The Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period or HUT (c. 5500/5400 to 5200/5000 BC) is a
prehistoric
Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...
period of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
. It lies chronologically between the
Halaf period and the
Ubaid period
The Ubaid period (c. 5500–3700 BC) is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall, Leonard Woolley in 19 ...
. It is still a complex and rather poorly understood period. At the same time, recent efforts were made to study the gradual change from Halaf style pottery to Ubaid style pottery in various parts of North Mesopotamia.
Archaeology
Archaeologically, the period has been studied anew recently by a number of scholars. The Halaf appears to have ended around 5200 BC, and the northern Ubaid begins around then. There are several sites that run from the Halaf until the Ubaid.
Previously, only two such sites were well known. The first of these,
Tepe Gawra, was excavated in the 1930s when stratigraphic controls were lacking, causing difficulties in re-creating the sequence. The second,
Tell Aqab, remained largely unpublished. This made definitive statements about the period difficult. But with the present state of archaeological knowledge, more certainty is emerging.
Sites with abrupt transition
Tell Arpachiyah and
Tepe Gawra are the sites where the transition from Halaf to Ubaid were quite abrupt. No transitional levels were observed at these two important sites.
Gradual transition
A. L. Perkins identified the existence of a Halaf-Ubaid Transition phase that can be seen in ceramic assemblages. Sites like
Tell el-'Oueili
Tell may refer to:
*Tell (archaeology), a type of archaeological site
* Tell (name), a name used as a given name and a surname
* Tell (poker), a subconscious behavior that can betray information to an observant opponent
Arts, entertainment, and ...
, and
Choga Mami in the Mandali region were suggested as witnesses to this phase.
More recently, a Halaf-Ubaid Transitional phase has been attested in Syria, in such places as
Tell Zeidan,
Tell Aqab,
Tell Kurdu,
Tell Masaikh (near
Terqa
Terqa is an ancient city discovered at the site of Tell Ashara on the banks of the middle Euphrates in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria, approximately from the modern border with Iraq and north of the ancient site of Mari, Syria. Its name had b ...
, also known as Kar-Assurnasirpal,
:pl:Kar-Aszurnasirpal), and
Chagar Bazar.
Halaf-Ubaid Transitional pottery from
Tell Begum, in the
Shahrizor
Shahrizor or Shahrezur () is a fertile plain in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, situated in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Silêmanî Governorate and west of Avroman, Hewraman. Shahrizor plain is watered by the Tributary, tributaries of Tandjaro r ...
plain, is particularly plentiful. Shahrizor plain is located between the Mesopotamian plains and the Iranian plateau, so it is geographically significant.
Recent analysis (2016) indicates that, in the
Ashur region, as well as on the Shahrizor Plain, the settlement intensity, as well as the overall site numbers remained rather similar throughout the Halaf and Ubaid periods.
[SIMONE MÜHL and OLIVIER P. NIEUWENHUYSE (2016)]
Halaf and Ubaid period settlement: a view from the Central Zagros Piedmont.
in: M. Iamoni (ed.), ''Trajectories of Complexity. Socio-economic Dynamics in Upper Mesopotamia in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods'', Studia Chaburensia 6, Wiesbaden: 27-56; 2016
Notes
References
* Davidson, T and Watkins, T. 1981. 'Two seasons of excavation at Tell Aqab in the Jezirah, N.E. Syria' ''Iraq''. 43:1. pp. 1–18.
* Tobler, Arthur. 1950. ''Excavations at Tepe Gawra: Volume II''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Campbell, Stuart and Fletcher, Alexandra. 2010. ''Questioning the Halaf-Ubaid Transition'' in Carter, Robert and Philip, Graham ''Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East'' Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. . Available at http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc63.html (Accessed 25/07/2013)
* Campbell, Stuart. 2007. 'Rethinking Halaf chronologies' ''Paléorient''. 33:1. pp. 103–136.
{{Ancient Mesopotamia
Ancient Mesopotamia
Archaeological cultures of the Near East
Archaeology of Iraq
Archaeology of Syria
Halaf culture
Ubaid period