Neo-Assyrian Empire: Agriculture and Agricultural Strategies Based on Phytolith Analyses

Summary

The Neo-Assyrian empire is known as one of the major empires in the Ancient Near East. Ruling in Mesopotamia during the Iron Age, they had a well-organized agricultural system. In this paper, I will utilize phytolith analyses to investigate the impact of the Neo-Assyrian empire on agriculture and land-use. I will compare the elite-controlled agriculture with the crop choices of peasant farmers. It’s likely that the peasant farmers would have chosen more resistant and reliable types of plants for their own food which would reduce the risks of unexpected natural disasters such as droughts and floods. In order to conduct this research, I use phytolith data from Iraqi Kurdistan, at on-going excavations of Assyrian-period sites in the Peshdar Plain, including two main sites: Gird-l Bazar and Qalat-l Dinka, directed by Professor Karen Radner, University of Munich. These two sites are very promising for this research. Gird-l Bazar is a non-elite farming and production village, and Qalat-l Dinka is an administrative center being sustained by Gird-l Bazar. Thus, the two will cover the empire’s impact on agriculture and the farmers’ choices in cultivation and production.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20745