Review Article

Landscapes of tells in the Near East and beyond

Jesse Casana
Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Old Main 330, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA

Recent years have seen a proliferation of studies dedicated to the ideological, environmental and other aspects of tell-based settlement systems in the Near East and surrounding regions. While the prominent mounded sites that dot the landscape from south-eastern Europe to the Indus Valley have often been regarded as a simple by-product of long-term occupation and the dominance of a building material like mudbrick, foundational research by T.J. Wilkinson has turned our attention to the cultural forces that produced these distinctive sites. The morphology of tells and the landscapes in which they are nested are, in Wilkinson's (2003) view, a result of a particular package of settlement norms, land use practices and environmental conditions that are bounded in space and time. The present review considers three volumes that are strongly influenced by Wilkinson's work, and which collectively demonstrate the rich potential of landscape-based approaches to studies of ancient settlement systems.

The first, Jason Ur's Urbanism and cultural landscapes in northeastern Syria: the Tell Hamoukar survey, reports on an archaeological survey undertaken at Tell Hamoukar, a 105ha site in the Khabur Basin of eastern Syria. Expanding and revising material that formed the basis of his PhD dissertation, Ur has produced an exemplary book that balances a comprehensive publication of primary data with a compelling interpretative discussion of landscape history.

Following an introduction to the project and an overview of the physical environment of the study area, the book provides two detailed chapters on survey methodology: one on the intensive surface collection at Tell Hamoukar itself and one detailing methods used in the regional survey (a 5km radius around the site). Few survey publications provide such a comprehensive discussion of methods (historical maps, satellite remote sensing, pedestrian transects) for site identification, mapping and sampling, representing an excellent example of how these techniques can be integrated within regional research strategies. These methodological chapters are a template for survey design and, in particular, illustrate the value of integrating declassified CORONA satellite imagery into archaeological fieldwork.

Borrowing its title from a chapter in Wilkinson's (2003) book, Ur's Chapter 5, 'Elements of the archaeological landscape', offers a comprehensive discussion of the identification and classification of ancient settlements, the collection, dating and interpretation of field scatters, as well as the recognition and mapping of ancient roadways ('hollow ways') and canals. Here we find some of Ur's most significant contributions to survey methodology more broadly. In particular, his analysis of how both ancient settlements and other cultural landscape features appear on different CORONA images, acquired at various times of the year and under a range of ground conditions, is among the best published examples of this important issue. The close integration of remote-sensing-based investigations with systematic field survey offers one of only a few direct comparisons of results derived from the two approaches.

Chapter 7, 'Landscapes of movement in northern Mesopotamia', breaks from the book's focus on Tell Hamoukar and its hinterland to consider the ancient roadways of the larger Khabur Basin. Focusing on the radial route systems that surround many Early Bronze Age sites in the region, and building on Wilkinson's (1993) research, Ur uses CORONA imagery to map hundreds of these hollow ways of varied preservation and visibility.

Ur's presentation of primary survey data constitutes the heart of the work (Chapter 6); it is thorough, clear and lavishly illustrated with maps and diagrams in his characteristic style. At both Tell Hamoukar itself and in the larger survey area, the book provides detailed perspectives on the changing density and distribution of settlement from the earliest evidence of sedentary occupation in the Proto-Hassuna period (6500–5900 BC) through to modern times. Among the most significant results are those from the Late Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age, the periods during which Tell Hamoukar was most extensively settled. Ur's data show the dramatic expansion of settlement at THS25—also called the Hamoukar Southern Extension—where relatively dense occupational debris extends over more than 300ha during the Late Chalcolithic 1–2 (c. 4400–3800 BC). The settlement appears long before urban settlements are known in northern Mesopotamia, and may even predate the emergence of complex societies in southern Mesopotamia. Ur traces the eventual contraction of THS25, its movement onto the main mound at Hamoukar by the later fourth millennium, and the ultimate emergence of the site as a major city during the third millennium. His data also suggest that occupation continued to thrive well beyond the abandonment of many settlements across the Khabur region.

Ur's volume offers a model for future publications of regional archaeological survey projects. His work balances detailed treatment of field and remote-sensing-based methods with comprehensive presentation of primary data and thoughtful, interpretative conclusions. While Ur's survey area around Hamoukar was rather small, most of the much larger survey projects in the region have yet to be published in such detail, making his work especially valuable. Finally, as part of the Oriental Institute Publication series, the book is freely available as a downloadable PDF and thus will surely become a key resource for archaeologists working throughout northern Mesopotamia, as well as for those interested in satellite remote sensing in archaeology.

