Euphrates River Valley Settlement: The Carchemish Sector in the Third Millennium BC

By Edgar Peltenberg

Pre-state ceremonial monuments, rich mortuary arrangements, forts, walled settlements and temples: all these occur in a narrow stretch of the Euphrates River valley prior to the rise of Carchemish, one of the major capital cities of the Ancient Near East. This well-illustrated book examines recently discovered evidence from the hinterlands of archaeologically inaccessible Carchemish in its regional context. Amongst the 18 contributors Tony Wilkinson characterizes the neighbouring regions of Carchemish, Guy Bunnens elaborates on a site hierarchy within the valley and Gioacchino Falsone appraises unpublished records from excavations at Carchemish itself. These material culture studies are important for those interested in the emergence of complex societies that do not conform to the Mesopotamian paradigm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Jul 11, 2007
• ISBN: 9781782975113

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Preface

Carchemish was one of the great capital cities of the Ancient Near East, well-known for its role in the 1st and 2nd millennia BC from documentary sources and from the excavations of Hogarth, Woolley and others in the first quarter of the 20th century. In contrast, its earlier history is poorly understood because of scarcity of written references and limited investigations of relevant periods at the site itself. The latter situation is unlikely to change while it remains inaccessible to archaeologists as a result of its current role as a military post on the border between Syria and Turkey. Insights, nonetheless, have unexpectedly come from recent efforts to harness the Euphrates for power and irrigation purposes.

Construction of the Tishrin Dam to the south, and the Carchemish and Birecik Dams to the north of the site have led to numerous rescue excavations that have yielded much data relevant to developments at Carchemish. This has produced an altered spatial perspective on the Ancient Near East in the 3rd millennium BC since now we possess much information about small-scale sites in the Euphrates valley in this area and little from Carchemish itself. The papers in this volume deal with the evidence from these recent excavations, not to fashion an alternative (pre-)history of Carchemish, but to characterise human occupation in the region by focusing on interactions between valley settlements, without assuming a dominant role for Carchemish at this time.

The impetus for the volume stems from the enthusiasm generated by participants of a one-day workshop organised on 31 March 2004 as part of the 4th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Berlin (4th ICAANE). To appreciate that enthusiasm it is worth recalling that for several years archaeologists had been working in adjacent parts of the same valley but on opposite sides of the often sealed modern border, without the opportunity to discuss their research strategies, problems, discoveries and interpretations together. When it became clear that many would be attending the 4th ICAANE, I thought that this might provide such an opportunity. Some 20 directors of excavations and their assistants from both sides of the modern divide responded positively to the idea to gather for the first time in a workshop dedicated to an assessment of Early Bronze Age settlement in the whole Euphrates valley in the vicinity of Carchemish.

To structure such a forum, we adopted the theme The Archaeology of Boundaries: was there a Carchemish Region in the Early Bronze Age? Questions to be addressed included: Is there a definable material culture that distinguishes a putative Carchemish region? How does it differ from adjacent regions? How does it evolve in the Early Bronze Age? Participants went beyond site reports and began to assess their evidence inter-and intra-regionally, that is to consider formal variation in spatial patterning of this newly recovered material culture, an essential building block for the interpretation of its meaning for social, ethnic and other reconstructions. Papers were pre-circulated on the world wide web to allow discussion at the meeting.

In the event, the workshop became a productive learning process in respect of conceptualising boundaries. It became clear that we could only take the first tentative steps in approaching the theme, and this was not just because knowledge of the objects and other evidence from this valley is still at a rudimentary level. An essential difficulty in addressing boundaries here is that we have virtually no information from the uplands immediately beside the valley. Inclusion of papers on material from and developments at two key sites in neighbouring regions, Tell es-Sweyhat and Tilbeshar, only provided limited controls. It also became clear that we had no meaningful framework for dealing with pastoralists’ use and possibly broad dissemination of material culture, a phenomenon that may well blur traits at boundaries and one that calls for definitions of multiple and permeable boundaries. We still need frameworks for evaluating the scope of interactions between sedentary, pastoral, tribal, identity, ethnic, political and linguistic boundaries, to name but the more obvious. In short, research at the stage is focussed on trait-oriented studies, and although workshop papers fruitfully explored material culture boundaries, it now remains to move beyond pattern recognition in order to explore what these mean in terms of social and territorial boundaries.

The workshop, therefore, constituted an important initial step towards the evaluation of the valley hinterlands of Carchemish in the 3rd millennium BC. Much of the material has only recently come to light. Virtually all that was discussed derives from rescue excavations in which retrieval and recording are paramount. Most of the known forty-five 3rd millennium sites are now destroyed by inundation. There are almost no final excavation reports, only preliminaries, chiefly in the four volumes, Carchemish Dam I–III and Tishrin Dam.

