The Beginning of the Neolithic : searching for meaning in material culture change. - article ; n°1 ; vol.18, pg 63-75

Watkins T.

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Paléorient - Année 1992 - Volume 18 - Numéro 1 - Pages 63-75
L'intérêt porté aux maisons sur le site proto-néolithique de Qermez Dere — Nord de l'Iraq — ainsi que les changements survenus relativement rapidement dans la culture matérielle semblent indiquer une évolution importante du mode de vie de la communauté, particulièrement vis-à-vis du «foyer», les activités symboliques étant centrées sur les maisons. Ces changements culturels semblent liés au stress social qui arriva jusqu'au point de conflits inter-communautaires et jusqu'à la guerre. L'objet que cet essai s'est fixé est de lier ces marques de changements culturels, survenus au tout début du néolithique, à l'activité économique et aux récents travaux anthropologiques portant sur les sociétés de sédentaires ou de « chasseurs-cueilleurs », et leurs moyens de résoudre le « stress » lié à l'obtention de ressources.
The elaborate concern for houses at the proto-neolithic site of Qermez Dere in N Iraq and the relatively rapid changes in material culture suggest that an important change was in progress in the community's way of life, and in particular in its attitude to the concept of 'home' as signified by the symbolic activities focused on the houses. These cultural changes seem to be associated with social stress which reached to the point of inter-communal conflict and warfare. The main purpose of the essay is to attempt to relate these culturally indicated changes occurring at the very beginning of the neolithic period to the economic evidence and to recent anthropological work on sedentary or complex hunter-gatherer societies and their handling of 'resource-stress'.
13 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: PALEORIENT
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1992
• Nombre de lectures: 9
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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Trevor Watkins
The Beginning of the Neolithic : searching for meaning in
material culture change.
In: Paléorient. 1992, Vol. 18 N°1. pp. 63-75.
Abstract
The elaborate concern for houses at the proto-neolithic site of Qermez Dere in N Iraq and the relatively rapid changes in material
culture suggest that an important change was in progress in the community's way of life, and in particular in its attitude to the
concept of 'home' as signified by the symbolic activities focused on the houses. These cultural changes seem to be associated
with social stress which reached to the point of inter-communal conflict and warfare. The main purpose of the essay is to attempt
to relate these culturally indicated changes occurring at the very beginning of the neolithic period to the economic evidence and
to recent anthropological work on sedentary or complex hunter-gatherer societies and their handling of 'resource-stress'.
Résumé
L'intérêt porté aux maisons sur le site proto-néolithique de Qermez Dere — Nord de l'Iraq — ainsi que les changements survenus
relativement rapidement dans la culture matérielle semblent indiquer une évolution importante du mode de vie de la
communauté, particulièrement vis-à-vis du «foyer», les activités symboliques étant centrées sur les maisons. Ces changements
culturels semblent liés au stress social qui arriva jusqu'au point de conflits inter-communautaires et jusqu'à la guerre. L'objet que
cet essai s'est fixé est de lier ces marques de changements culturels, survenus au tout début du néolithique, à l'activité
économique et aux récents travaux anthropologiques portant sur les sociétés de sédentaires ou de « chasseurs-cueilleurs », et
leurs moyens de résoudre le « stress » lié à l'obtention de ressources.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Watkins Trevor. The Beginning of the Neolithic : searching for meaning in material culture change. In: Paléorient. 1992, Vol. 18
N°1. pp. 63-75.
doi : 10.3406/paleo.1992.4563
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_1_4563vol. 18/1 - 1992 PALEORIENT,
THE BEGINNING OF THE NEOLITHIC :
SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN MATERIAL
CULTURE CHANGE
T. WATKINS
ABSTRACT. - The elaborate concern for houses at the proto-neolithic site of Qermez Dere in N Iraq and the relatively rapid
changes in material culture suggest that an important change was in progress in the community's way of life, and in particular
in its attitude to the concept of 'home' as signified by the symbolic activities focused on the houses. These cultural changes seem
to be associated with social stress which reached to the point of inter-communal conflict and warfare. The main purpose of the
essay is to attempt to relate these culturally indicated changes occurring at the very beginning of the neolithic period to the
economic evidence and to recent anthropological work on sedentary or complex hunter-gatherer societies and their handling of
'resource-stress'.
RESUMÉ. - L'intérêt porté aux maisons sur le site proto-néolithique de Qermez Dere - Nord de l'Iraq — ainsi que les changements
survenus relativement rapidement dans la culture matérielle semblent indiquer une évolution importante du mode de vie de la commun
auté, particulièrement vis-à-vis du «foyer», les activités symboliques étant centrées sur les maisons. Ces changements culturels
semblent liés au stress social qui arriva jusqu'au point de conflits inter-communautaires et jusqu'à la guerre. L'objet que cet essai
s'est fixé est de lier ces marques de changements culturels, survenus au tout début du néolithique, à l'activité économique et aux
récents travaux anthropologiques portant sur les sociétés de sédentaires ou de « chasseurs-cueilleurs », et leurs moyens de résoudre
le « stress » lié à Г obtention de ressources.
