With National Science Foundation support Dr. Michael Rosenberg and his colleagues will conduct archaeological excavation at the site of Hallan Cemi which is located in the Zagros mountain region of Southeastern Turkey. The site itself consists of a low mound which covers approximately .7 hectares and previous work by Dr. Rosenberg has shown that it covers the time period from approximately 10,600 to 10.000 years before the present. Dr. Rosenberg will conduct two seasons of work in which he will open broad areas and through controlled stratigraphic excavation recover large amounts of faunal and floral remains as well as a broad range of material objects such as stone tools. These will be analyzed by a team of specialists in order to reconstruct subsistence and social patterns and to set the site into a broader regional context. Given the date of Hallan Cemi and the materials collected to date, it is apparent that this site documents a very early phase of the Neolithic Revolution. The term "Revolution" is an appropriate one because it marks perhaps the most significant shift in lifestyle over the ca. 2,000,000 years of human existence. In the Neolithic plants and animals were domesticated, settled village life emerged and a technological explosion which included the development of ceramic technology and metallurgy occurred. It is ironic, given great archaeological interest in this question that so little is known about the Zagros region since it is both known to contain very early Neolithic sites and has been postulated as a possible point of origin. The work to date by Dr. Rosenberg has demonstrated that Hallan Cemi represents an early stage in this process. While it contains domestic plants and animals, ceramics, another hallmark of the Neolithic are lacking. The large faunal and floral samples which will be collected will shed new light on the subsistence change. This research is important for several reasons. Within two years this entire region will be flooded by a newly constructed dam and if work is now done now a unique opportunity will be irrevocably lost. The information which Dr. Rosenberg collects will increase our understanding of perhaps the most important transformation in human history.
