Formation Processes of the First Developed Neolithic Societies in the Zagros and the Northern Mesopotamian Plain.

• Author: Bernbeck, Reinhard
• Position: Book Review

Formation Processes of the First Developed Neolithic Societies in the Zagros and the Northern Mesopotamian Plain. By FRANCESCA BALOSSI RESTELLI. Studi di preistoria orientale, vol. 1. Rome: DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE STORICHE ARCHEOLOGICHE ANTROPOLOGICHE DELL' ANTICHITA, UNIVERSITA DI ROMA "LA SAPIENZA," 2001. Pp. viii + 83, illus. (paper).

It is refreshing to see an increasing interest in the archaeology of Iran after some twenty years of much reduced attention in Western archaeological circles. This book is one of the signs of this trend. It is also to the credit of the author that she does not limit herself to modern national boundaries in her study. The volume is focused on neolithization as a long, drawn-out process in the eastern wing of the Fertile Crescent. The study is a summary of research results from excavations in the Iranian and Iraqi Zagros as well as the northern Mesopotamian plains. It spans roughly the time from 8,500 to 5,500 B.C. Apart from a chapter on chronology, there are sections on the environment, subsistence economy, architecture, burial rituals, religious behavior, lithics and ceramics, as well as a summary of the "facts" and a conclusion that provides a theoretical framework for the development of domestication.

Much of the structure of the volume depends on the chronological chapter; two phases of neolithization are identified, one from ca. 8,500 to 6,500 and the other from 6,500 to 5,500 B.C. In the following chapters, subsistence, architecture, and other characteristics are discussed by phase. Briefly, what emerges from this stage-like analysis is a shift from pithouse to multiple-room house, from a "broad spectrum" economy to a specialized agriculture / herding-based subsistence, a "greater technological capacity" (p. 65) in lithic and ceramic production, more complex social structures, and a shift in the mountain regions from semisedentary to mobile groups, with a concurrent shift in the lowlands to completely sedentary villages. A serious problem with the chrono-spatial framework is the comparison of two distant, unconnected regions that go through quite distinct developments. When all of the excavated sites in the mountain region belong to the earlier phase 1, and seventy percent of all lowland Jazira settlements are rated as phase 2, it remains unclear whether differences are due to spatial or chronological factors or both.

The book is strongest where it draws together data on burials and ritual. The author...