INTRODUCTION A generation ago it would not have been neces
sary to point to the beginning of the neolithic period
as the focus for a significant transformation in the
way of life of Near Eastern communities. However,
This essay derives from points raised in an ear recent evidence and interpretations have moved the
lier one (1), in which the architectural innovations beginnings of farming and particularly the inception
at Qermez Dere, Tel Afar, in N Iraq were discussed. of pastoralism, later in the neolithic. The extent to
The site was an early aceramic neolithic settlement which cultivation was practised in the early centuries
site, whose surviving remains were excavated be of the aceramic neolithic period is a matter of debate
tween 1986 and 1990. The peculiar and unexpected among archaeo-botanists. There is now unanimity
domestic architecture suggested that the beginning archaeo-zoologists that full-scale domesticat
of the neolithic period in the Levant and as far east ion and pastoralism began only in the seventh
as N Mesopotamia was marked by more than just millennium ВС. At the same time it has become
formal changes in the chipped stone industry or other clearer that sedentary village life originated a couple
aspects of the material culture repertoire. Various of millennia before the end of the epi-palaeolithic
recurrent and striking features about the houses were period. Thus the beginning of the neolithic period
in the Near East is no longer marked in the techno- noted and the conclusion was drawn that these sig
nified the growth of a new concept, namely that of economic sense by the beginning of village-farming.
the house as home. Some of the ideas voiced there Except for the possible association between the
very briefly are here developed more fully. That beginning of cultivation of legumes and cereals and
article's thinking had at its foundations a deep re the of the neolithic, the distinction be
spect for the ideas of Jacques Cauvin (2). In the tween the neolithic period and the preceding epi-
meantime, since the publication of that article, Hod- palaeolithic period is in danger of becoming once
der has taken up the same theme much more fully, again, as in the early days of archaeology, based on
equating domestication with 'a concept of "home" formal criteria relating to the material culture rep
- the domus - [which] was used as a metaphor for ertoires, such as types of flint tool, techniques of
the domestication of society' and as a dramatic op flint production, architectural traditions and the like.
position to the wild world whose taming (domesticat This essay is concerned with those material culture
ion) was symbolised within the house (3). changes. It seeks to interpret a nexus of new material
culture traits which appear at the beginning of the
neolithic period in terms of a change in social ide(1) WATKINS, 1990. ology and practice at the core of the neolithic tran(2) CAUVIN, 1972a; 1977; 1987. sformation - or neolithisation process. (3) HODDER, 1990, 39-43.
63 ;
In contrasting cultural practices of the earliest THE DOMESTIC REVOLUTION
neolithic with those of the epi-palaeolithic the writer OF THE KHIAMIAN PERIOD
has a problem. The most recent, detailed and rele
vant evidence concerning the earliest aceramic
neolithic phase comes from Qermez Dere in N Iraq, Earlier in this essay it was said that the epi-
but there are no fully investigated epi-palaeolithic palaeolithic and aceramic neolithic periods were in
settlements closer than the Mediterranean zone in danger of being distinguished from one another only
the Levant (4). For the present, therefore, it is nec on old-fashioned formal grounds of flint types and
essary to lump together the whole area from the other aspects of material culture. Within the huge
southern Levant to NE Mesopotamia and to assume time-span from the eleventh to the seventh millennia
that the neolithisation process during the later epi- ВС one would hope for more significant markers of
palaeolithic and early aceramic neolithic phases the social and economic transformation which was
proceeded in tandem throughout that area. This nec in progress. The rest of this essay is concerned with
essary procedure of long-range contrasting of the the reading of the material culture remains of the aceramic neolithic of N Mesopotamia with the epi- beginning of the aceramic neolithic period, the Khipalaeolithic of the Mediterranean Levant also falls amian phase as we may call it, in an attempt to foul of a model of neolithisation which argues that identify a nexus of interrelated social, economic, the Natufian communities of the south Levant were cultural, ideological and political traits which mark the important originators of the neolithisation a significant moment in that progress. Jacques Cau-
process (5). According to this reading of the process vin (7) has already identified a change of ideology
NE Syria, SE Turkey and N Iraq were secondary at this period boundary, which he has called 'la
zones where local neolithic communities adopted naissance des dieux'. He has pointed to two new
practices learned from neighbours or Mediterranean icons, the female human form and the