This article is the first in a series that aims to present the results of Iraqi excavations from the Ray Jazirah Project (RJP) that took place between 1987 and 1994. An Iraqi archaeologist involved ...in the RJP, who has chosen to remain anonymous, has recently provided all the primary data used in this and future reports. Gratitude to my Iraqi colleague, who continues to work in difficult circumstances, must be given for contributions to, and involvement in, our collaboration. I wish to thank this colleague, and other Iraqi archaeologists involved in the RJP, for granting permission to publish their work in English prior to publication in Arabic journals. Several colleagues from Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage have also made this project possible, and my colleague and I would like to thank them for granting permission for this publication project. We would also like to thank the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TAARII) for making this joint project possible through their generous funding. Professor McGuire Gibson (President of TAARII) first suggested this project and gave his encouragement; Dr Stephanie Platz (Executive Director of TAARII) and Dr Hala Fattah (Resident Director of TAARII) made many of the necessary arrangements to facilitate this effort from its inception. Special thanks are also due to Dr Rafi Altaweel for his tireless work in cleaning and improving the image quality of figures in this and forthcoming publications: many of the figures derive from drawings and photographs that were stored in less than ideal circumstances for almost two decades.
Cities and towns have often developed infrastructure that enabled a variety of socio-economic interactions. Street networks within these urban settings provide key access to resources, neighborhoods, ...and cultural facilities. Studies on settlement scaling have also demonstrated that a variety of urban infrastructure and resources indicate clear population scaling relationships in both modern and ancient settings. This article presents an approach that investigates past street network centrality and its relationship to population scaling in urban contexts. Centrality results are compared statistically among different urban settings, which are categorized as orthogonal (i.e., planned) or self-organizing (i.e., organic) urban settings, with places having both characteristics classified as hybrid. Results demonstrate that street nodes have a power law relationship to urban area, where the number of nodes increases and node density decreases in a sub-linear manner for larger sites. Most median centrality values decrease in a negative sub-linear manner as sites are larger, with organic and hybrid urban sites’ centrality being generally less and diminishing more rapidly than orthogonal settings. Diminishing centrality shows comparability to modern urban systems, where larger urban districts may restrict overall interaction due to increasing transport costs over wider areas. Centrality results indicate that scaling results have multiples of approximately ⅙ or ⅓ that are comparable to other urban and road infrastructure, suggesting a potential relationship between different infrastructure features and population in urban centers. The results have implications for archaeological settlements where urban street plans are incomplete or undetermined, as it allows forecasts to be made on past urban sites’ street network centrality. Additionally, a tool to enable analysis of street networks and centrality is provided as part of the contribution.
Water management across time Mark Altaweel
Water Societies and Technologies from the Past and Present,
11/2018
Book Chapter
Odprti dostop
Managing water systems over variable time and over changing environmental conditions requires water system management to be adaptive and to be able to evolve so that given water use systems can be ...sustained. This is the case with irrigation systems, where in dry regions issues of salinisation are often present (Fritsch and Fitzpatrick, 1994). In ancient Mesopotamia salinisation has been identified as an issue: overuse of water resources can result in salinised fields, and underuse of irrigation in underproducing fields (Jacobsen and Adams, 1958; Jacobsen, 1982). In effect, while irrigation is necessary in southern Mesopotamia for crop production, overdependence on
Shalaii Cave is a closed system cave that contains old and active speleothems. It is located on the northeast limb of the Ashdagh anticline in Sangaw district in northeastern Iraq. The study presents ...new data on cave monitoring and the geochemistry of stalagmite archives relevant for the palaeoclimate of Iraq. An extensive cave monitoring program was conducted from June 2014 to March 2015, which included analyses of cave air temperature, relative humidity, cave air, dripwater, and modern calcite precipitates on glass slides. Physical parameters were measured monthly and continuously using data loggers and meteorological data; rainwater and dripwater samples were acquired for stable isotope analyses and hydrochemistry analysis. Stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon and absolute dating of U/Th series dating was used to determine palaeoclimate conditions. The microclimate of Shalaii Cave during the studied period (June-2014 to March-2015), the average temperature at the entrance point and inside the monitored cave was 17.05 °C and 20.18 °C respectively. The relative humidity at the entrance point and inside the cave was 66.6% and 100% respectively. Eleven samples of dripwater and five samples of rainwater were acquired for isotope analyses and thirteen samples of dripwater for hydrochemical analysis. From the environmental isotopes analysis (2H and 18O), all water samples fall between the global meteoric water line (GMWL) and Sangaw meteoric water line (SMWL). The precipitation samples plot well above the GMWL. The mechanism of recharge is direct recharge. Two stalagmites (SHC-01 and SHC-02) were sampled from the cave. The first sample (SHC-01) is dated from 1012 ± 42 to 494 ± 29 yr B.P. and the second sample (SHC-02) dates between 8025 ± 38 to 6977 ± 219 yr B.P. Oxygen and carbon isotope results show that there are two climate conditions for palaeoclimate reconstruction in the Sangaw district. Conditions were generally wetter and colder during 8025 ± 38 to 6977 ± 219 yr B.P. than current conditions; from 1012 ± 42 to 494 ± 29 yr B.P., drier and warmer conditions prevail, more similar to today.
