Research
Household Archaeology and the Uruk Phenomenon:
A Case Study from Kenan Tepe, Turkey
My dissertation examines theoretical models for social complexity established by scholars investigating the "Uruk phenomenon"—a designation referring to the archaeologically attested distribution throughout much of the Near East of distinctive categories of material culture associated with southern Mesopotamian 'Sumerian' civilization, specifically the site of Uruk-Warka during the Late Chalcolithic Period (3600-3000 BCE).
The initial rise of cities and "civilization" in southern Iraq is often seen as the precursor to cultural maturity in neighboring areas via cross-cultural interaction. However research in southeast Turkey, specifically the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, has uncovered a tapestry of advanced social networks and long-standing cultural traditions that both interacted with, and were independent of, interregional trading systems penetrating from the south.
Yet this picture of local networks of exchange remains unbalanced as the majority of recent investigations focus on the Euphrates valley. The upper Tigris system during the end of the fourth millennium BCE remains a scholarly terra incognita, but whose nature of exchange, community organization, and economic development might have been uniquely different from surrounding areas. My dissertation project is uncovering evidence from this underrepresented region through excavation at the village site of Kenan Tepe, located on the north bank of the Tigris River in the Diyarbakır province of southeast Turkey.
What social, cultural, and economic elements determined the daily life of individuals at Kenan Tepe? How did the local community interact with its neighbors? In a time of supposed interregional interactions, did Kenan Tepe fall within this broad network? To answer these questions, my research draws from the theoretically based approaches of trade and exchange patterns, cross-cultural interaction spheres, and household studies. This latter approach is most important as, "households are the level at which social groups articulate directly with economic and ecological processes.[1]"
This approach is methodologically deployed through "microarchaeology," where the collection, sorting, and quantification of soil samples imbued with minute (<1cm) pieces of stone, pottery, bone, and seeds can reveal the level, frequency, and location of specific human activities within household spaces. With this data, I am able to study local patterns of economic prosperity, trade with neighbors, and the life histories of individuals. These same data also clarify the effect of larger “global” developments, such as state formation and interregional trade, on smaller regional village communities.
...continue onto Household and Microarchaeology
[1] Wilk, R. and Rathje, W. 1982. Household archaeology. American Behavioral Scientist 25(6): 617-639.