The Samarra culture is a

Late Neolithic In the Near Eastern archaeology, archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding th ...

archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...

northern Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been known by ...

, roughly dated to between 5500 and 4800 BCE. It partially overlaps with

Hassuna Tell Hassuna is a tell, or settlement mound, in the Nineveh Province (Iraq), about 35km south-west of Nineveh. It is the type site for the Hassuna culture (early sixth millennium BCE). History of archaeological research Tell Hassuna was found ...

and early

Ubaid Ubaid, Ebeid, Obeid, Obaid, Ubayd, Ubayyid, Ubaidi, the Americanized Obade, etc., used with or without the article Al- or El-, are all romanizations of أبيض or عبید, an Arabic_language, Arabic word or name meaning 'white' (the former) or the ...

. Samarran material culture was first recognized during excavations by German Archaeologist

Ernst Herzfeld Ernst Emil Herzfeld (23 July 1879 – 20 January 1948) was a German archaeologist and Iranologist. Life Herzfeld was born in Celle, Province of Hanover. He studied architecture in Munich and Berlin, while also taking classes in Assyriology, a ...

at the site of

Samarra Samarra (, ') is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, north of Baghdad. The modern city of Samarra was founded in 836 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim as a new administrative capital and mi ...

. Other sites where Samarran material has been found include

Tell Shemshara Tell Shemshāra (ancient Shusharra) (also Tell Shimshara) is an archaeological site located along the Little Zab in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, in the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous administrative division of Iraq. The site was inundated by Lake Dukan ...

, Tell es-Sawwan, and

Yarim Tepe Yarim Tepe is an archaeological site of an early farming settlement that goes back to about 6000 BC. It is located in the Sinjar valley some 7km southwest from the town of Tal Afar in northern Iraq. The site consists of several hills reflecting th ...

. At Tell es-Sawwan, evidence of

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

—including

flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. In 2022, France produced 75% of t ...

—establishes the presence of a prosperous settled culture with a highly organized social structure. The culture is primarily known for its finely made pottery decorated with stylized animals, including birds, and geometric designs on dark backgrounds. This widely exported type of pottery, one of the first widespread, relatively uniform pottery styles in the

Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran (or Persia), Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. As such, the fields of ancient Near East studies and Nea ...

, was first recognized at Samarra. The Samarran Culture was the precursor to the

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

n culture of the

Ubaid period The Ubaid period (c. 5500–3700 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, Leonard Woolley in 19 ...

. At Tell Sabi Abyad and other Late Neolithic sites in Syria, scholars adopt increasingly vague terms such as Samarra "influenced", Samarra-"related" or even Samarra "impulses", largely because we do not understand the relationships with the traditional Samarra heartlands. The term may be extended to include sites in Syria such as Tell Chagar Bazar, Tell Boueid II, Tell Sabi Abyad or Tell Halula, where similar pottery is currently being excavated in Pre-Halaf to Early Halaf Transitional contexts.

Samarra ware

The ceramic of this culture is named Samarra ware. File:Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 096.jpg, Samarra period fine ware, c. 6200–5700 BCE Female figurine Tell es Sawwan DAO33 b.jpg, Female figurine found in the

Tell es Sawwan Tell es-Sawwan is an important Samarran period archaeological site in Saladin Province, Iraq. It is located north of Baghdad, and south of Samarra. It lies on a 12 meter high cliff overlooking the Tigris River. The site is a primarily Ubaid, ...

(middle Tigris, near Samarra), level 1, ca. 6000 BCE File:Samarra pottery - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC06931.JPG, Fragment of Samarra pottery. File:Samarra bowl.jpg, Samarra bowl, circa 4000 BCE

Samarra ware

See also

References

Further reading