The upshot of the exchange of information at the Berlin workshop was a sense of excitement at pulling things together for the first time, of synthesizing if you will, and realising how heterogeneous was the information to hand. Discussion led to the conviction that this material would continue to appear piecemeal, so exacerbating difficulties in dealing with what is seen as quite varied intra-valley settlement evidence, unless a more permanent record of these exchanges was made. This volume, therefore, is the result of a concerted effort by all participants to overcome the myopia of working on opposite sides of a modern boundary and to consider collectively the challenging Early Bronze Age evidence from the Carchemish sector of one of the great river systems in the world. The papers here identify and interpret characteristics of what is proving to be highly distinctive societies and their evolution in the 3rd millennium BC.

Edgar Peltenburg

1

New perspectives on the Carchemish sector of the Middle Euphrates River valley in the 3rd Millennium BC

Edgar Peltenburg

After decades of neglect, the Euphrates valley in the area of Carchemish has recently experienced an unprecedented spate of archaeological investigations due to the construction of three dams, the Tishrin in North Syria and the Carchemish and Birecik Dams in south-east Turkey. This has led to the formation of three man-made lakes that together have inundated c. 100 km of the valley floor, from the Enesh gorge in the north to el Qitar in the south (by sites 32 and 55, Fig. 1.1). As a result, there is now an explosion of archaeological information systematically collected in modern survey and excavations from this strategically located zone of the Ancient Near East. By far the greatest proportion of it pertains to the 3rd millennium BC, the Early Bronze Age (EBA), to the time before Carchemish is known to have dominated the valley. Some 45 sites can be ascribed to this period, although few have a continuous sequence of occupation throughout the 3rd millennium BC (Fig. 1.1, Table 1.1).

It seems that after a major Uruk impact, indicated by a concentration of Uruk and Uruk-related sites (Algaze 1993, 29–33), a remarkable diversity of settlements, forts, monuments, cult centres and cemeteries were built in the valley, so altering the physical and built environment in which people moved for centuries to come, creating a transformed world that provided new cognitive maps for structuring, negotiating and contesting social relations. This florescence of heterogeneous sites reflects distinctive socio-political constructs not readily understood in terms of models applicable in Mesopotamia (cf. McClellan 1999), nor one simply appreciated in terms of ‘rural’ analysis. The mosaic of special function sites is richly at odds with other regions of comparable size at this time, and it is one that calls for equally distinctive interpretations. During the course of the 3rd millennium this heterogeneity gradually gave way to greater integration and socio-political complexity, probably to be associated with interaction with emergent regional states such as Mari and Ebla.

Some of this new information has been reported in journals and monographs (see most recently: Bachelot and Fales 2005; Ökse 2005), but these are usually confined to material from specific dam areas, thus leading to fragmented narratives in which the overall ecological coherence of and contrasts within valley life are blurred. The situation is exacerbated by the proliferation of confusingly different referential frameworks, chronological systems, terminologies and, if not checked, artificially compartmented evaluations of developments in the same valley. A major aim of this publication, therefore, is to overcome the arbitrary separation of archaeologists working in adjacent parts of the Middle Euphrates valley by bringing together and assessing in regional terms new evidence from the Carchemish sector. In what follows, I attempt to highlight some personal insights furnished by papers presented here which were revised in the light of discussions at the workshop held in Berlin in 2004.

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Table 1.1 Chronological table of main Early Bronze Age sites in the Carchemish and Banat sectors of the Middle Euprhates valley, together with Tilbeshar and Tell es-Sewyhat. Shaded areas: no evidence of occupation

A question of boundaries

In disregarding the existing political boundary, this work consciously attempts a contrast with important analyses of valley data which stop abruptly at the modern border. They include the indispensable reports of rescue excavations in the Tishrin, Carchemish and Birecik Dam areas referred to in the List of Abbreviations, such general works as Akkermans and Schwartz 2003 and Cooper 2006 which deal with the Syrian Euphrates, and Algaze’s seminal survey of the Birecik and Carchemish dam areas (Algaze et al. 1994), which perforce stops at the border.

But if our aim is to treat the new evidence in regional terms, and to identify distinctive traits of the Carchemish region in the 3rd millennium BC, then we should be the first to acknowledge that we have created another artificial boundary. As emphasized in papers by Kepinski and especially Wilkinson, our focus on rescue operations in the valley diminishes the significance of likely east–west communication routes linking it to distant resources and other economically and politically important areas, as well as to the adjacent plateaus such as the Suruç which were important grazing and hunting zones for the pastoralists who must have been intimately integrated into life in the valley. Nor should we think of these plateau niches at Carchemish latitudes as solely the preserve of pastoralists. To the east of the Euphrates, in the Syrian Suruç, Einwag has demonstrated the existence of many EBA settlements, without kranzhügel but including larger sites such as Tell Matin with its temple in antis (Einwag 1993, pl. 3d). An extension of the 250 mm isohyet here allowed dry farming further south, especially in patches along wadis and other catchment ‘islands’ (cf. Herveux 2004), but in general there is a greater scarcity of EBA sites south of the Aleppo–Hassake road. This means that different kinds of valley–upland interactions existed in the Carchemish and in the Tabqa sectors of the Euphrates (cf. Einwag 1993; Danti 1997; 2000, 272).

