culture 5500-5000 BC Chr.
Chalcolithic 4500-3600 BC Chr.
Obed time 5000-4000 BC Chr.
Uruk time 4000-3100 / 3000 BC Chr.
Early Bronze Age 3000-2000 BC Chr.
Jemdet Nasr time 3000-2800 BC Chr.
Early dynasty 2900 / 2800-2340 BC Chr.
Battery life 2340-2200 BC Chr.
New Sumerian / Ur-III period 2340-2000 BC Chr.
Middle Bronze Age 2000-1550 BC Chr.
Isin Larsa Period / Ancient Assyrian Period 2000–1800 BC Chr.
Old Babylonian time 1800–1595 BC Chr.
Late Bronze Age 1550-1150 BC Chr.
Checkout time 1580-1200 BC Chr.
Central Assyrian Period 1400-1000 BC Chr.
Iron age 1150-600 BC Chr.
Isin II time 1160-1026 BC Chr.
Neo-Assyrian time 1000-600 BC Chr.
Neo-Babylonian Period 1025-627 BC Chr.
Late Babylonian Period 626-539 BC Chr.
Achaemenid period 539-330 BC Chr.
Years according to the middle chronology (rounded)

A Upper Paleolithic - Epipalaeolithic culture in Southwest Asia, especially in the Zagros , has been referred to as Zarzien since 1930 , the artefacts of which date from 18,000 / 15,000 to 8,000 BC. Were dated. This means that the culture existed at the same time as Kebaria and Natufia in Syria and Palestine, although it is much less the focus of research. The culture was named after the Zarzi site in the Iraqi part of Kurdistan .

The main find places include the Palegawra Cave, then Shanidar B2 and Zarzi, Warwasi, Pa Sangar and Ghar-i-Khar. Palegawra (in dispute), Zarzi, Warwasi and Pa Sangar were classified as summer camps, while Shanidar and Mar Gurgalan Sarab were interpreted as base camps.

The main prey of the mobile hunters and gatherers, who possibly switched between certain valleys, mountains and hills seasonally, were Equus hemionus , Ovis orientalis , aurochs, hares, foxes, gazelles, Capra aegagrus , Cervus elaphus , Ochotona , but also turtles. The goats in question were probably the first to be domesticated in the Zagros. In one Palegawra scallops of the genus found Unio tigrides , finally potamon potamios , a local crayfish . While fish and crabs were first found in Zarzi, Helix salmonica , a species of snail , was discovered at some sites . The Persian gerbil was not spurned either, but was an important part of the diet. In the Palegawra Cave, their 14,000 year old bones make up 10.8% of mammalian fossils. Domestication of the dog and the use of bows and arrows played an important role in the hunt, especially of smaller and faster mammals. Mary C. Stiner attributed this change to nutritional problems, but so far there is a lack of human remains to prove this with the effects of malnutrition or malnutrition. Ocher was found in Pa Sangar, which is traced back to Neolithic inhabitants.

A typical feature of the tool inventory is up to 20 percent of microliths, which are usually short and form asymmetrical trapezoids, plus triangles with notches. Certain types of microliths are more likely to be assigned to the early, cold-arid phase of the Zarzien (possibly from the last cold-age maximum ), later to a subsequent, warmer phase. This mainly affects the change from non-geometric to geometric microliths. In the later phase, however, the crescent-shaped microliths (lunates) that are common in Natufia did not dominate in the Zarzien. Nevertheless, the two cultures show considerable similarities, so that this is often interpreted as an indication of large-scale networks. This is also indicated by mussels, which in the Natufia come more from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea , in the Zarzien more from the Persian Gulf . They were used as jewelry.

Settlements and villages arose in the Natufia that apparently did not exist in the Zarzien. Only at the end of the epoch, probably after the Younger Dryas , can the first village-like structures be documented, as in Zawi Chemi Shanida.

