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TELLING THE FUTURE OR

HOARDING THE PAST? A HALAF CATTLE ASTRAGALUS CACHE

FROM KAZANE HOYUK, SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY

ABSTRACT

Kazane Hoyiik outside modern ~anhurfa, southeastern Turkey, is one of the largest known sites belonging to the

Halaf cultural horizon (5900-5350 cal. BeE). The largest structure found during the 2004 excavations contained a cache of over 57 cattle astragali (ankle bones/knucklebones). Comparanda from sites elsewhere suggest that astragalus collections carried cultural significance beyond meat pro­cessing refuse. Preliminary interpretations of this multiva­lent cache focus on its possible relationship to a) incipient craft specialization, including pastoralism and hide produc­tion, b) counting devices, and c) feasting, augury and gam­ing. The Kazane astragalus cache may provide new insights into the poorly understood political economy of this Late Neolithic pre-state society.

I NTRODUCTION

'There is one, and only one area oflife into which all men are born equal, and also remain equal throughout their lives, independent of physical, pecuniary, intellectual or moral achievements: the pure game of chance. Small wonder then that so many people representing so many different cultur­al backgrounds have sought refuge from the inequalities and injustices of real life in this model of an egalitarian society. Interpreted as divination, as we have seen a fairly universal pattern, it creates an egalitarian distribution of God's grace. The egalitarian distribution ~answers' from chance devices may, on the other hand, be one of the reasons why a religious interpretation of games of chance and other chance devices has become so widely accepted' (Aubert 1959:20).

The following paper is an in-depth study of one archaeologi­cal feature, a cache of 57 cattle astragali found in a domes­tic context at the Halaf site of Kazane Hoyiik. It addresses the simple question why the Late Neolithic people at Kazane and other Halaf settlements were curating astragalus bones. Although there are many ways to interpret this cache, I am

Sue Ann McCarty (University of Virginia, Department of Anthropology)

using it here as a vehicle to examine the issue of Halaf social variability or inequality, whose manifestations are often rec­ognized as elusive and subtle.

Kazane Hoyiik is a multi-period site outside modern ~anhurfa in southeastern Turkey. It consists of a 20 m-high, 12 ha-large mound surrounded by a lower town (Figure 19.1). Principal Investigator Dr. Patricia Wattenmaker has deter­mined that the site reached 100 ha at its greatest extent in the Early Bronze Age, but survey data at Kazane suggest that its Halaf cultural horizon occupation extended over 20 ha. This unusually large size makes Kazane one of the largest known settlements in the entire 1500 km-expanse of the area usu­ally identified with the Halaf, a culture-historical construct whose legitimacy as a single cultural entity is under debate and revision. Other unusually large sites - possibly Halaf mega-villages -include Domuztepe, now-flooded Samsat, Mounbateh, Nusaybin, and Takyan Hoyiik. In contrast, the vast majority of Halaf settlements are 1-3 ha in size, raising the question of whether the entire 20 ha-Halaf area at Kazane was occupied simultaneously or, as Reinhard Bernbeck has recently argued, represents a series of smaller sequential seasonal reoccupations of the same area (Bernbeck, Pollock and Coursey 1999; Bernbeck this volume; Akkermans this

. volume). Our survey and excavation data cannot yet address this question. In 2004 my excavations in Kazane's outer town focused on an area, where the Halaf strata are close to the surface and can be quickly reached and uncovered in large horizontal exposures. Our season revealed a total of four and possibly five complete or partial structures. This paper will focus on the material found in Trench K7-SAM, a 46 m' area that revealed two typically Halafian key-hole shaped tholos structures with rectangular external annexes, stone foundations , exterior pebble surfaces, and a probable third tholos in the southeast corner disturbed by deep agri­cultural plowing (Figure 19.2). Radiocarbon dates from the 2004 excavations are not available, but the ceramics suggest a Late Halaf date.

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TELLING TH E FUTURE OR HOARDING THE P A ST? A HALAF CATTLE AST R AGA LU S CACH E FROM KA Z A NE HOYUK. SOUTHEASTERN T UR KEY 225

226 TELLING THE FUTURE OR HOARDING THE PAST? A HALAF CATTLE ASTRAGALUS CACHE FROM KAZANE HnYUK

u SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY

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In Area D, Trench K7 N540/E920-SAM Tholos 2, we uncov­ered a cache of 57 cattle astragali and a number of unmatched bone fragments (Figure 19.3). Astragali - often referred to as knucklebones - are tarsals located between the metatarsals of the foot and the distal tibia. They were collected together in a pile on an ephemeral mud-plaster floor surface close to the stone foundations of the eastern Tholos 2 wall (Figure 19.4). They may have originally been contained in a bag or chest made of now-decomposed organic material, possibly hanging on the wall. Other artifacts from this ephemeral floor surface include half of a buff red-slipped open flare-rim vessel (Figure 19.2 a), a number of other Halaf coarse and fine ware potsherds and a ground stone mortar. Otherwise, the interior of Tholos 2 was relatively clean compared to exterior pebble surfaces between Tholos 1 and Tholos 2.