Some sites were ideally positioned for extra-valley communication routes. Jerablus Tahtani faces contemporary Shiukh Fawqani (both were founded in the 4th millennium BC: see Wilkinson for the significance of such pairings), Carchemish lies at the mouth of the Cütluk Su (Sachau 1883), Amarna at the confluence of the Nahr Amarna and Euphrates, and Tell Ahmar is situated opposite the mouth of the Sajur River where there are newly discovered EBA stations (Wilkinson et al. in press). Many EBA sites occur along these tributaries and their adjacent plateaus to the west of the Euphrates. They include Tilbeshar (see paper by Kepinski) and rich tombs (Sertok, Squadrone) which are treated here to highlight a major conclusion of the workshop, namely the strong western affinities of Carchemish sector material culture for most of the 3rd millennium BC (see also Özgen and Helwing 2003, 74). McCarthy’s exploration of seals points to the existence of east–west routes, perhaps similar to Classical ones that linked the valley with Aleppo and Ashur (Algaze 1993, 42–45). But it cannot be emphasized too strongly that Euphrates investigations are largely driven by rescue not research designs, and that there is a current mismatch between geographically constrained investigations and paucity of evidence outside the valley to support large scale inferences (cf. Rothman and Fuensanta 2003, 593–594). With such an informational imbalance, it is evident that the demarcation of boundaries of a Carchemish region in the EBA, however that is defined (see paper by Wilkinson), and our narratives of its past are currently heavily biased by rescue agendas. It should be equally obvious that, having divided the landscape by our modern concerns, we are still far from being able to address such boundary issues as how different ancient communities inhabited the region but perceived it as different landscapes which intersescted in different ways, and the role of such boundaries in constructing identities (cf. Thomas 2001, 181).

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Figure 1.1. Map of the Middle Euphrates valley with selected sites of the 3rd (■) and 4th (▲) millennium BC

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Figure 1.2 Map of the Middle Euphrates valley showing location of discrete sectors (grey) where conditions favour human settlement. Inset shows location of map

Middle Euphrates River valley sectors (Fig. 1.2)

Since ecological factors dynamically shape cultural developments of a region, consideration of geographical boundaries is a useful first step in characterising the Middle Euphrates valley. Different terms are used to describe the valley in the area of Carchemish depending on whether reports are focussed in Turkey or in Syria. Here it is regarded as a sector along the Middle Euphrates valley, a term that denotes a portion extending from the Adiyaman region where the river enters the southernmost Taurus ranges down south to the confluence with the Khabur in eastern Syria (Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2004, 196, n.1). Algaze (1999) divides the Turkish part of the system into sectors between gorges, like the Samsat–Lidar sector (Fig. 1.2), where the valley broadens into spacious terrain more suitable for sedentary habitation. It is on the fluvial terraces in these sectors that most of the typically steep-sided ‘head and tail’ mounds are located (see cover and Figs 8.2, 8.4). His southernmost sector, Zeugma–Carchemish, is particularly relevant here, since, as he states, it represents the northerly continuation of the basin affected by the Tishrin Dam construction (Algaze 1999, 535–536). In other words, there is no need to divide it at the modern frontier, and so the whole is treated here as the Carchemish sector, as shown on Fig. 1.2. In the following essays it is sometimes referred to as the Zeugma/ Birecik–Qara Qûzâq zone.

This sector, in turn, may be subdivided into three geomorphologic zones: a 2 × 10 km plain from the Enesh gorge north of Horum (Fig. 1.1, site 32; Kennedy 1998, 21, fig. 2.2) to narrows at Zeugma, a 4–5 × 25 km plain from the dog-leg above Birecik to the Carchemish narrows, and the 28 km long plain of variable width from Carchemish to the Qalat Nedjim gorge by Qara Qûzâq (Fig. 1.1, site 54) (Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2004, 200). The Tishrin Dam zone continues south of that point, but cliffs at Qalat Nedjim impinge on the valley to such an extent that when it widens once more around Banat, it forms there a discrete embayment which should be treated as a distinct, if geographically limited, sector (see Fig. 2.1). The most southerly sector along the great bend of the Euphrates is comprised of the area of Lake Assad behind the Tabqa Dam, the first to be intensively investigated and one most recently evaluated by Wilkinson (2004; see also Cooper 2006). Wilkinson provides more detailed descriptions of these sectors in Chapter 2. Further downstream, the valley is now better known thanks to the survey of Geyer and Monchambert (2003; for re-dating of terraces, see Westaway et al. 2005).

Algaze argues compellingly that the Turkish Euphrates sectors or blocks can best be understood in terms of their links with east–west routes rather than with each other (Algaze 1999, 536–537). To what extent is that the case further south? Divisions between sectors are much more pronounced in the deeply entrenched reaches of the Euphrates north of Zeugma than they are downstream from Carchemish. It was at the Enesh gorge, incised 330 m deep into the limestone, that travellers diverged from the valley to head north (Kennedy 1998, 19–30; but see also Comfort and Ergeç 2001). To the south of the gorge, a different geographic framework existed, one that offered greater facilities for north–south communications. In that case, we may regard the Carchemish sector as the northern limit of the lowland stretches of the Euphrates. But greater geographical homogeneity does not necessarily equate with cultural cohesion, and the geographic differences are more a matter of degree than of kind.