Dorothy Garrod was the first to coin the term “Zarzian”, as well as “Natufian”, while her colleague Francis Turville-Petre coined the term “ Kebaran ”. While Garrod was analyzing the lithic material, her colleague Dorothea Bate was studying the organic remains, especially fragmentary bone tools. Garrod initially assigned her finds to the Paleolithic , but her own work on the Epipalaeolithic, which was still called the “Mesolithic” at the time, relativized this statement. She found that geometric microliths were added in the younger layers that were not present in the older layers. In the meantime it has become apparent that this change was probably connected with the beginning of the Epipalaeolithic, as can be seen at the Warwasi site. After this work, only a few investigations were carried out on the Zarzien. In the 1960s and 1970s, a cooler phase emerged on the basis of the seeds of Rhamnus catharticus , while arid steppe vegetation could be detected at the same time. Evidence of the Zarzien was also found in the Hulailan Valley. These included the sites Mar Gurgalan Sarab BC and Mar Ruz B. There were also thumbnail scrapers, small scratches , blades, hatchets, trapezoids, etc.

Studies in the 1990s showed that the Zarzien developed from previous Paleolithic cultures. At the same time, similarities with the Neolithic culture of M'lefatien became apparent at the other end of the period.

literature

  • Deborah I. Olszewski: The Zarzian in the Context of the Epipaleolithic Middle East , in: International Journal of Humanities 19 (2012) 1-20.
  • Akira Tsuneki: Protoneolithic caves and neolithisation in the southern Zagros , in: Roger Matthews, Hassan Fazeli Nashli (ed.): The Neolithisation of Iran. The Formation of New Societies , Oxbow, 2013, pp. 84-96.
  • Roger Matthews , Yaghoub Mohammadifar, Wendy Matthews, Abbass Motarjem: Investigating the Neolithisation of Society in the central Zagros of western Iran , in: Roger Matthews, Hassan Fazeli Nashli (eds.): The Neolithisation of Iran. The Formation of New Societies , Oxbow, 2013, pp. 14–34.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ in the Levant
  2. ↑ a b c d in southern Mesopotamia
  3. ↑ a b c in northern Mesopotamia
  4. ^ Priscilla F. Turnbull: The fauna from the terminal Pleistocene of Palegawra Cave. A Zarzian Occupation Site in Northeastern Iraq , in: Anthropology 63,3 (1974) 81–146 ( online , PDF)
  5. ^ Deborah I. Olszewski: The Zarzian in the Context of the Epipaleolithic Middle East , in: Humanities 19 (2012) 1–20, here: p. 2.
  6. ^ Boris Kryštufek, Vladimir Vohralík: Mammals of Turkey and Cyprus. Rodentia II: Cricetinae, Muridae, Spalacidae, Calomyscidae, Capromyidae, Hystricidae, Castoridae , University of Primorska, Koper 2009, p. 234.
  7. ↑ Priscilla F. Turnbull, Charles A. Reed: The fauna from the terminal Pleistocene of Palegawra Cave , in: Fieldiana Anthropology 63,3 (1974) 81-146, here: p. 94 f.
  8. ^ Mary C. Stiner: Small Animal Exploitation and its Relation to Hunting, Scavenging, and Gathering in the Italian Mousterian. In Gail L. Peterkin, Harvey M. Bricker, Paul Mellars (Eds.): Hunting and Animal Exploitation in the Later Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of Eurasia (1993, Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 4, Washington, DC, p. 107– 126.)
  9. ^ Frank Hole: The Archeology of Western Iran , Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1987.
  10. ↑ Deborah I. Olszewski: The Lithic Transition to the Early Neolithic in the Zagros Region: Zarzian and M'lefatian Industries , in: SK Kozłowski, HGK Gebel (ed.): Neolithic Chipped Stone Industries of the Fertile Crescent and their Contemporaries in Adjacent Regions , ex Oriente, Berlin 1996, 261–270.