Inter-Household Ceramic Motif Variation and its Implications for Halaf Social Inequality at Kazane Hoyuk, SE Turkey

Summary

Inter-site motif variability is understudied in a systematic way to understand the complicated design vocabularies, paint colors, textures and vessel forms of ceramics from the Halaf cultural horizon (5,900-5,350 Cal. B.C.E./5,200-4,500 uncal. B.C.E.), a culture-historical entity in the Late Pottery Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia (southeastern Turkey, northern Syria and northern Iraq). Together, these motifs create an almost music-like multidimensional symphony of pattern including naturalistic figures that speak to the Late Neolithic political economy. At the largest known Halaf site--Kazane Hoyuk outside modern Sanliurfa, Turkey, inter-household ceramic variability was studied in order to determine if the famously rich painted motifs on vessels show signs of clustering in association with interior and exterior household spaces and, if so, what that motif distribution means in the context of social organization at the site. This is particularly relevant because social organization remains deeply enigmatic in the Late Neolithic; vessels that may have been associated with public feasting shed light on Halaf inequality and symbolic systems.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17642