There is evidence for a greater emphasis on north–south communications than in the valley to the north, as well as internal disparities between the Carchemish, Banat and Tabqa sectors. In the 4th millennium, the Carchemish area forms the northernmost concentration of the dense distribution of Uruk and Uruk-related material. It is found frequently in the valley from Habuba Kabira South to the Carchemish sector, beyond which it is patchy and altered in character (Lupton 1996, 66–67; Algaze 1993, 25–36, but with a Samsat ‘enclave’). Later, this southerly orientation manifests itself in the geo-political arena of EBA states where Carchemish forms the northern limit of Ebla’s sphere of influence (Archi 1989, 1990; Lacambre and Tunca 1999, 591). And subsequently, there were strong commercial ties between Carchemish and Mari (Kupper 1992; Lacambre and Tunca 1999, 593–598). Thus, the Carchemish, Banat and Tabqa sectors of Fig. 1.2 were more closely linked with each other than were the more discrete sectors in Turkey described by Algaze. This did not preclude communications between Carchemish and the north, as Squadrone makes clear in her paper that deals with metalwork, both in terms of style and transport of raw materials, but whether the route was along the valley or material was carried over the plains by nomadic traders/metalworkers is unknown (cf. Kepinski infra; Marro 2004). That river traffic existed at all is likely because of the focus of Uruk-related stations along the river, from the presence of imported northern conifers (Bachelot and Fales 2005, 1067, Table 1), from later references to Ebla’s commercial links by water with Abarsal (Archi 1989, 17), a powerful state which Bunnens locates north of Carchemish on the Euphrates (Fig. 3.2), and from the many references in the Mari texts to boats from higher up the Euphrates.

To the north, therefore, routes were fewer, discrete and more sharply defined than to the south where more diffuse options presented opportunities for multiple initiatives. King Yatar-Ami’s affirmation of the allegiance of Carchemish to both Mari and Aleppo is an Old Babylonian textual metaphor for the fluid, multidirectional influences that several papers discern in the material record of the 3rd millennium BC Carchemish sector of the valley (Kupper 1992).

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Figure 1.3. Model of the distribution bands of forests, grasslands and steppe across the Middle Euphrates valley in the 3rd millennium BC (after Moore et al. 2000, 80, fig. 18d)

While geography and the other evidence just mentioned highlight the existence of a more cohesive north–south interaction zone for the Carchemish–Banat–Tabqa sectors than is evident in the Euphrates valley to the north, other, socio-political and material culture evidence indicates that communities in these more open stretches of the valley did not form a single cultural entity throughout the 3rd millennium. This is evident in several studies here, for example, in the spatial distribution of ceramic affinities presented by Engin, Marro and Sertok, and in Cooper’s assessment of the funerary data (cf. also Rova 1996, 36, fig. 4; Porter 1999, 316; Becker 2000, 265, fig. 30b). Textual sources from Ebla refer to the badalum, leaders of a divergent socio-political system just north of Carchemish, from Gaziantep to Urfa (Archi 1987, 40; Milano and Rova 2000, 729). To judge from the frequency of Ebla references to centres like Emar and Burman (?Tell es-Sweyhat: see Danti and Zettler), and the paucity of records concerning Carchemish, there were undoubtedly north–south differences that may be better teased out with the material presented here.

Environment (Fig. 1.3)

While it is helpful to identify hospitable zones for sedentary occupation along the Middle Euphrates valley, what did these actually look like? The dam-controlled riverine ecology today is profoundly different from even recent times, let alone the 3rd millennium BC. Woolley (1921, 34–35) describes the pre-dam situation in the valley near Carchemish at the beginning of the 20th century where chains of islands were continuously re-configured, being submerged in flood-time and appearing again when the river level fell in the summer months. Discharges varied enormously, making it a much more precarious environment than today. Early writers and travellers record the presence of wild boar and jackals near Emar, wolves near Raqqa to the southeast (Blunt 1879) and lion along the Middle Euphrates (Coote 1860); gazelle abounded on the adjacent steppe (Russell 1756). Even if such animals were not as common in the more densely populated times of the EBA, the vegetation was more varied. Many communities flourished in this dynamic landscape. In addition to sites shown on the maps of Fig. 1.1 and Fig. 1.2, most of them on Pleistocene terraces, there were others now buried on the ancient floodplain or removed by erosion, according to Wilkinson. The complexities of the environmental situation in and beside the valley were significant constraining and enabling factors, and hence they need to be borne in mind in assessing developments. While many are dealt with by Pessin 2004, and Wilkinson 1999, 2004 and infra, two overarching factors of this alluvial environment strongly impinge on our understanding of the region: significant disparities from north to south, and transformations that took place during the course of the 3rd millennium BC.