. University of Virginia undergraduate student Marybeth SClaretta measured and weighed the astragali fro~ this cache in order to determine whether they were derived from wild aurochs or domestic cattle. Domestic animals in general _ and cattle in particular - tend to be smaller (and, therefore, more easily controllable and less dangerous) than their wild progenitors. Weights and length measurements of easily com­parable axes are, therefore, good morphological indicators of domestication, although sexual dimorphism must also be taken into account. The sample of 57 whole or three-quarter complete astragali in the cache were measured along six ax­es: greatest depth oflateral half (Dl), greatest depth of medial half (Dm), greatest length oflateral half (GLl) , greatest length of medial half (GLm), greatest breadth of distal end (Bd), and greatest breadth of proximal end (Bp). These six varia­bl~ mea~urements were graphed as scatter plots and analyzed usmg hIerarchical cluster analysis (Figure 19.5). The scat­~er plots do not strongly reveal distinct groupings. H~wever, m a sample of 52 whole or partial elements with the great-

Figure 19.2. Kazane HoyUk. Plan of Area D Trench K7-SAM N540 £920 including inserted top and side views of the open flare-rim vessel with buff fabric and red slip (marked a) located near the cache (Circled) (photo Sue Ann McCarty).

Figure 19.3. Kazane Hoyuk. Astragalus cache, including 57 whole bones and fragments (photo Sue Ann McCarty).

est length of medial half (GLm) versus the greatest length of la.teral half (GLl) axis preserved, three to four significantly dIfferent groups were revealed. It is likely that two of these clusters represent domesticated females and domesticated

males. The third and fourth cluster may represent wild male and female cattle or perhaps a juvenile wild group. The GLl (greatest length oflateral half) measurements from the entire sample ranged from 65.13 mm to 79.58 mm. When compared to domestic and wild Bos astragali from Neolithic Tepe Ali Kosh and Tepe Sabz in the Deh Luran plain of southwestern Iran as well as the British Mesolithic site of Star Carr, most Kazane astragali are consistent with smaller domesticated Bos (Sciaretta, personal communication).

Other recently published material on early domestic cat­tle and wi ld aurochs astragalus measurements independently confirm Sciaretta's assessment. In their study of fauna from

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Hi:iyiicek, DeCupere and Kuru (2003) compare the GLI mea­surements on samples of astragali from nine Anatolian and northern Syrian Jazirah sites spanning the entire Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, as well as cattle bones from 14 Neolithic sites spanning the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to the Pottery Neolithic. Two of the sites they use for compar­ison - the important Pre-Pottery Neolithic A - Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site of Gi:ibekli Tepe and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Giirciitepe - are located very close to Kazane Hi:iyiik, in the Tek Tek mountains ringing Urfa and in the Harran Plain be­tween the city of U rfa and Kazane, respectively. Although these settlements are not contemporary with Kazane, one can

Figure '9.5. Kazane HoyDk. Scatterplots of astragalus length and weight (photo Sue Ann McCarty) .

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TELLI N G THE FUTURE OR HOARDING THE PAST? A HALAF CATTLE AS TRAGALUS CAC H E FROM KAZANE HO YUK, SOUTHE ASTERN TURKEY 227

228 TELLING THE FU TU RE O R HOARDING THE PAST? A HALA F CATTLE ASTRA GALUS CACHE FROM KAZANE HOYU" K ,

SOUTHEASTERN T U RKE Y

II:

infer that the animals from these sites make a better com­parison with Kazane than animals from more distant areas of Anatolia, because they would have been drawn from approxi­mately the same environmental catchment area; they could even be distantly related herd stock.

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The results from DeCupere and Kuru's analysis show that the range of GLI measurements from the Kazane Halaf as­tragal~s cache ~65.13 mm to 79.58 mm) is most closely consis­tent wIth the sItes of Hoyiicek and FlkIrtepe. Gobekli Tepe, a . site that dates between approx. 11,000 -8000 cal. BeE, pre­dICtably produced only wild hunted aurochs, consistent with the current interpretation of the site as a center for differ­ent groups of hunter-gatherers (Schmidt 2000:53; Peters and Schmidt 2004; Schmidt 2007). As of 2004, the wild aurochs (Bas primagenius) NISP from Gobekli Tepe was 2,574 out of 15,471 identified mammal remains or 16.64% of the total iden­tified mammal assemblage. Aurochs is second in abundance to gazelle at 5l.38% of the total identified mammal assemblage, but probably accounts for the majority of the meat procured there (Peters and Schmidt 2004:183). The cattle at nearby but later Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Giirciitepe (7600-7100 cal. BeE)

