PALÉORIENT, vol. 17/1 - 1991
NEW RADIOCARBON DATES FOR THE LATER NEOLITHIC OF NORTHERN SYRIA
P.M.M.G. AKKERMANS
Recently a number of radiocarbon dates were obtained for samples recovered from the excavations at the Neolithic sites of Damishliyya and Sabi Abyad, both located in the Balikh valley of north- central Syria. The age determinations were carried out at the Centre for Isotope Research of the University of Groningen (GrN nos.) or through Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) at the Physical Laboratory of the University of Utrecht (UtC nos.). The dates, fifteen in total, add in a significant way to our understanding of the absolute chronology of later Neolithic Syria and adjacent regions (1). Basically these dates serve to date local cultural developments at the sites of excavation and associated changes in overall settlement organisation and material culture. Especially at the site of Sabi Abyad the dates closely agree with the stratigraphie sequence and thus provide a reliable basis for reference in chronological terms. However, the newly retrieved radiocarbon results have a much wider impact, beyond the individual sites, since they allow a more precise dating of two major innovations in material culture, viz. (a) the introduction of the earliest ceramics in the region and (b) the appearance of carefully made painted pottery generally known as Halaf. The former innovation seems at first sight hardly to have touched the local Neolithic communities in a substantial manner : apart from the appearance of pottery, virtually no changes in settlement layout and community organisation or in material culture appear to have taken place (basically the earlier Pre-Pottery Neolithic В way of life is maintained) (2). The introduction of fine painted pottery, however, seems
In order to adjust the newly retrieved dates to the already existing chronological frameworks and so to avoid general confu sion all dates will be used in conventional manner i.e unca- librated See Table for calibrated dates when available) AKKERMANS 1988 1989b 1990 bid CAUVIN 1974 But see CAUVIN 1987 for modified view CAUVIN 1972 CAUVIN 1974 203 third sample from level III indi cated date of around 10000 B.C and was rejected LE MIERE 1979 40 CAUVIN 1987 333-34
to have been associated with major changes in Neolithic society. It coincided with the rise of the Halaf culture, which spread within a rather short time over a vast region and which, beside its handsome pottery, is characterised by circular buildings (tholoi) and a variety of typical beads, amulets and figurines. The introduction and further development of Halaf took place at a time of major changes in people-and-land relationships, the main ones being an increase in population, a continuous trend towards a dispersed settlement system of small villages and seasonal camp sites, and a twofold exploitation of the natural environment with, on the one hand, intensive agriculture and, on the other hand, extensive animal husbandry and hunting (3).
Originally, and on the basis of the results of the 1970 excavations at Tell Assouad in the upper Balikh region, the introduction of pottery in northern Syria was claimed to have taken place somewhere around the middle of the 7th millennium B.C. (4). The soundings at Assouad led to the distinction of eight levels of occupation, of which the basal levels VIII- VII were without architecture but with pottery, whereas the upper levels VI-I yielded mud-brick remains but no ceramics (5). A sample from the basal, pottery Neolithic level VIII suggested a date around 6500 B.C., whereas another one, from the upper, supposedly aceramic Neolithic level III, yielded a date around 6700 B.C. (6). However, in recent years the early dates presented by the Assouad samples have been repeatedly questioned (7), a doubt which seems
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