At opposite ends of the 100 km long valley continuum, communities were confronted by contrasts of dry and marginal farming regimes, the latter requiring irrigation. These necessitated divergent economic and political strategies, and led to differences in diet and world views. Although an over-simplification, this stretch of the valley passes through critical agro-ecological zones. There is a notable decline in annual rainfall from c. 300–400 mm in the north of our sector to some 200 mm near Tell es-Sweyhat and Emar to the south (Fig. 1.3; Wilkinson 2004, 13–17). Established mixed farming in the north contrasts with a marginal situation with recurrent crop failures in the semi-arid south. Northern crop yields are typically based on wheat-inclusive systems, while the south has barley-based systems with a prominent role for nomadic pastoralism (Wilkinson 2004, 43, fig. 3.3). The decline in woodland cover towards the south also affected wildlife, the availability of resources and erosion.

Stands of oak and poplar existed around sites like Kurban Höyük in the Samsat–Lidar sector to the north of Carchemish according to Miller’s (1986) interpretation of ratios of seeds to charcoal. Beside Carchemish, at Jerablus Tahtani, direct evidence from charcoals indicates the existence of similar, mixed woodlands on the terraces of the river valley or adjacent uplands (Deckers and Riehl forthcoming). These gallery forests gradually give way to an impoverished spectrum around Emar, especially a decline in Pistacia-almond woodland, underscoring the rate of vegetational depletion towards the south (Deckers 2005). This reconstruction is supported by the analyses of carbonised plant remains from Tell es-Sweyhat (Miller 1997) and of fauna. The latter shows lower percentages of cattle (bos), deer and pig in the south than in the north, a signal for reduced woodland (Rothman and Fuensanta 2003, 589–590). But caution is required in the interpretation of this bioarchaeological evidence since data includes material originating on adjacent steppes. Within the valley itself, differences may not have been so stark. Deckers (2005) concludes from the Meskene/Emar charcoal evidence that the riverine vegetation was as lush as the gallery forest to the north.

The second general factor to affect the valley is temporal change. There is broad consensus that, following the slightly drier conditions at the end of the Late Uruk period, sometimes referred to as the 5.2 ka BP aridification event, earlier environmental stability was replaced by an erratic increase of flood magnitude and of soil erosion that impacted on the whole drainage system, perhaps incrementally as the millennium progressed (Wilkinson 1999; Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2004). Destabilisation was probably amplified, if not actually caused, by population increase and economic intensification. Recent investigations around Titris to the north support those who believe that human pressures on the landscape are in part responsible for significantly and adversely altering vegetational cover, so inducing erosion and flooding (Algaze and Pournelle 2003). The situation was further exacerbated by intensified sheep grazing for specialised economies (Zeder 1998). In addition, the much-debated abrupt climatic change in the later 3rd millennium may also have affected this zone, but there is sufficient continuity of settlement to indicate that its effects were varied and perhaps long term (cf. Weiss 1997; Zettler 2003; Marro and Kuzucuoğlu forthcoming). A major focus for research, therefore, is the evaluation of causes, character and chronology for progressive environmental deterioration during the EBA.

Characterising the Carchemish sector: pre-rescue excavation approaches

Prior to the appearance of results from recent excavations, there were many attempts to characterise the Carchemish sector, especially in terms of inferences from pottery style zones and from historical sources starting about the mid-3rd millennium. Carchemish area material for the former was available from limited excavation (Woolley 1914; Carchemish III; Thureau-Dangin and Dunand 1936) and survey which had already pointed to the wealth and density of EBA sites in the valley and a major tributary, the Sajur which rises to the west near Gaziantep (Sanlaville 1985; McClellan and Porter n.d.; and especially Algaze et al. 1994). Algaze et al. 1994 have reconstructed demographic trends north of Carchemish and they contextualise evolving settlement patterns in terms of major research issues (see also Algaze 1999).

Archi (1996, 16) succinctly argues that in the first half of the 3rd millennium the general political configuration of the whole of Northern Syria was that of many territorial states, that is city-states which maintained balanced relationships with each other…At the beginning of the 25th century this system of peer polity reached a crisis, and a process began which led some centres to dominate others. Kish, Mari, Abarsal, Ebla and Nagar, for example, emerged as regional states. In this scenario, Carchemish became part of the regional state of Ebla, perhaps of Abarsal too, and it is alleged to have come within the ambit of Burman (Milano and Rova 2000, 730), a polity that should lie upstream of Emar (see paper by Bunnens). We shall see that the Carchemish sector may have lacked territorial states. Lacking references to a king or equivalent in the Ebla texts, the political status of Carchemish is elusive and its main attestations in those archives concern textiles (e.g. Lacambre and Tunca 1999, 591). While some argue that the area included pockets of Hurrian groups within a Semitic matrix (Bonechi 1998, 236, and Cooper infra), the onomastic evidence suggests a Semitic linguistic unity that also includes Abarsal (Archi 1990, 23; Lacambre and Tunca 1999, 602). Ökse (1999, 153) proposes that Carchemish separated two ethnic groups, and indeed there are differences in valley settlement patterns to the north and south of that centre (see below).