a~e smaller, with a 1:5 male to female sex ratio (as opposed to a hlg.her proportion of bulls at Gobekli, greater than 60%), indi­catIng trends towards domestication and herd management, although the sexual dimorphism may be skewing the sample results. Neolithic Hoyiicek (ca. 6600-6300 cal. BeE, south­west Anatolia) and FlkIrtepe (ca. 6000-5600 cal. BeE), north­west Anatolia) both produced assemblages consistent with e~rly domestic cattle. Both sites are roughly contemporary ":'lth the Halaf at Kazane, albeit in distant regions. The bo­vlds at Hoyiicek were about equal in size to those at Fikirtepe and conSiderably smaller than those at Neolithic Mureybet, Bronze Age Demircihiiyiik and PPNA Gobekll' and , were, therefore, almost certainly domestic (DeCupere and Duru 2003:113). In sum, the Kazane astragalus cache is therefore :onsistent with osteometric data from early dom~stic cattl~ In Anatoli~ ~s well as the western Zagros and European sites.

The MInImUm Number ofIndividuals for the total assem­blage is 34, although it is possible that each of the 57 bones came from a separate animal. It cannot be determined if the ~erd was slaughtered in one episode or sequentially through hme; however, given the large amount of meat produced by

e.ach cow ~n~ the .number of people that meat could poten­tlally feed, It IS unlIkely that the entire herd was slaughtered at once .. It doe.s not appear that the Kazane cattle astragali have been IntentIOnally altered by grinding or incision, although c.ut marks are faintly visible on the edge of some bones, con­s~stent with those left by butchery or hide processing activi­ties. The presence of cut marks is obscured by insoluble salts on the bones.

ASTRAGALUS CACH~S ACROSS THE HALAF HORIZON

Kazane is not the only location where a cache of astragali has been found. A similar astragalus cache was uncovered in the Halaf cemetery intruding into the Hassuna levels at Yarim Tepe I in northern Iraq. In that instance, over 200 gazelle

astragali were cached together as mortuary goods in a Ion

narrow, 2 x 0-45 X 1.2 m pit with a projection or platform, u:~ on which rested a 'few human bones ... ; but it remains un­known whether these represent a deliberate fractional burial or ~re: in contrast, due to unfavorable conditions of preser­vatIOn (Akkermans 1989:77, Fig. 22). In addition to the as­tragali, mortuary goods consisted of the fragments of thre pai~ted, fine ware vessels, two stone vessels and a drilled an~ polIshed mace. Above the burial was a platform, upon which a very large, 70 cm long, bull (or perhaps buffalo) skull had been placed. The excavators noted that it was set somewhat apart from the other graves in the Yarim Tepe I cemetery. Th~ horned skull was positioned at the entrance to the tomb, whl~h, unusually for the Halaf, included a down-sloping shaft leadIng to a separate burial chamber (Merpert and Munchaev

1971:17; Akke~mans i989,:77). The presence of so many wild ga­zelle astragalI led the excavators to interpret this as the tomb of a .successful hunter, resulting in its nickname, the Hunter's Bu.nal. Garfinkel notes that ritual caches of other types of objects were found beneath Halafian tholos floors at nearby Yarim Tepe II (Garfinkel 1994:172-173).

A third, smaller cache of astragali was also found in north­ern Iraq by Patty Jo Watson (1983) at Banahilk. The Banahilk cache consisted of 5 ovicaprid knucklebones found in level BIll -2, part of a disturbed 2 x 6 m trench on the eastern side of the mound. Operation B reached a maximum depth of 0.75 m. It exposed three levels including two floors and two stone walls, only one of which seems to be stratigraphically associ­ate~ with a floor. The context of the cache is unclear, but other artIfacts from the trench include a ground obsidian ornament (Watson 1983:543). According to Campbell, HalafIl radiocar­bon analysis suggests a date after ca. 5800 cal. BeE, but there is no specific date for the provenience of BIll 2, where the bones

were found (Watson 1983:579; Campbell 2007:130). The sides of t~e astra~ali at Banahilk were ground smooth through rubbIng agamst an abrasive surface. Two additional worked astrag~li, also interpreted by Watson as gaming pieces, were found mOp. DIl-1-2 and another in Op. W, although these were not as extensively worked as the group mentioned above (Watson 1983:577). The surface smoothing on these bones is consistent with practices Watson observed during her ethno­archaeological field work at Hasanabad in the Kermanshah region of western Iran, discussed below.

