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The Near East - the region known politically as the Middle East - is the home of both a long and eventful history as well as a much longer and fascinating prehistory. Here on Pre History I will cover the story of the Near East as we know it from the archaeological study of what people left behind as hunter-gatherers turned into farmers, as villages turned into cities, and as empires rose and fell.
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As we finish off the Neolithic we must first go backwards to one of the less well known but vastly important cultures of the Neolithic Near East - the Samarra. As the first known Neolithic culture of Southern Mesopotamia the Samarra gave rise to many developments which underpinned the later civilisations of this part of the ancient Near East. It is…
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In the east of Anatolia and off to the north of Mesopotamia is the southern Caucasus, which is also known as Transcaucasia. This region combines being one of the last parts of the Near East to have mobile hunter-gatherers, and one of the first regions of the Near East to practice copper metallurgy. In between we have the sixth millennium cal BCE, w…
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After all of the arguments that we saw for the Wadi Rabah as to whether it was part of the Late Neolithic or part of the Early Chalcolithic, this time we shall have a look at Anatolia in the first half of the sixth millennium cal BCE - which is widely agreed here to the Early Chalcolithic. Unlike the more widespread cultures of the Halaf or the Wad…
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In this episode we head south to look at one of the major cultures of the Southern Levant during the sixth millennium BCE - the Wadi Rabah. While there is a lot that we know about the Wadi Rabah culture, there is also a lot that we argue about. Really, a lot. If you have any questions or comments you can email me at prehistorypodcast@gmail.com or r…
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The Halaf culture was first discovered on the eve of the first world war at Tell Halaf in eastern Syria. The beautifully made and elaborately decorated pottery of this culture made it a sensation in the archaeology of the ancient Near East in the early twentieth century, as no one had previously imagined that small and simple farming villages could…
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After having a look at the seventh millennium BCE across Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia, it is time to come back to Cyprus and see how life changed here after 7000 cal BCE. After the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic on Cyprus we see the development of the Khirokitia culture. Unlike with the regions which we have talked about on the mainland, …
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Now that we have seen how societies changed over the seventh millennium BCE in Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia it is time to have a look at a couple of important and common developments that we see in these regions during this later part of the Neolithic. While groups of people across these regions seem to drift apart during the seventh millen…
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Now that we have had a look at the seventh millennium BCE in Anatolia and the Levant, this time I want to have a look at the change from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Pottery (or Late) Neolithic across the large area of Mesopotamia - the land between the rivers. If you have any questions or comments you can email me at prehistorypodcast@gmail.co…
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Following our look at the change into the Pottery (or Ceramic) Neolithic in Anatolia, this time we are having a look at the Pottery Neolithic (also the Late Neolithic) in the Levant. Actually, this is the Pottery Neolithic of two Levants - the northern and southern Levant. Here we have two different sets of changes after 7000 cal BCE, happening in …
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With the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic the Near East moved into the Pottery Neolithic - also called the Ceramic Neolithic or Late Neolithic depending on the region. Today we can have a look at this change into the Ceramic Neolithic across Anatolia. If you have any questions or comments you can email me at prehistorypodcast@gmail.com or reach me …
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Today we say goodbye to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B with a look at the collapse of the PPNB world system. Of course, as it is still up in the air as to whether we ever actually HAD a PPNB world system, we can also have a look at whether or not we actually have a PPNB collapse. Have a listen and tell me what you think. Does the PPNB collapse, or not…
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Now that we have had a good look at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in most of the Near East, this time we are travelling over to Cyprus. Cyprus also has a Pre-Pottery Neolithic, but it isn't exactly what we might expect based on what we know about the Neolithic in the rest of the Near East. Looking at the wonderful Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Cyprus change…
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Now that we have seen how people moved over to growing rather than gathering their own food, and settled into villages with the birth of communal village life, we can have a look at some of the other developments happening across the Near East during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. We can also see how the scale of these changes happening across the Near…
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This week we are looking at what life was like in Neolithic settlements, and how these have changed from the first permanent houses that we found in the Late Epipalaeolithic. Both time periods have houses, and in some cases the houses are not all that different. However, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic we no longer just get houses, we get villages - a…
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Last week we looked at the move from collecting to growing our own food during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic by discussing the process of plant domestication. This week we complete this change in how we fed ourselves by looking at the process of domesticating food that has a tendency to wander off a bit more than plants do - animals. If you have any qu…
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This week we will be starting on the Neolithic, the last of our three stone ages. As a lot of big things happen in the Neolithic, we can't do everything in one episode so I am breaking it up and spreading the Neolithic across a series of episodes which will deal with the different big events. This week, we start with the first of these big changes:…
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Last time we looked at whether or not we could really think of the earlier Epipalaeolithic as being something distinctly different from the later Upper Palaeolithic. This week we look at the later Epipalaeolithic, which is definitely different from the Upper Palaeolithic and even pretty distinct from the earlier Epipalaeolithic. We look at the end …
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The Epipalaeolithic - the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to just before the beginning of farming - is an awkward period to characterise in the prehistory of the Near East. Mostly this is because the division between the Upper Palaeolithic and the earlier part of the Epipalaeolithic is a bit murky. This week we will look at this division, and …
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This week we continue our look at the Upper Palaeolithic of the Near East with a look at what people were eating, and how they were eating it. Life is not just about food though, even for Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. So, we will also look at how Upper Palaeolithic people dressed and decorated themselves, visited with other people and swapped good…
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Last week we said goodbye to our cousins the Neanderthals and stood along as the only people species in the Near East. This week we shall see what we humans got up to in the Upper Palaeolithic now that we had the whole place to ourselves. If you have any comments or questions you can reach me at prehistorypodcast@gmail.com or on the website at preh…
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This week we say goodbye to the Middle Palaeolithic. Modern humans have migrated out of Africa and into the Near East, and this time they mean to stay. Have a listen to what we know about the change for the Middle Palaeolithic Near East of the Neanderthals to the Upper Palaeolithic Near East of us modern humans. If you have any comments or question…
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This week we look at the last stage of the Middle Palaeolithic. After looking at Neanderthals last week, here we get into what we know by contrast about humans in the Middle Palaeolithic, and what we have learned so far about a new, up-and-coming area of archaeological research into humans in the Middle Palaeolithic - the Arabian Peninsula. If you …
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In this episode we continue in the Middle Palaeolithic, looking at our cousins the Neanderthals. This episode examines what we know about Neanderthals, and what mistakes which we made about them in the past that have led to the popular view of Neanderthals being so very wrong. If you have any comments or questions you can reach me at prehistorypodc…
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In this episode we move into the Middle Palaeolithic, looking at how life changed in the Near East after about 215 thousand years ago. Changes in the way that people moved around, particularly a change to the use of caves for camps or base-camps means that we are starting to get more information about the structure of daily life in the past, at lea…
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Archaeological evidence for people in the ancient Near East begins with the Lower Palaeolithic. When Homo erectus wandered out of Africa and spread out across other continents they left traces of their lives across our region. Here we discuss what we know about the first people to call the Near East home - how they lived, what they ate, and how the…
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Before we begin with the first people in the ancient Near East, here is a prologue of everything which people got up to beforehand. This is a brief coverage of everything that we know about human evolution from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and gorillas up to the appearance of humans.
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If anyone wants to learn more about our human story before the start of our history, welcome to PreHistory, a podcast on the archaeology of the ancient Near East (Middle East). This is an introduction to the podcast and a very brief idea of what I will be covering in forthcoming episodes. Stay tuned for the first episode of PreHistory this coming w…
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