As outlined by Bunnens in his paper, the area was fought over by ambitious pre-Sargonic kings of Mari, Ebla and Abarsal perhaps intent on securing trade networks plugged into the resource-rich areas to the north, as well as the local wine and grain noted in later texts (Kupper 1992, 17). It has been called a socio-political frontier (Bonechi 1998, 234), a politically fragmented theatre of war, and a buffer area, where Syrian and Mesopotamian influences meet and melt together, resulting in a local autonomous culture (Milano and Rova 2000, 730–737). That it was militarised seems clear from lists of fortresses mentioned in the Ebla-Abarsal treaty, including those around Carchemish (Gàr-gàr-mi-iški) itself (Archi 1989, 16). Milano and Rova (2000, fig. 3) place Lu-a-timki with its 52 forts near the west bank of the Euphrates, south of the confluence with the Sajur (but see Bonechi 1998, 229–230). These textual references, however, only provide a brief window into much longer historical trajectories during the 3rd millennium. Ceramics, on the other hand, provide a chronologically deeper view.

Ceramic studies have had as their goal the allocation of the Middle Euphrates valley, including the Carchemish sector, to a cultural or political sphere. Jamieson (1993) Rova (1996) and Mazzoni (1999) provide useful overviews of ceramic province or style zone approaches, together with the many debates and interpretations. In most of these studies, the area has been regarded either as a bridge or barrier. More recently, Milano and Rova (2000) joined forces to flexibly correlate ceramic provinces with unstable political borders. They equate a Metallic Ware province with badalum country to the north of Carchemish, caliciform pottery with the territory of Ebla, and a mixture of these and more pottery provinces with the Middle Euphrates, which by default becomes a hybrid sub-province. Not all would agree with such geo-political equations. Mazzoni, for example, believes we should not identify pottery regions with political formations, kingdoms and city-states (Mazzoni 1999, 143).

Questions regarding the theoretical basis and significance of style zones were raised in the 1990s by Carter and Parker (1995) who felt that shared ceramic traditions were misleading indicators of cultural zones, followed by Campbell (1999, 2000) who raises fundamental issues about prevalent chronological terminology and ware categories. In a further attempt to refine global approaches, Porter argues that patterns of ceramic distribution…reflect chronological configurations and ritual function, not political, ethnic or social divisions, and she calls for context-specific analyses (Porter 1999, 311, 316). Sufficient internally generated, secure data for the desired local ceramic sequence is at last coming to hand (Porter in press). This volume helps to build on that, and on contextual analyses that will permit an understanding of the role of material culture in processes of identity formation, expression and reproduction and to assess the feasibility of using remnants of material culture to identify social groups and boundaries of the past (Dietler and Herbich 1998, 260).

Style zone studies have frequently depicted the limits of a particular group of pottery along the valley or different banks of the river, and so it is evident that the Carchemish sector has often been considered in terms of frontier and boundary narratives (Rova 1996, 24 for references to studies; Lacambre and Tunca 1999, 591 for similar political division). Many assessments were written from extra-regional perspectives since, apart from the material mentioned above, there was little reliable intra-regional evidence to work with. In many of these modern core–periphery applications, inhabitants of the area often seem like passive recipients of influences within macro interaction spheres rather than active agents in the creation and transformation of culture.

The following essays stress evaluation of the empirical data on its own terms, not through Mesopotamian or other geo-political lenses. As a result, they prompt reconceptualisation of the valley as an internally differentiated zone with unique evidence for responses to the Uruk withdrawal, and innovative sedentary–pastoral interactions that played a critical role in cultural transformations and the emergence of complexity. It does not conform to the Jezirah patterns of secondary state formation, or the Ebla paradigm of emergence of regional state, yet is intimately connected to both. The region, and Carchemish itself, moreover, may well have served as a gateway for the transmission of raw materials south and finished goods north, as well as a centre of production and consumption in its own right (Algaze and Pournelle 2003, 115; Bonechi 1998, 229 for the Carchemish karum). In terms of frontiers and boundaries, therefore, frontier studies are most usefully reserved for colonialist and empire situations where there are defined edges and peripheries between particular societies (Lightfoot and Martinez 1995). These are unlikely during the EBA when even the limits of regional states proved so ephemeral and power may have resided in controlling human beings and patches of property, often attained through diplomatic marriage, rather than contiguous tracts of land (cf. Bonechi 1998, 234, n. 83; Lafont 1999). In other words, without a firm grasp from external sources of the spatially and temporally fluid realities on the ground, archaeologists are faced with challenges to understand the significance of discrete clusters of diagnostic material. The integration of pastoral nomads and tribal groups in the valley-plateau landscape adds significantly to that challenge.