The second book under review here, Ebla and its landscape: early state formation in the ancient Near East, edited by Paolo Matthiae and Nicolò Marchetti, is a large volume focusing on the archaeology of Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh) in western Syria and the regional and environmental projects undertaken in the vicinity over the past decade. The volume is a welcome contribution, considering the importance of Ebla in both the history and archaeology of the Near East, especially during the third and second millennia BC. The book is divided into five parts. The first—'Town archaeology'—includes chapters dealing specifically with results of excavations at Ebla, focused largely on Royal Palace G, dating to the later third millennium. The section includes two chapters from Paolo Matthiae, director of the excavations since 1963: one summarises the current state of excavations at Ebla generally, and the second presents an architectural analysis of Palace G. The remaining chapters in Part 1 discuss finds from Palace G including the glyptics, clay figurines and ceramics.

Part 2—'Regional archaeology'—presents preliminary results of the Ebla Chora Project, a regional survey that had only undertaken one field season in 2010 when the current Syrian civil war forced the cessation of fieldwork. Nonetheless, chapters in Part 2 provide a useful summary and synthesis of regional surveys in Ebla's hinterland, with preliminary new data and comparisons to other surveys in north-western Syria. Other chapters in Part 2 provide complementary evidence for Early Bronze Age settlement from nearby Tell Tuqan and of other contemporary excavated sites. It is unfortunate that the promising regional survey was forced to suspend just as it had begun—the preliminary results reported in Parts 2 and 4 show great promise.

One of the great potential strengths of Early Bronze Age archaeological research in the Ebla region lies in the rich historical data provided by the cuneiform archives recovered from Palace G, and Part 3—'Textual evidence'—contains three papers dedicated to regional studies based on textual evidence. Chapter 12 overviews the ways in which toponyms appear in Ebla texts and the problems inherent in determining which of these places were ruled by Ebla, while Chapter 13 discusses towns with which the royal administration of Ebla had direct exchanges that unambiguously document a hegemonic relationship. Chapter 14 provides an interesting analysis of the names for agricultural products known from the Ebla texts that could serve as a useful complement to palaeobotanical studies. Part 3 illustrates powerfully the rich potential of historical evidence derived from the archive of cuneiform texts from Ebla and, as other recent studies of Near Eastern archaeological landscapes demonstrate (e.g. Casana 2009), these data could be incorporated even more explicitly into regional archaeological analyses.

Part 4—'Geomorphology and remote sensing'—contains two chapters dedicated to archaeological site and feature detection using maps and satellite imagery, including one focusing on modern multi-spectral imagery and another on declassified CORONA imagery. There are also chapters providing analysis of the region's geomorphology and the productive potential of soils, as well as of modern agriculture in the area. In contrast to Ur's volume, these studies are presented separately from results of the larger regional project outlined in Part 2. A closer future integration of remote sensing, physical geography and regional settlement data undoubtedly offers great potential.

Finally, Part 5—'Archaeometry and bioarchaeology'—includes papers covering a range of scientific analyses, something rather new and welcome in Ebla research. Archaeometric papers include XRF analyses of metal objects and a petrographic study of architectural fragments, both from Palace G, as well as an elemental and petrographic analysis of ceramics from Ebla and Tell Tuqan. Part 5 also includes some of the first evidence for subsistence strategies and environmental interactions at Ebla, with studies of botanical and faunal remains from Palace G, as well as a study of wood remains from across the site. This section also includes a chapter on technologies and manufacturing processes at third-millennium Ebla, as well as a chapter reporting results of radiocarbon-dating of terminal Early Bronze IVA layers. This latter chapter reports data that will be of particular interest to many historians and archaeologists concerned with the absolute chronology of the Near East in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. The material culture sequence and textual data from Ebla are key to a longstanding debate in which absolute dates are argued to vary by as much as 150 years, across so-called High, Middle, Low and 'Ultra-Low' chronologies (Gasche et al. 1998). The destruction of Palace G is generally thought to mark the end of the archaeological period known as EBIVA in western Syria, while textual data from the same context provides one of the few historical synchronisms with Mesopotamian historical sequences. The chapter, however, does not provide any specific context for the dated samples, aside from the fact that they are all derived from the same destruction layer. The authors conclude with a mean date for all the samples which supports a Middle Chronology date of 2300 BC for the destruction long reported by excavators at Ebla. The samples, however, show a very large range in calibrated dates, spanning 500 years even at one sigma, suggesting that many of these samples likely derive from older, extrusive materials, as would be expected at a long-lived mound like Ebla. The latest reported dates may thus more accurately represent the actual date for the destruction of Palace G, and these samples are much more in line with a lower chronology, such as that argued by Gasche et al. (1998).