Why were peoples associated with late Halafian settle­ments creating assemblages of this one bone from different animal species and in different contexts? Astragali caches are not unique to the Halaf, although I would suggest, as I discuss further below, that they may have been collected for some­what different reasons than in better-known historical con­t~xts. While gami ng and oracular divination are frequently­CIted reasons for astragalus curation, I would also add that

t~ey may c~nstitute a component of Halafian counting de­~ICe-strategles, recording herd size and past episodes of feast­mg, and, thus, act as a symbol of achieved wealth in cattle and

wil~ ga~e. These are not mutually exclusive possibilities, and I wIll dISCUSS each in turn.

GA MING

From at least the late Bronze Age to the present day around the eastern Mediterranean and in societies with a strong em­phasis on herding and pastoralism elsewhere, sheep and goat astragali have been used as gaming pieces. Each side of the bone had a different numeric value, like dice. 'Casting lots' with them could be used not only in friendly competition, but to divide property and, in some contexts, to assign rank by chance. In so-called knucklebone games, the bones are some­times ground down on one or more surfaces and their sides are given different names, which in some instances are in­scribed in those sides. In classical Greece, gaming astragali were even reproduced in precious materials such as rock crys­tal and gold. Knucklebone games are played in a way similar to marbles, jacks and dice games, as shown in the painting 'Children's Games' by the Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1560.

Watson describes a number of instances, in which village inhabitants or excavation workers have demonstrated how to playa game with the sheep/goat knucklebones, and they are worth quoting at length . Watson notes (1983:580), 'one of the workmen at the Salahedin rest house, where we stayed during part of the winter of 1954-55, demonstrated how the knucklebones are manipulated in playing. One of the bones is propelled by snapping it forward with the second finger, which is released more or less forcibly from behind the first fi nger. I~ a village in western Iran, I was given two knuck­lebone gaming pieces that were artificially smoothed or ground on two faces exactly as the prehistoric ones from Banahilk had been (Watson 1983:Fig. 219.1). When asked how the smoothing was accomplished, my informant picked up a piece oflocal fired brick (made in Kermanshah) and demon­strated by rubbing the bone briskly up and down against the rough brick surface.'

Watson's description of the game as played in her Kerman­shah ethnoarchaeological report is more detailed (Watson 1979:199): 'There are numerous games played with knuckle­bones (like the innumerable games played with marbles in the United States) and these apparently vary from one part of the Near East to another. Following is a brief description of one game played at Hasanabad (Plate 5.l2). Each person who plays has one knuckle-bone (Laki, qap). The four surfaces of the bone have different names and different meanings. If two people are playing, the game proceeds as follows: A small cir­cle is drawn on the ground, the two players put their bones down on opposite sides of the circle and shoot them at each other's pieces. The manner in which the qapan fall - that is, which of the four named sides is up - determines who plays first, as agreed beforehand. The first player picks up both qa­pan and drops them into the circle, then he shoots one against the other, or drops the two again depending upon which faces land uppermost: If the bones both fall with the same side up nothing happens and they must be dropped again; if the qap of one player falls with xehr or shak up while the other has jehk or blk, the first qap is shot against the second by the owner. If qap 1 lands with jehk up and qap 2 lands with either xehr or

shak up, qap 1 may be shot again at qap 2. If both land with jehk side up the play is finished in accordance with the rule noted above. Apparently whoever causes play to end gets the credit, and the lOSing player then drops the bones for the next round ... Amir had in his house two old knuckle-bone gaming pieces that had been artifiCially smoothed or ground off on the xehr and shak sides . . . Whether this smoothing is thought to improve the bone's behavior in the game, or is simply to en­hance its appearance, I do not know.'

A colleague in Urfa attempted to show me how to play a game similar to this one afternoon, while we were sorting artifact bags. He played the game as a child with sheep astra­galus bones in a village on the Euphrates river, close to the Halaf site of Samsat. As he demonstrated (using the Kazane astragalus cache, which we were cleaning), an undetermined number of bones is spread out in a playing field between each player. One player tosses a bone, picks up as many others as possible in the same hand and tries to catch the first bone on the back of the hand. The game requires a great deal of speed and dexterity. We found that the cattle bones from Kazane are so large that they are difficult to handle and catch in the man­ner necessary for the game; personally, my hands were too small to hold more than one bone at a time (Necmi Ya~ar, per­sonal communication, Urfa summer 2005). With its worked and smoothed bones, the assemblage from Banahilk stands out from the other Halaf caches. I agree with Watson that, as in most later historical and ethnographic instances, the five altered and ground astragali found there were probably used in gaming, like the ones she discusses in Hasanabad, to which they look so closely similar.

