A Study of Neolithization and Urbanization in West Asia

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17H02412
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Archaeology
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Tsuneki Akira 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 教授 (70192648)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 西山 伸一 中部大学, 人文学部, 准教授 (50392551)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 新石器化 / 農耕化 / 都市化 / 文明 / テル・エル・ケルク / タペ・サンギ・チャハマック / カラート・サイド・アハマダン / ジャルモ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Based on the evidence acquired by more than 30 years of archeological investigations, I proposed new hypotheses that are different from the conventional established theory for Neolithization and urbanization. 1) The original farming was not simple rainwater farming as an environmental adaptation of the postglacial period along the hilly franks of the Fertile Crescent. This complicated farming combined rainwater and spring-water farming and was explored from the beginning. 2) In the conventional theory, urbanization occurred for the first time in southern Mesopotamia based on irrigation farming during the later half of the 4th millennium B.C. However, new evidence indicates that social complexity and upsizing progressed based on dry and irrigation farming in the Levant, especially in northwestern Syria, during the 8th and 7th millennia B.C., which prepared a foundation for urbanization. In this study, I like to summarize our own results, which became the grounds for these hypotheses.

Free Research Field

西アジア考古学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

地球上で最も早く農耕が始まり都市社会が形成されたのが西アジアです。本研究では研究代表者が直接調査や研究に携わってきたシリア、イラン、イラクに所在する遺跡の調査研究を進めて遺跡調査報告を出版し、肥沃な三日月地帯東西での新石器化と都市化についての新たな仮説の根拠となる資料を具体的に提示、報告しました。現代社会は食糧生産経済と都市文明に大きく依存しています。なぜ人類は食糧生産を始め、都市文明を形成していったのか探究することは、階層化や環境破壊など現代文明の様々な矛盾の始まりを追究する原点となるのです。