KÖRTIKTEPE IN THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEOLITHIC IN UPPER MESOPOTAMIA

Abstract

The transition from Late Epipalaeolithic to early Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) (PPNA) was a gradual process that took a time span of over two millennia. When observing the development of material cultures of this time, it appeared that some long-lived busy Younger Dryas sedentary sites acted as centres of cultural and ritual trends, while comparatively smaller and younger sites followed these mainstream trends. To date, Tell Qaramel, Tell Mureybet and Tell Abu Hureyra in northern Syria and Körtik Tepe in southeastern Turkey revealed securely dated Younger Dryas occupations with permanent building traditions in Upper Mesopotamia. With many similarities and differences, wide practices of animal symbolism are observed at these sites-which likely promoted the development of extensive animal symbolism in the emergence of Neolithic. Körtik Tepe-with its highly skilled local hunter-gatherer community, complex symbolic practices, signs of local origins for many cultural traditions and the greatest concentration of material cultures-stands as an influencing Younger Dryas-Early Holocene centre that apparently directed the cultural trends throughout the emergence and development of the Neolithic in the Upper Tigris Basin. Some symbols at Körtik Tepe were unique and many other symbols were of supraregional characteristics. Here, with the help of settlement history, subsistence, burial practice and symbolic trends in regional-interregional context, we seek the position of Körtik Tepe in the origin and development of Neolithic in Upper Mesopotamia.