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Image Title calendar2024-01-28

Human Landscape - Site (Trans-) Formation in the Transtigris Area

he formation of Ear per rone Age centres in pesopotamia is the resut of ong term processes hich can be e pained b en ironmenta economica and socia de eopments heir phsica appearance is not on a testimon of centrai ation but aso of the socia eoution relected in its impact on andscapes Large te sites surrounded b a eb of roads for inter-regiona and inter-site communication traceabe through aeria and sate ite photograph ofer a testing ground for ne methods hie the pains of northern S ria ha e itte ariation in terrain the centra Trans‐Tigris area sho s a high diferentiated terrain afected b the ridges of the agros iedmont one 

Image Title calendar2024-01-28

The Iraqi Kurdistan Region has discovered a new Sassanid settlement located on Grdi-Kazhaw

Gird-î Kazhaw is located at the eastern perimeter of the large spring near Bestansur. The site consists of two mounds extending across an area of 4 ha. Mound A is only 2–3 m in height and of oval shape while Mound B reaches up to 10 m in height.

Image Title calendar2025-01-17

Halaf and Late Chalcolithic occupations at Shakar Tepe in the Shahrizor Plain, Iraqi Kurdistan: Preliminary report of the 2023 excavations

The Shahrizor Plain is one of the ideal fields for tracking the transition from Neolithic village life in the Fertile Crescent to Urbanisation which occurred in Mesopotamia because of its geographical location connecting the mountainside valleys along the Zagros and the downstream Diyala River that flows into the Tigris. Our field project aims to obtain archaeological materials to unveil this process. Following the first excavations at Shakar Tepe conducted in 2019, we excavated two additional areas at this site in 2023, including one of the three satellite mounds that were newly identified around the main mound. The cultural remains of the Late Halaf settlement uncovered from Operation B at Shakar Tepe II date back to approximately 5600–5400 calBC. On the other hand, Operation C at Shakar Tepe I yielded a thick deposit of the Late Chalcolithic occupations dated to ca. 3800–3600 calBC. The recovered materials fill the time ranges in the late prehistoric chronology of the site and will contribute to our understanding of the historical role of this region in the transition from Neolithisation to Urbanisation.

Late Prehistoric Investigations at Shakar Tepe, the Shahrizor Plain, Iraqi Kurdistan: Preliminary Results of the First Season (2019)

Article Name

Grdi-Shakar Tapa on the Sharazor plain in Iraq's Kurdistan Region has revealed a new episode of the Neolithic discovery
Shakar Tapa has been known as a conspicuous archaeological site in the south of the
Shahrazor Plain since the mid-20th century. It has an oval plan consisting of a low northeastern mound and a high conical southwestern mound with a flat top. The Darband-i Khan Dam Lake is adjacent to the north of the site and its water occasionally reaches the skirt of the mound, causing crucial erosion of the northern edge of the mound. Many archaeological materials were collected on the surface of Shakar Tapa in the past. Although most of them can be dated to the historical ages, such as the Early-to-Middle Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the Parthian-Sasanian Period, some artefacts were certainly dated to the prehistoric period.
In 2019 a Japanese archaeological team (directed by Takahiro Odaka, Kanazawa
University) started the excavations of Shakar Tapa to investigate its late prehistoric occupation.
The first operation of a step trench was set at the northwestern skirt of the high mound and yielded the Ubaid deposit and the Late Neolithic stratigraphic sequence covering ca. 6400-6000
BC. Virgin soil was reached at the northwestern end of the trench about 5 m below the highest level of this trench. The second season carried out in 2023 revealed the younger Late
Chalcolithic deposit at the area near the trench in 2019. In addition, a few low satellite mounds were identified west of the main mound and another late prehistoric deposit was uncovered at one of them.