In summary, this volume provides a wealth of primary data as well as overviews of recent research at and around one of the most discussed archaeological sites in the Near East. As such, the book will be of great interest to many archaeologists and historians. Despite having many fine individual chapters, as a whole the volume suffers to some degree from a lack of cohesion; there are few overarching themes or broad research questions, as well as the occasional difference in chronology and terminology. The concluding chapter of the book, by Matthiae & Marchetti, where one might expect a synthesis of major findings, instead briefly summarises the contents of various chapters, leaving for future publications any detailed treatment of questions regarding the book's subtitle: 'Early state formation in the ancient Near East.' Nonetheless, it is admirable that the Ebla team have produced such a comprehensive volume so quickly following the forced cessation of fieldwork in 2011, and this will help to ensure that the many years of research already undertaken do not atrophy in an unpublished state. With prospects for renewed fieldwork in Syria looking dim, the many other projects that were similarly forced to end fieldwork prematurely might follow the lead of the Ebla team.

The third volume reviewed here, Tells: social and environmental space, edited by Robert Hofmann, Fevzi Kemal Moetz and Johannes Müller, is in some respects the most theoretically ambitious, seeking to bring together a group of papers that explicitly explore both ideological and environmental aspects of tell-based settlement. The volume is the product of a workshop held in Kiel in 2011, with the stated aim of "investigating the connection between environmental and social causes of landscape patterns on settlement mounds" (p. 1). With a geographical scope extending from south-eastern Europe to Central Asia, encompassing much of the region in which classic Old World tells are found, the volume unites studies from scholars working in a variety of distinct academic traditions.

A number of diverse papers strive to undertake the kind of broad, comparative studies that the volume promises. Rosenstock, for example, presents a quantitative analysis of the environmental factors that may contribute to the distribution of mounded tells across the Old World. Parkinson & Gyucha offer an analysis of social and environmental forces that generate nucleated versus dispersed settlement patterns through a comparative analysis of the Great Hungarian Plain and the Thessalian Plain, Greece. Özogan considers the various research strategies that archaeologists have used to investigate complex, mounded settlements through case studies in Turkey. Merkyte & Albek present an analysis of tell site distribution and formation in Bulgaria, informed by ethnographic and archaeological evidence from West Africa.

Several papers discuss results of regional archaeological surveys and of remote-sensing-based investigations of site and feature distribution, including Bultmann's analysis of environmental and topographical settings of Neolithic sites in the Visoko basin, Bosnia, and Helwing's study of site preservation and discovery on the Mil Plain, Azerbaijan. Mühl's paper presents results from Iraqi Kurdistan offering a Wilkinsonian analysis that considers the role of land use and transportation in generating the nucleated settlement pattern of the Early Bronze Age. Other chapters are more site-specific studies including several presenting results of excavations and artefactual analyses at tell sites in Bosnia, Romania and Turkey (including Çatalhöyük).

Like many conference proceedings, the papers in this collection display a wide range of topics and perspectives, with some excellent contributions that address the stated theme of the volume head-on and others providing more site- or region-specific reports that will be primarily of interest to specialists in those areas. The rather uneven geographical focus of the papers, with ten on south-eastern Europe, four on the Near East and one on Azerbaijan, also makes it challenging to engage fully with the larger question of why tell sites formed during particular times and in specific places. While perhaps not an essential book to purchase, many papers in this volume will be of great interest to archaeologists working in those areas and, collectively, they reveal a wealth of landscape-based research strategies that help illuminate the tell-based settlements of the Old World.

References

• CASANA, J. 2009. Alalakh and the archaeological landscape of Mukish: the political geography and population of a Late Bronze Age kingdom. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 353: 7–37.
• GASCHE, H., J.A. ARMSTRONG & S.W. COLE. 1998. Dating the fall of Babylon: a reappraisal of second-millennium chronology. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago & University of Ghent.
• WILKINSON, T.J. 1993. Linear hollows in the Jazira, Upper Mesopotamia. Antiquity 67: 548–62.
  – 2003. Archaeological landscapes of the Near East. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.