At the origins of the Ubaid world: Recent insights from Tell el-'Uwaili (southern Iraq)
Résumé
After many decades, field activities were resumed at Tell el-'Uwaili. The site presents a complete sequence of the cultural entity known as Ubaid. Recent work is attempting to reveal that sequence on the north-western flank of the tell, in the continuation of the excavations undertaken in the 1980s, up to Ubaid 5 (5 th millennium BC). The bulk of the efforts of the 2019 and 2021 campaigns focused on the so-called Ubaid 0 phase, the oldest ever documented for the Ubaid entity (7 th millennium BC). A quite large area (600 sq.m) has been brought to light, which now makes it possible to read a substantial part of the settlement layout, with granaries, food ovens and storage areas, arranged in well-organised blocks neatly separated by roads. The extensive excavation also resulted in the discovery of large quantities of materials related to the everyday life of a prehistoric village: fine and plain pottery, spindle whorls, ploughs lithic tools. Nevertheless, these new findings also raise fundamental questions: from a technical and material-cultural point of view, what do these premises of the Ubaid world tell us about the oldest known prehistoric community in southern Iraq?
Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
---|