•Analysis of speleothems is significant for palaeoclimate determination.•This paper presents new data on cave monitoring from Kurdistan Province of Iraq.•Stable isotopes, and cave parameters integrated to understand behavior of the cave•Carbon and oxygen isotopic values are useful for climatic proxies.•Uranium-thorium dating is a good tool for age determination of the speleothems.
•It was difficult to recreate stable endemic populations.•Beetle cycles largely determined by tree maturation cycles.•Cyclic epidemics observed in most simulations.
The native Mountain Pine Beetle ...infests numerous native pine species in North America and can cause extensive mortality when populations enter an epidemic state. We used an agent based cellular model of coupled beetle and host tree populations to investigate the effects on long-term population dynamics of modifying three model components, representing factors that land managers have varying degrees of control over: number of host trees, health of host trees, and number of surviving beetle offspring. Within the parameter space, various behavior types emerged in the simulations: population crashes, regular endemic/epidemic cycles, and sporadic cycles. The largest, recurring epidemics occurred in simulations with dense populations of mostly vigorous trees and moderately high beetle offspring production. The fewest epidemics occurred with low beetle reproduction, and low tree population density. With all other factors held constant, reducing the tree population below a threshold reduced the proportion of cells experiencing beetle population epidemics. These results are consistent with field observations of reduced tree losses to beetle epidemics in thinned forest stands. The long-term simulations used in this study provide novel insights not captured by single-epidemic simulations, such as the fact that it was very difficult to maintain endemic populations for long periods, and that epidemics tended to be more erratic at higher tree densities.
This work presents new data from phytolith and speleothem analyses that cover the middle to late Holocene from northeastern Iraq in the Kurdistan region. Coupling these data with previous work, we ...demonstrate how the region’s environment and climate developed during a time when agriculture became not only established but settlements started to transform into larger urban areas. Results demonstrate a wetter phase during the middle Holocene relative to the present period; a highly seasonal climate with one rainy season is also suggested between 8025 ± 38 and 6977 ± 219 BP. Phytoliths not only suggest a relatively wet environment but they also indicate a diversity of plants used for settlement activity. Sedimentary results complement the indication of a relatively wetter middle Holocene. Archaeologically, terraced construction found in Gurga Chiya and the presence of drought tolerant crops suggest adaptation to stronger, seasonal rains and seasonal droughts in the middle Holocene. Sedimentary, phytolith, and speleothem results suggest relatively drier late-Holocene conditions, although the region continued to be conducive for rainfed agriculture.
We present a spatial interaction entropy maximizing and structural dynamics model of settlements from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and Iron Ages (IA) in the Khabur Triangle (KT) region within Syria. ...The model addresses factors that make locations attractive for trade and settlement, affecting settlement growth and change. We explore why some sites become relatively major settlements, while others diminish in the periods discussed. We assess how political and geographic constraints affect regional settlement transformations, while also accounting for uncertainty in the archaeological data. Model outputs indicate how the MBA settlement pattern contrasts from the IA for the same region when different factors affecting settlement size importance, facility of movement, and exogenous site interactions are studied. The results suggest the importance of political and historical factors in these periods and also demonstrate the value of a quantitative model in explaining emergent settlement size distributions across landscapes affected by different socio-environmental causal elements.
•A settlement interaction approach is applied to study site size hierarchies.•The model forecasts, with reasonable accuracy, known large sites.•Results explain settlement size differences in the Middle Bronze and Iron Ages.•The role of historical influences are used to explain modeling results.•Transport and importance of site size are shown to have major influence on results.
New Agendas in Remote Sensing and Landscape Archaeology in the
Near East is a collection of papers produced in honour of Tony
James Wilkinson, who was Professor of Archaeology at Durham
University ...from 2006 until his death in 2014. Though commemorative
in concept, the volume is an assemblage of new research
representing emerging agendas and innovative methods in remote
sensing. The intention is to explore the opportunities and
challenges faced by researchers in the field today, and the tools,
techniques, and theoretical approaches available to resolve them
within the framework of landscape archaeology. The papers build on
the traditional strengths of landscape archaeology, such as
geoarchaeology and settlement pattern analysis, as well as
integrating data sources to address major research questions, such
as the ancient economy, urbanism, water management and the
treatment of the dead. The authors demonstrate the importance of an
interdisciplinary approach for understanding the impact of human
activity on shaping the landscape and the effect that landscape has
on sociocultural development.
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