The Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period or HUT (c. 5500/5400 to 5200/5000 BC) is a

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...

period of

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

. It lies chronologically between the

Halaf period 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-K ...

and the

Ubaid period The Ubaid period (c. 6500–3700 BC) is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Wo ...

. It is still a complex and rather poorly understood period. At the same time, recent efforts were made to study the gradual change from Halaf style pottery to Ubaid style pottery in various parts of North Mesopotamia.

Archaeology

Archaeologically, the period has been studied anew recently by a number of scholars. The Halaf appears to have ended around 5200 BC, and the northern Ubaid begins around then. There are several sites that run from the Halaf until the Ubaid. Previously, only two such sites were well known. The first of these,

Tepe Gawra Tepe Gawra (Kurdish for "Great Mound") is an ancient Mesopotamian settlement 15 miles NNE of Mosul in northwest Iraq that was occupied between 5000 and 1500 BC. It is roughly a mile from the site of Nineveh and 2 miles E of the site of Khors ...

, was excavated in the 1930s when stratigraphic controls were lacking, causing difficulties in re-creating the sequence. The second, Tell Aqab, remained largely unpublished. This made definitive statements about the period difficult. But with the present state of archaeological knowledge, more certainty is emerging.

Sites with abrupt transition

Tell Arpachiyah Tell Arpachiyah (outside modern Mosul in Ninawa Governorate Iraq) is a prehistoric archaeological site in Nineveh Province ( Iraq). It takes its name from a more recent village located about from Nineveh. The proper name of the mound on whic ...

and

are the sites where the transition from Halaf to Ubaid were quite abrupt. No transitional levels were observed at these two important sites.

Gradual transition

A. L. Perkins identified the existence of a Halaf-Ubaid Transition phase that can be seen in ceramic assemblages. Sites like

Tell el-'Oueili Tell el-'Oueili (also Awayli) is a tell, or ancient settlement mound, located in Dhi Qar Governorate, southern Iraq. The site was excavated between 1976 and 1989 by French archaeologists under the direction of Jean-Louis Huot. The excavations hav ...

, and

Choga Mami Choga Mami is a Samarran settlement site in Diyala province in Eastern Iraq in the Mandali region. It shows the first canal irrigation in operation at about 6000 BCE. The site, about 70 miles northeast of Baghdad, has been dated to the late 6th ...

in the Mandali region were suggested as witnesses to this phase. More recently, a Halaf-Ubaid Transitional phase has been attested in Syria, in such places as Tell Zeidan, Tell Aqab, Tell Kurdu, Tell Masaikh (near

Terqa Terqa is the name of an ancient city discovered at the site of Tell Ashara on the banks of the middle Euphrates in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria, approximately from the modern border with Iraq and north of the ancient site of Mari, Syria. ...

, also known as Kar-Assurnasirpal, :pl:Kar-Aszurnasirpal), and Chagar Bazar. Halaf-Ubaid Transitional pottery from

Tell Begum Tell Begum is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in Iraq. It is located near Said Sadiq in the Shahrizor Plain in Iraqi Kurdistan. The archaeological site consists of a steep conical mound high, and a lower mound. It covers an area of ...

, in the Shahrizor plain, is particularly plentiful. Shahrizor plain is located between the Mesopotamian plains and the Iranian plateau, so it is geographically significant. Recent analysis (2016) indicates that, in the Ashur region, as well as on the Shahrizor Plain, the settlement intensity, as well as the overall site numbers remained rather similar throughout the Halaf and Ubaid periods.SIMONE MÜHL and OLIVIER P. NIEUWENHUYSE (2016)
Halaf and Ubaid period settlement: a view from the Central Zagros Piedmont.
in: M. Iamoni (ed.), ''Trajectories of Complexity. Socio-economic Dynamics in Upper Mesopotamia in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods'', Studia Chaburensia 6, Wiesbaden: 27-56; 2016

Notes

References

* Davidson, T and Watkins, T. 1981. 'Two seasons of excavation at Tell Aqab in the Jezirah, N.E. Syria' ''Iraq''. 43:1. pp. 1–18. * Tobler, Arthur. 1950. ''Excavations at Tepe Gawra: Volume II''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Campbell, Stuart and Fletcher, Alexandra. 2010. ''Questioning the Halaf-Ubaid Transition'' in Carter, Robert and Philip, Graham ''Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East'' Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. . Available at http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc63.html (Accessed 25/07/2013) * Campbell, Stuart. 2007. 'Rethinking Halaf chronologies' ''Paléorient''. 33:1. pp. 103–136. {{Ancient Mesopotamia Ancient Mesopotamia Archaeological cultures of the Near East Archaeology of Iraq Archaeology of Syria Halaf culture Ubaid period