DIVINATION

Astragali have also been used in astragalomancy, a type of augury in which the divination of the future takes place by 'throwing the bones,' and is particularly well attested in clas­sical Greece. Like other forms of augury - including reading signs in patterns of smoke, the entrails of sacrificed animals, tea leaves, coffee grounds, stars, weather, the flight of birds, or cracks in heated bones - astragalomancy seeks meaningful order within the seemingly random or chaotic patterns of ex­ternal natural forces beyond human control. The interpreta­tion and placement of these patterns within an order derived from a cultural logic can be likened, as Levi-Strauss suggests in The Savage Mind, to a kind of scientific thought, in which humans seek to understand and explain causal forces and en­vironmental order within a chronological continuum (Levi­Strauss 1966:13-17). Both gaming and divination are predi­cated on the assumption of uncertainty and the belief that seemingly random patterns contain information that is use­ful in making decisions for future action. Divination is a way to manage uncertainty, and skill, luck or prescience is mani­fest in the diviner, who throws and reads the bones. Both the bones and the diviner are conduits for the decipherment of order out of chaos, conveying messages from spirits in nature or ancestors. Michael Dove, in his work on augury in Borneo (1996), notes that the randomization inherent in augury, par-

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T ELLI NG THE FUTUR E OR HOARDING THE PAST? A H ALAF CATT LE ASTRAGALUS CACHE FROM KA ZANE H OYU K , SOUT HEA STERN TURKEY 229

230 TELLING TH E FUTUR E OR HOARDING THE PAST? A HALAF CATTLE ASTRAGALUS CACHE FROM KAZANE HOYUK , SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY

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ticularly when used to make agricultural decisions, manag­

es risk by evenly distributing the possibility of crop failure, a strategy that increases a community's agricultural resilience

and equalizes the chance of household success in surplus ac­

quisition (Dove 1996:563-564). In the case presented here, I propose that these astragali

may have been curated for their value as tokens of achieved

wealth in domestic and wild food animals and, thus, the abil­

ity to control nature. Ethnographically, the ability to provide

food - especially meat - for others in ritualized episodes of

feasting and gift giving is an important marker of status and

community inclusion in many cultures. Gift giving in the

form of hospitality creates social bonds and indebtedness,

raising the prestige of the giver(s) by demonstrating that that

person or household is capable of providing for many de­

pendents, as discussed by Mauss, Levi-Strauss and others.

Although the sample size ofHalaf astragalus caches is at pres­

ent very small, the qualitative differences between the Kazane

and Yarim Tepe I assemblages highlight this point.

At Kazane, the assemblage of 57 excavated astragali de­rived from probably domestic cattle was uncovered in an in­

terior domestic context and the objects accompanied by an

open vessel appropriate for serving. By contrast, the Yarim

Tepe I assemblage belongs to a collection of objects ritualisti­

cally placed within a human burial. Whatever its significance,

it was considered important enough to be valid for inclusion

with other mortuary objects, including a ground stone mace,

an object possibly used for warfare or hunting, but often as­

sociated with potential status. Unlike the Kazane grouping

of astragali from domestic animals in a domestic context,

the Yarim Tepe I bones came from wild, hunted animals and

were cached in a location where they could not easily be ac­

cessed or altered by living relatives, together with a 70 cm bull

skull probably derived from a wild aurochs (table 19.1). The

animals represented by the astragali in both caches would

have produced far more meat than anyone individual could

have consumed. Beef and gazelle are often considered high

quality meat appropriate for episodes of feasting and status

display, both for the palatability of the meat itself and for the

symbolism and aesthetic beauty of the animals, from which it

is derived. Feasting is, thus, a sign not only of wealth in live­

stock, but also of wealth in people whose status is negotiated

through these events (McIntosh 1999:6).

Kazane K7-SAM Yarlm Tepe I Hunter's Burial Banahllk

Context Domestic interior Burial with grave goods, Domestic fil l platform Wild/domestic Domestic Wild Domestic

Species Cattle Gazelle Sheep/goat

Aaccompanying Ground stone pestle, Ground stone mace head, artifacts open fine ware flare- bull skull , open fine ware Domestic fill rims, flare-rim vessel flare-rim vessels in coarse ware Number of 57 and fragments 200 5 astragali MNI 34 Unknown Unknown

altered? No Unknown Yes

Table 19.1 . Astragali caches at Kazane H6yilk, Yarim Tepe and Banahilk.

Why did Halaf people at Kazane Hoyiik and Yarim Tepe I col­

lect astragalus bones? I propose that these objects might have

been curated in hoards as tokens of achieved household abun­

dance. They might have been thought of as a kind of trophy.

