Fanning the Flames of Complexity: Archaeobotanical Approaches to the Study of Fuel Economies at Late Chalcolithic Sites in Northern Mesopotamia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The burning of fuel resources for the heating and lighting homes, preparing food and craft goods, and eliminating waste is an essential daily domestic practice on par with the acquisition of food and shelter. With the emergence of socioeconomically complex societies in Northern Mesopotamia during the Late Chalcolithic, ever greater resources would have been necessary to fuel expanding craft production and support growing populations in increasingly urban settlements. People living in these societies would have had to balance increasing pressure on their access to fuel resources with adequately provisioning their hearths with fuel on a daily basis. Here, we combine archaeobotanical, anthracological, and dung spherulite analyses of two Late Chalcolithic sites, Surezha (Iraqi Kurdistan) and Tell Zeidan (Syria), in order to investigate the social, economic, and environmental factors underpinning fuel use choices at the onset of socioeconomic complexity. The identification and relative contribution of fuel resources within hearths and refuse deposits speak to both local resource availability and the economic and social organization of domestic activities and craft production in the Late Chalcolithic. Results from these sites document different fuel choices for ovens, hearths, and pyrotechnic features, suggesting a preference for specific fuels based on the activities being performed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24401