Pastoralists and the role of tribal societies

Unlike Egypt where uplands beside the Nile river valley were inimical to perennial human involvement, the areas beside the Middle Euphrates valley could support pastoralists and settlement. Current research increasingly emphasizes the defining role of pastoralists in the organisation of society in the valley (e.g. Wilkinson infra; Porter 2002; Lyonnet 2004, 34–36). Archaeologically elusive, and contrary to those who believe that pastoralism is a specialised economic form predicated on the existence of stratified and state societies (Marx 1992), their existence in the Levant is weakly attested from the Neolithic (e.g. Betts 2001). More secure evidence is available for the 3rd millennium. For example, there are references to Martu, held by Archi to be Amorite tribes in Jebel Bishri (Archi 1990, 31; Archi and Biga 2003). Danti and Zettler’s interpretation of a pit house and silos or storerooms provides support for their existence in the early 3rd millennium. Later in the millennium, arguments from increased barley production, supplementary feed for animals, faunal evidence for a specialised economy, the occurrence of steppic plants in carbonised remains from valley sites, immense flocks at Emar and other centres in the Ebla texts, transhumant sites in the Hauran and retrodictions from the Mari texts are just some of the lines of evidence adduced in support for their existence (e.g. Lyonnet 2004; Wilkinson 2004, 52–53; Archi 1990, 25). While their existence seems a credible working hypothesis, Ristvet and Weiss (in press) rightly draw attention to persisting paucity of unequivocal evidence for widespread tribally organised pastoralism above the 250 mm precipitation isohyet in the 3rd millennium.

Pastoralism as an economic mode was typically embedded in tribal societies, and tribes possess distinctive socio-political systems that play an essential role in our understanding of the archaeology of the Middle Euphrates valley. Rather than relegate these systems as only important for the study of mobile groups, tribal societies, especially near semi-arid zones, are seen as made up of flexibly land-tied and range-tied cultivators and herders, as risk-reducing networks, as pivotal to the formation of distinctive urban and non-urban settlements, as well as to the formation of tribal kingdoms and states with tribal ideologies (e.g. LaBianca, and Younker 1995; Porter 2002 ; Van der Steen 2005). Leaving aside important collective dimensions within many pastoral societies (Fleming 2004), the segmented nature of tribal systems and their tendency to fission and fuse result in social pictures with discrete boundaries at only isolated moments in time. This results in fuzzy lines between different prehistoric groups, with boundaries in a constant state of flux (Parkinson 2002, 8). The implications for material culture patterning are manifold. For example, McCarthy’s discussion of what he identifies as a hybrid glyptic style of the Carchemish sector points strongly to variability and flux, both of which suit the transience of socio-political constructs associated with tribal organisation. In contrast, Engin, Marro, Sertok and others stress the long continuity of ceramic styles that has hindered the creation of a fine relative chronology. Pottery production was most likely linked to sedentary groups, as at the workshops in Banat Area D (Porter and McClellan 1998, 21), so that crafts like these that were not necessarily tied to expedient dynasties co-existed with the variability seen in other spheres. Using nearby evidence, Wattenmaker (1994) has also shown the persistence of crafts through political vicissitudes. Another relevant factor observed amongst segmentary societies is that communities may have several social structures (Fowles 2002). Some adopted chieftaincies (e.g. when appointing a warlord) or more egalitarian systems. The inherent political instability of such systems, coupled with economic and social resilience, may underpin some of the problems of the definition of regional boundaries and weak integration referred to in several papers here and elsewhere (e.g. Mazzoni 1999, 142–143).

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Figure 1.4. Occupation of sites showing 3rd millennium (re-)use of many earlier sites in the Carchemish sector (high LC/Uruk+EB values) and dislocation in the Tabqa sector (low LC/Uruk+EB values)

Using the Banat sequence of mortuary landscape, urbanisation and abandonment, Porter has developed a number of arguments to show how the conventional pastoralist–sedentary dichotomy may be a fiction in the valley, and that the two modes were integral to the same society (Porter 2002; 2004). Settlement patterns, the prominence of funerary monuments connected to rites for the ancestors, agro-pastoral economies and overtly corporate political systems are just some of the social components shaped by pastoralist world views. Emerging data from the rescue excavations considered here suggests that the area may be an ideal laboratory in which to study a major theme in Near Eastern archaeology, the sedenterisation of pastoral groups. Thus, foundations of many new settlements in the early 3rd millennium are taken as evidence for tribes settling down, presumably into the void left behind by the demise of the Uruk economic system which provided an infrastructure for pastoralists who required access to the valley’s resources (Porter 2002). The process may have been analogous to the settling of tribes in the south Levant occasioned by the collapse of Late Bronze Age city states (cf. Coote and Whitelam 1987) and the gradual re-settlement of the Khabur in the second millennium after contraction of the earlier urban system (cf. Ristvet and Weiss in press). Comparison of the different valley sectors, however, suggests there may have been varied developmental trajectories.