Trophies are a variety of exchange valu abIes that commemorate

prestigious acts or events and that have been achieved rather

than inherited, such as accomplishments in hunting, difficult

rites of passage, or displays of unusual physical strength, prow­

ess or power. Trophies are memory tools, mementos or tokens

of achieved status; other types of memory tools are attested in

other Halaf contexts, as well (Costello 2002). I suggest, then,

that these are Halaf trophies, counters of prowess that indicat­

ed not only achieved prestige through household wealth in food

animals, but also through the ability and/or capacity to provide

hospitality by han~iIig out meat to many people repeatedly

through time. In pastor"!l herding societies, cattle wealth is the

most important marker of a household's status and capacity to

participate in exchange. The symbolic importance of cattle and

other scenes of running wild animals on Halaf ceramics has

been frequently noted and is consistent with a cultural empha­

sis on herding, hunting and the prestige associated with abun­

dance (e.g., Mellaart 1975; Frankel 1979; Rice 1998; Wengrow 1998, 2001; Cauvin 2000; Balter 2005). Trophy keeping does

not, however, preclude the use of the knucklebones in gaming

or augury, for which there are considerable ethnographic and

historical antecedents, as discussed above.

One of the few cumulative studies of Halaf burials sug­

gests that Halaf mortuary practices indicate rank based

on age, which can be viewed as a form of achieved status

(Akkermans 1989:83). Halaf burials are highly variable, in­

cluding single and double inhumations, cremation, mass

burials, and secondary burials with no consistent directional

orientation or location in relation to architecture beyond the

graves of infants, which are almost always inhumations be­

neath house floors . Akkermans notes (Akkermans 1989:83-

84): 'The so-called 'hunter burial' from Yarim Tepe I may also

indicate that grave objects served to express part of a person's

social entity. In recent years, it has been repeatedly tried to

infer social ranking from grave wealth in child burials . . ..

Wealth is viewed as an indicator of social differentiation and

positioning .. . . If we accept this view and apply it to the exist­

ing Halaf inhumation record, no ranking other than the one

probably based on age is observed. Child inhumations show

considerable variation in number and kind of grave goods but

no exceptional treatment is noted. The few adult inhumations

do not suggest any social ranking either.' It should be noted, however, that mortuary objects and

rituals can also serve to enhance communitas and erase the

intra-group indicators of difference that do exist in daily life,

complicating any interpretation indicating an absence of

rank bas~d on grave goods (Hodder and Hutson 200p-2).

CON CLUSION

The Kazane, Yarim Tepe I and Banahilk astragalus caches

show minimally that Late Neolithic people were keeping

some kind of record of the cattle that they slaugh tered by cu-

rating their bones. In the case of the Yarim Tep.e I ~H.unter's' burial, this record was associated with a single mdlVidual or

that person's household, although the meat produced by the

animals represented by the hoard could have fed very large

numbers of people. I have argued that these materials are

a variety of exchange valuables that can b~ thoug~t of as a trophy and/or a sign of unequal status achIeved VIa a com­

pleted past event or action. However, ~his do~s n~t precl~de other uses and meanings for these obJects WIth mterestl.n~, if inconclusive implications . As noted by Aubert (1954), dIVI­

nation and games of chance are the ultimate metaphors for

a society, in which all individuals are equal but fo~ the hand

of the divine. They randomize profit and establIsh mean­

ing and order out of the chaos of nature. Although th~ pur­pose of the Halaf astragalus caches is not yet establIshed,

R EFERE N CES .

Akkermans, Peter M.M.G. 1989. Halaf Mortuary PractICes: ~ Survey. In To the Euphrates and Beyond: Archaeological StudIes in Honor of Maurits N. Van Loon, edited by Odette Haex, Hans Curvers and Peter M.M.G. Akkermans, pp. 75-88. Rotterdam:

Balkema.

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Free Press.

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Campbell, Stuart. 2007. Rethinking Halaf Chronologies.

Paleorient 33 (1):103-136.

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it is hoped that further attention to these assemblages will

provide useful insight into the political economy of the Late

Neolithic.

A C K NOWLE D GEMENT

The following organizations provided generous financial and

bureaucratic support for the Kazane 2003-2004 Halaf ex­

cavations: the Explorer's Club-Washington Group, an liE

Fulbright Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Research

Fellowship, the University of Virginia Class of 1985 Gr~d~a~e Fellowship for Creative Teaching, a University of V lrglma

Department of Anthropology Pre-field Research Grant and the Sanliurfa Museum. All excavation and household expens­

es were shared with Kazane co-excavator Andrew Creekmore

and his funding agencies.

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Near East. Antiquity 72 :]83-795.

Wengrow, David. 2001. Rethinking 'C~ttle Cults' in Early Egypt: Towards a Prehistoric PerspectIve on the Narmer Palette. Cambridge Archaeological Journaln (1):91-104.

TELLING T HE FUTURE OR H OAROING THE PAST? A HALA F CATTLE ASTRAGALUS CACHE FR OM K AZANE HOYUK , SOUT HE AST E RN TURKEY

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INTERPRETING THE LATE NEOLITHIC

OF UPPER MESOPOTAMIA

O.P. NIEUWENHUYSE

R. BERNBECK

P.M.M.G. AKKERMANS

J. ROGASCH

@j

BR.EPOLS

This publication has been made possible by the generous support of the Netherland-America Foundation, Inc.

