Prehistoric Halaf culture

The Prehistoric Halaf culture and settlement Tell Halaf.
(7th–4th millennium B.C.–Neolithic and Chalcolithic ages). Tell Halaf is the eponymous site for the late Neolithic Halaf culture that derives from older ancestors within the Pottery Neolithic period. This agricultural, village-based culture expanded across the entire northern Mesopotamian landscape – the northern part of the «fertile crescent» – between ca. 6000–5300 B.C.
The early excavations at Tell Halaf, conducted by Max von Oppenheim, produced great amounts of typical painted pottery and other objects (seals, strange terracotta-figurines, etc.) from the Halaf period . However, the excavators were not able to identify the structures within the prehistoric debris. The fact that typical round buildings were the primary living and working areas during the Halaf period complicated matters. Rarely occurring rectangular buildings usually functioned as storage-facilities. This means, when excavating, one has to think in round structures as well.

The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in the fertile valley of the Khabur River (Nahr al-Khabur), of south-eastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq, although Halaf-influenced material is found throughout Greater Mesopotamia.
While the period is named after the site of Tell Halaf in north Syria, excavated by Max von Oppenheim between 1911 and 1927, the earliest Halaf period material was excavated by John Garstang in 1908 at the site of Sakce Gözü. Small amounts of Halaf material were also excavated in 1913 by Leonard Woolley at Carchemish, on the Turkish/Syrian border. However, the most important site for the Halaf tradition was the site of Tell Arpachiyah.

The Bronze Age (2800–1200 B.C.) yielded only very few artifacts, so that we may presume that occupation activities had moved to near-by Tell Fecheriye . Tell Halaf was not resettled before the beginning of the Iron Age (1200-1100 BC). Single sherds of the hand-made, Anatolian «Groovy Pottery» indicate that eastern Anatolian immigrants had established a settlement on the site during the Early Iron Age (1200–1000 B.C.).
From the 13th century B.C. onwards, Mesopotamian and Syrian sources give evidence of the successive immigration of Aramaean nomads. Around 1000 B.C. they founded a number of smaller principalities in Syria and Mesopotamia. One of them was Guzana, the capital of the principality of Bit-Bakhiani, rediscovered in Tell Halaf.

The Halaf period was succeeded by the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period, which comprised the late Halaf (c. 5400–5000 BC), and then by the Ubaid period. Previously, the Syrian plains were not considered as the homeland of Halaf culture, and the Halafians were seen either as hill people who descended from the nearby mountains of southeastern Anatolia, or herdsmen from northern Iraq. However, those views changed with the recent archaeology conducted since 1986 by Peter Akkermans, which have produced new insights and perspectives about the rise of Halaf culture. A formerly unknown transitional culture between the pre-Halaf Neolithic's era and Halaf's era was uncovered in the Balikh valley, at Tell Sabi Abyad (the Mound of the White Boy).
Currently, eleven occupational layers have been unearthed in Sabi Abyad. Levels from 11 to 7 are considered pre-Halaf; from 6 to 4, transitional; and from 3 to 1, early Halaf. No hiatus in occupation is observed except between levels 11 and 10. The new archaeology demonstrated that Halaf culture was not sudden and was not the result of foreign people, but rather a continuous process of indigenous cultural changes in northern Syria that spread to the other regions. Halaf pottery has been found in other parts of northern Mesopotamia, such as at Nineveh and Tepe Gawra, Chagar Bazar, Tell Amarna and at many sites in Anatolia (Turkey) suggesting that it was widely used in the region. The Halaf culture saw the earliest known appearance of stamp seals in the Near East. They featured essentially geometric patterns. Halaf culture ended by 5000 BC after entering the so-called Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period. Many Halafian settlements were abandoned, and the remaining ones showed Ubaidian characters. The new period is named Northern Ubaid to distinguish it from the proper Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia, and two explanations were presented for the transformation. The first maintains an invasion and a replacement of the Halafians by the Ubaidians; however, there is no hiatus between the Halaf and northern Ubaid which exclude the invasion theory. The most plausible theory is a Halafian adoption of the Ubaid culture, which is supported by most scholars, including Oates, Breniquet, and Akkermans.
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