Rothman and Fuensanta (2003, 596–559) have shown that the decrease in number of sites and total occupational extent north of Carchemish in post-Uruk times may not have been so severe as previously suggested (cf. Algaze et al. 1994; Morandi Bonacossi 2000, 1112). Continuing intensive fieldwork at sites like Shiukh Fawqani, Tilbeshar, and Zeytinli Bahçe (papers by Quenet, Kepinski and Frangipane) has also tended to emphasize settlement and cultural continuities rather than disjunctures.

These communities no doubt had sedentary agricultural traditions at odds with those of newly settled pastoralists, although no doubt kin relations and processes of assimilation existed. One way to view the intractable settlement record where early EBA phases are often masked by the expanded occupations of the later EBA is to tabulate sites with occupation of both the LC/ Uruk and EBA against those with only one or the other (Fig. 1.4). Although this coarse appraisal does not demonstrate uninterrupted occupation, it does show continued use of settlement locales and continuity of traditions. Much greater persistence of such traditions is evident in the Carchemish sector in the plot of Fig. 1.4 than in the Tabqa sector (cf. Porter 2002, 25, n. 34). The latter witnessed a massive change according to Lupton (1996, 85, 95), and so while a new settlement pattern was created in the Tabqa sector during the EBA, many established sedentary communities persisted alongside new foundations in the Carchemish sector (e.g. Horum, Zeytinli Bahçe, Yarim, Carchemish, Jerablus Tahtani, Shiukh Fawqani). If it could be shown that the new settlements to the south were founded by pastoralists, even after initial semi-sedentary uses of particular riverine locales, then the disparities between societies were probably more radical than their proximity would suggest. New discourses of rootedness, belonging and boundaries would have been pervasive in the south and they would have distinguished inhabitants of the sectors. Such historical contingencies may help to account for the north–south spatial divisions in ceramics, such as Late Reserved Slip Ware, metalwork and burial customs noted in several of the following essays.

These disparities decrease during the course of the EBA, perhaps in conjunction with the emergence of regional states mentioned above. Akkermans and Schwartz (2003) characterize the earlier period as one of regionalization and local trajectories, the later as the second urban revolution and its aftermath. Essays here also point to critical transformations about the mid-3rd millennium.

The era of rank societies

The workshop highlighted several advances in what has been the least understood period of the 3rd millennium, the era following the Uruk demise, before the appearance of complex and urban societies. Studies by Frangipane, Engin, Kepinski, Marro, Quenet and Sertok supply important details that will help to establish a more refined local ceramic chronology (cf. also Porter in press). We now have much more evidence to substantiate the different intra-regional popularity of certain ceramic types, especially the ‘champagne’ cups that point to distinctive funerary rites north of the Qalat Nedjim gorge (Sertok), metalwork (Squadrone, Philip) and glyptics (McCarthy). According to Frangipane, a regional culture emerged imperceptibly from a local development of the northern Uruk horizon during this era of the EBA. She envisions this as post-Uruk re-establishment of traditional local systems of relations that were typical of tribal societies based on lineages and clans. While ceramic developments emphasize continuity, the inception of large cemeteries, status display and monument-building also signal the inception of a distinctive local trajectory.

Survey evidence had suggested that a significant drop in settlement occurred at the end of the 4th and the early 3rd millennium, although Algaze recognised that this conclusion needed confirmation from further research (Algaze et al. 1994, 13). Excavation is in fact beginning to modify the picture of what has been termed ruralisation (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003, 211). There is little doubt that most of the large Uruk-related centres disappeared, and that a transformed socio-economic organisation underpinned the ensuing small-scale settlement pattern before 2600/2700 BC. But was this a time of simple communities (Algaze 1999, 545, 555; Akkermans and Schwartz 2003, 226)? Such a description would seem to be substantiated by only modest building hierarchy at Shiukh Fawqani (paper by Quenet). Morandi Bonacossi (2000, 1112) feels that a larger building there and presumably also at Shioukh Tahtani (Falsone 1999, 138) should be equated with no more than a madhaf. On the other hand, Kepinski shows that a walled town preceded lower levels of labour mobilisation at Tilbeshar, and Danti and Zettler describe evidence for a small fort and major platform at Tell es-Sweyhat belonging to the earlier 3rd millennium. A sizable temple, L. 247, with associated vaulted tomb, L. 400, inside an enclosure was erected at Qara Qûzâq V.2 (Olávarri and Valdés Pereiro 2001). Squadrone argues against a ‘decline’ from the prolific use of imported metals in funerary contexts. These burial contexts, moreover, reveal wealth differentiation when one compares metal quantities and weights in the richer Carchemish cist graves with those from the Birecik Dam cemetery. Intra-mural burial practice on the acropolis at Carchemish may even indicate urban behaviour. This could be postulated on the basis of Honça and Algaze’s (1998) argument from evidence at Titris that intra-mural burials coincide with urban existence. It seems less likely that the acropolis was exclusively a cemetery now. In short, while much needs to be done to refine the chronology of this period (see Frangipane here, and Morandi Bonacossi 2000 for Early- and Late-Post Contact phases), there seem to be occasional signs that we