Design: Chiel Veffer Vormgeving, Amsterdam

© 2013 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978-2-503-54001-6

Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper

Front cover: Anthropomorphic figurine, Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria

Back cover: Vessel with bucrania design, Flsflkll Hoyak, Turkey

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ESTABLISHED PARADIGMS , CURRENT DISPUTES AND EMERGING THEMES:

THE STATE OF RESEARCH ON THE LATE NEOLITH IC IN UPPER MESOPOTAMIA

Reinhard Be rnbeck and Olivier Nieuwenhuyse

S ECTION 1: LIFEWAYS IN THE LATE NEOLITHIC: LARGE SCALE ISSUES 2 SCALE AND INTEGRATION IN NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIA

IN THE EARLY 6TH MILLENNIUM CAL. BCE

Stuart Campbell and Alexandra Fletcher 3 MULTISITED AND MODULAR SITES IN THE HALAF TRADITION

Reinhard Bernbeck 4 LIVING SPACE, TEMPORALITY AND COMMUNITY SEGMENTATION :

INTERPRETING LATE NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT IN NORTHERN SYRIA

Peter M.M.G. Akkermans 5 CONSTRAINED INNOVATION HALAFIAN CERAMICS

Frank Hole 6 SOCIETIES WITHOUT BOUNDARIES: INTERPRETING LATE NEOLITHIC PATTERNS OF WIDE

INTERACTION AND SHARING OF CULTURAL TRAITS: THE CASE OF THE HALAF COMMUNITIES

Marcella Frangipane 7 THE BIRTH OF A NEW CULTURE: AT THE ORIGINS OF THE HALAF

Jean -Daniel Forest t

17

39

51

63

77

89

101

8 BURNISHING , PAINTING AND FENESTRATING : SOCIAL USES OF POTTERY AT TELL KURDU 107

Rana Ozbal and Fokke Gerritsen

SECTION 2: L1FEWAYS IN THE LATE NEOLITHIC: THE SMALL SCALE 9 USING IMAGERY TO INTERPRET LATE NEOLITHIC RELIGION 117

Sarah Kielt Costello 10 SEQUENCING PRACTICES , REVEALING TRADITIONS : 125

A CASE STUDY ON PAINTERS ' BRUSHWORK

Gabriela Castro Gessner 11 THE SOCIAL USES OF DECORATED CERAMICS IN LATE NEOLITHIC UPPER MESOPOTAMIA 135

Olivier Nieuwenhuyse 12 TECHNOLOGY AND USE OF SPACE IN THE PRODUCTION OF OBSIDIAN BLADELETS 147

AT TELL SEKER AL-AHEIMAR

Seiji Kadowaki, Kenji Nagai and Yoshihiro Nishiaki 13 SPONTANEITY AND HABITUS:

STONE TOOL PRODUCTION IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AT FISTIKLI HOYUK

Maria Theresia Starzmann

161

14 DEFINING A HALAF TRADITION : THE CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF SPACE Susan Pollock

15 FOOD, COMMUNITY AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PAST:

CREATING COMMUNITY DURING THE HALAF PERIOD AT FISTIKLI HOYUK , TURKEY Marie Hopwood

16 BODILY IDENTITY: MORTUARY PRACTICES AND BODILY TREATMENT IN THE UPPER

MESOPOTAMIAN LATER NEOLITH IC Karina Croucher

17 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF DEATH IN THE LATE NEOLITHIC : A VIEW FROM TELL EL-KERKH Akira Tsuneki

18 LIFE AND DEATH AT HAKEMI USE

YIlmaz Selim Erdal 19 TELLING THE FUTURE OR HOARDING THE PAST?

A HALAF CATTLE ASTRAGALUS CACHE FROM KAZANE HOYUK, SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY Sue Ann McCarty

20 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF DOGS IN THE LATER NEOLITHIC OF UPPER MESOPOTAMIA Rachel Bichener

SECTION 3: MATERIALITIES AND MATERIALS 21 STONE BOWLS IN THE HALAF: MANUFACTURE, FUNCTION AND BREAKAGE AT DOMUZTEPE

Bronwen Campbell 22 EXOTIC, AESTHETIC AND POWERFUL?

