Material Culture During the Reorganization of Early Farming Society in the Near East

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K01111
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 03050:Archaeology-related
• Research Institution: Kanazawa University
• Principal Investigator: ODAKA Takahiro 金沢大学, GS教育系, 准教授 (70350379)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: メソポタミア / 肥沃な三日月地帯 / 新石器時代 / 社会再編 / 土器 / 遺跡調査

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Late Neolithic pottery from four sites in north Iraq was comparatively examined to reconsider the traditional spatio-temporal framework of material culture in the Late Neolithic period (the 7th and 6th millennia BC). It demonstrated the regional difference between the northeast (upper Mesopotamia) and the southeast (from central Mesopotamia to the southeast part of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq) around 6000 BC. In addition, the influence of the Iranian plateau was identified in the material culture of the southeast part of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in the mid-to-late 7th millennium BC, although, generally speaking, the upper Mesopotamian culture expanded to adjacent regions in this period. These results urge us to reconsider the transition to urbanization in Mesopotamia from the viewpoint of regional variability.

Free Research Field

西アジア考古学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

メソポタミアにおける都市化への移行過程は、現地の政情などの影響により、これまで20世紀半ばの調査研究成果にもとづく時空間的枠組みで語られてきた。本研究は、イラク・クルディスタン地域で得られた新資料とイラク北部の旧蔵資料を調査し、型式学的に比較対照したことで、この過程における時空間的枠組みを再検討するうえでの今日的な視座を提示した。近年の知見をもって過去の資料を見直し、その成果を近年得られた資料の研究に活かすという好循環を生み出すとともに、メソポタミアで起きた人類初の都市化を地理的により広範な歴史の動向と結び付けて説明する、確かな糸口になるだろう。