Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T21:52:20.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A day in the life of an Ubaid household: archaeobotanical investigations at Kenan Tepe, south-eastern Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Philip J. Graham  and
Alexia Smith
Philip J. Graham
Affiliation:
*Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Beach Hall Unit-1176, 354 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
Alexia Smith
Affiliation:
*Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Beach Hall Unit-1176, 354 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Ubaid period in south-west Asia constitutes a key period of social and political change anticipating the emergence of complex societies in the following millennium. Well-preserved archaeobotanical assemblages have enormous potential to document these changes at both the site and individual household levels. The conflagration that consumed Structure 4 at the Ubaid settlement of Kenan Tepe in south-eastern Turkey provides a case study through the analysis of almost 70 000 charred macrobotanical remains. The results suggest that labour may have been pooled between households to process emmer wheat to spikelet stage after harvesting. Final processing was conducted on the roof of the house by members of the individual household as need arose. The pooling of resources may reflect the intensification of production and the emergence of elites during the Ubaid period in this region.

Keywords

TurkeyKenan TepeUbaid periodfifth–fourth millennia BCarchaeobotanyagriculture
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 336 , 1 June 2013 , pp. 405 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Algaze, G. 2001. Initial social complexity in southwestern Asia: the Mesopotamian advantage. Current Anthropology 42: 199–233.Google Scholar
Boardman, S. & Jones, G.. 1990. Experiments on the effects of charring on cereal plant components. Journal of Archaeological Science 17: 1–11.Google Scholar
Campbell, G. 2000. Plant utilisation: the evidence from charred plant remains, in Cunliffe, B. (ed.) The Danebury environs programme: the prehistory of a Wessex landscape: 45–59. London: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Carter, R.A. & Philip, G. (ed.). 2010. Beyond the Ubaid: transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East. Chicago (IL): The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Charles, M. 1984. Introductory remarks on the cereals. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 1: 17–31.Google Scholar
Charles, M. 1998. Fodder from dung: the recognition and interpretation of dung-derived plant material from archaeological sites. Environmental Archaeology 1: 111-22.Google Scholar
D’andrea, A.C. & Haile, M.. 2002. Traditional emmer processing in highland Ethiopia. Journal of Ethnobiology 22: 179–217.Google Scholar
Graham, P.J. 2011. Ubaid period agriculture at Kenan Tepe, southeastern Turkey. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Connecticut. Available at: http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/AAI3492058 (accessed 2 April 2013).Google Scholar
Hald, M.M. 2008. A thousand years of farming: Late Chalcolithic agricultural practices at Tell Brak in northern Mesopotamia. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Hald, M.M. & Charles, M.. 2008. Storage of crops during the fourth and third millennia BC at the settlement mound of Tell Brak, northeast Syria. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17 (S1): S35–S41.Google Scholar
Halstead, P. & Jones, G.. 1989. Agrarian ecology in the Greek islands: time, stress, scale and risk. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 109: 41–55.Google Scholar
Harlan, J.R. 1967. A wild wheat harvest in Turkey. Archaeology 20: 197–201.Google Scholar
Hillman, G. 1981. Reconstructing crop husbandry practices from charred remains of crops, in Mercer, R. (ed.) Farming practice in British prehistory: 123-62. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.Google Scholar
Hillman, G. 1984a. Interpretation of archaeological plant remains: the application of ethnographic models from Turkey, in van Zeist, W. & Casparie, W.A. (ed.) Plants and ancient man: studies in paleoethnobotany: 1–41. Rotterdam: A.A.Balkema.Google Scholar
Hillman, G. 1984b. Traditional husbandry and processing of archaic cereals in recent times: the operations, products and equipment which might feature in Sumerian texts. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 1: 114-52.Google Scholar
Huot, J.L. 1989. Ubaidian villages of lower Mesopotamia: permanence and evolution from Ubaid 0 to Ubaid 4 as seen from Tell el’Oueili, in Henrickson, E.F. & Thuesen, I. (ed.) Upon this foundation: the Ubaid reconsidered: 19–42. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.Google Scholar
Jones, G.E.M. 1984. Interpretation of archaeological plant remains: ethnographic models from Greece, in van Zeist, W. & Casparie, W.A. (ed.) Plants and ancient man: studies in paleoethnobotany: 43–61. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema.Google Scholar
Jones, G.E.M. 1998. Distinguishing food from fodder in the archaeobotanical record. Environmental Archaeology 1: 95–98.Google Scholar
Jones, M. 1985. Archaeobotany beyond subsistence reconstruction, in Barker, G. & Gamble, C. (ed.) Beyond domestication in prehistoric Europe: 107-28. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Nesbitt, M. & Samuel, D.. 1996. From staple crop to extinction? The archaeology and history of hulled wheats, in Padulosi, S., Hammer, K. & Heller, J. (ed.) Hulled wheats. Promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops. 4. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Hulled Wheats, 21-22 July 1995, Castelvecchio Pascoli, Tuscany, Italy: 41–101. Rome: International Plant Genetic Resource Institute.Google Scholar
Palmer, C. & Van Der Veen, M.. 2002. Archaeobotany and the social context of food. Acta Palaeobotanica 42: 195–202.Google Scholar
Parker, B.J., Foster, C., Henecke, J., Hopwood, M., Hopwood, D., Creekmore, A., Demirergi, A. & Eppihimer, M.. 2008. The Upper Tigris Archaeological Research Project (UTARP) and the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation: a preliminary report from the 2005 and 2006 field seasons at Kenan Tepe. Anatolica 34: 103-76.Google Scholar
Parker, B.J., Foster, C.P., Nicoll, K., Kennedy, J.R., Graham, P., Smith, A., Hopwood, D.E., Hopwood, M., Butler, K., Healey, E., Uzel, M.B. & Jensen, R.. 2009. The Upper Tigris Archaeological Research Project (UTARP): a preliminary report from the 2007 and 2008 field seasons at Kenan Tepe. Anatolica 35: 85–152.Google Scholar
Pollock, S. 2003. Feasts, funerals and fast food in early Mesopotamian states, in Bray, T. (ed.) The archaeology and politics of food and feasting in early states and empires: 17–38. New York: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Stein, G. 2010. Local identities and interaction spheres: modeling regional variation in the Ubaid horizon, in Carter, R. & Philip, G. (ed.) Beyond the Ubaid: transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East: 23–44. Chicago (IL): The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Stevens, C.J. 2003. An investigation of agricultural consumption and production models for prehistoric and Roman Britain. Environmental Archaeology 8: 61–76.Google Scholar
Sudo, H. 2010. The development of wool exploitation in Ubaid-period settlements of northern Mesopotamia, in Carter, R. & Philip, G. (ed.) Beyond the Ubaid: transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East: 169-79. Chicago (IL): The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Van Der Veen, M. 1992. Crop husbandry regimes: an archaeobotanical study of farming in northern England 1000 BC–AD 500. Sheffield: J.R. Collis.Google Scholar
Van Der Veen, M. & Jones, G.. 2006. A re-analysis of agricultural production and consumption: implications for understanding the British Iron Age. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 15: 217-28.Google Scholar