THE NON-TOOL USE OF OBSIDIAN IN THE LATE NEOLITHIC OF THE NEAR EAST Elizabeth Healey

171

183

191

203

213

225

233

241

251

23 CULTURAL AFFINITIES AND THE USE OF LlTHICS DURING 267 THE 8TH TO 7TH MILLENNIA CAL. BCE IN THE NORTH LEVANT AND NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIA OsamuMaeda

24 THE FIRST HALF OF THE 7TH MILLENN IUM CAL. BCE IN THE EL KOWM BASIN , CENTRAL SY RIA: 277 UMM EL TLEL REVISITED

Ferran Borrell, Eric Boeda, Miquel Mollst and Heba al Shakel 25 EARLY POTTERY NEOLITHIC WHITE WARE FROM TELL SABI ABYAD 289

Bonnie Nilhamn and Ewout Koek

26 DARK FACED BURNISHED WARE AND "FINE " VERSUS "COARSE" DISTINCTIONS IN THE EARLY 297 POTTERY ASSEMBLAGE OF THE NORTHERN LEVANT Takahiro Odaka

27 RETHINKING THE MAKING OF LATE NEOLITHIC POTTERY: 305 AN EXAMPLE FROM TELL ARBID ABYAD (NORTHEAST SY RIA)

Miroslava Gregerova, Inna Mateiducova and Dalibor Vsiansk)r

SECTION 4: DIACHRONIC PROCESSES 28 PRIVATE MATTERS : THE EMERGENCE OF SEALING PRACTICES IN NEOLITHIC SYRIA

Kim Duistermaat 315

29 UNIFORMITY AND DIVERSITY OF POTTERY IN THE JEZIRAH AND THE NORTHERN LEVANT 323 DURING THE EARLY POTTERY NEOLITHIC Marie Le Miere

30 TRENDS IN EARLY POTTERY NEOLITHIC PROJECTILES AND WILD FAUNA EX PLOITATION 331 AT TELL SABI ABYAD I, NORTHERN SYRIA

Laurence Astruc and Anna Russell

31 MODELLED CLAY BALLS AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHANGES IN THE LATE NEOLITHIC: 345 A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF MODELLED CLAY BALLS IN HALAF COMMUNITIES Alain Gaulon

SECTION 5: BEYOND THE NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIAN CORE 32 LATE NEOLITHIC SOCIETY AND VILLAGE LIFE : THE VIEW FROM THE SOUTHERN LEVANT 355

Kevin Gibbs and E. B. Banning 33 APPLES AND ORANGES? COMPAR ING NEOLITHIC HORIZONS 367

OF UPPER MESOPOTAMIA AND ASIA MINOR

BIeda S. During 34 RECONSIDER ING THE LATE NEOLITHIC PERIOD IN SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY: 377

A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Mehmet Ozdogan 35 NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENTS OF THE 6TH MILLENNIUM BCE IN THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS 387

Svend Hansen, Guram Mirtskhulava, Katrin Bastert-Lamprichs 36 BEYOND STYLE: PETROGRAPHIC ANALYS IS OF DALMA CERAMIC~ IN TWO REGIONS OF IRAN 397

Yukiko Tonoike 37 SAMAR RAN ISSUES 407

Joan Oates

S ECTION 6: SITES AND REGIONS 3 8 SHIR , WEST SYRIA: THE SETTLEMENT AND ITS SURROUNDINGS

IN THE 7TH MILLENNIUM BCE

Karin Bartl 39 THE BENEFITS OF HINDSIGHT:

RECONSIDER IN G THE KURBAN HOYUK MIDDLE CHALCOLITHIC

Mandy Mottram 40 TELL HALULA (EUPHRATES VALLEY, SYRIA) :

NEW DATA FROM THE LATE NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT

Miquel MQlist, Josep Anfruns, Maria Bofill, Ferran Borrell, Ramon Buxo, Xavier Clop, Walter Cruells, Josep Miquel Faura, Arnau Ferrer, Anna Gomez, Emma Guerrero, Maria Sana, Carlos Tornero, Oriol Vicente

41 TELL HALAF: NEW RESULTS ON THE LATE NEOLITHIC PERIOD IN NORTHEASTERN SYRIA

Jorg Becker 42 CHAGAR BAZAR IN NORTH-EASTERN SYRIA: RECENT WORK

Walter Cruells, Anna Gomez, Monica Bouso, Emma Guerrero, Carlos Tornero, Ramon Buxo, Maria Sana, Miquel Molist, Abd el-Masih Baghdo and Onhan Tunca

43 THE LATE NEOLITHIC IN THE $IRNAK AREA (SOUTHEAST TURKEY)

Giilriz Kozbe 44 THE CONTRIBUTION OF HAKEMI USE TO THE PREHISTORY OF UPPER MESOPOTAMIA

Halil Tekin 45 A HALAF SETTLEMENT IN UPPER MESOPOTAMIA: KERKU$Ti HOYUK

Sava~ Sanaltun 46 FROM PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC TO POTTERY NEOLITHIC IN THE SINJAR

Nikolaoi Bader and Marie LeMiere

417

429

443

455

467

479

493

503

513