With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Frank Hole and his colleagues will conduct two seasons of field research and a follow-up season of analysis at the archaeological site of Ziyadeh. Located on the Khabur River in northeastern Syria, the site has four major periods of occupation which span the period from the sixth through the third millennium BC. The site itself consists of a mound and Dr. Hole and his team will excavate through it to reveal the entire occupational sequence and to collect cultural materials such as ceramics, lithics, possible metal and fauna. They also shall conduct fine sieving operations to recover botanical remains. On this basis it will be possible to reconstruct environmental change and human response through time. The sequence of cultures will also be defined and it will be possible to determine whether the area exhibits population continuity or rather was occupied by successive waves of immigrants. Archaeologists wish to understand the processes which led to the rise of complex societies and northern Syria and adjacent regions are extremely important because it was here that many plants and animals were first domesticated and both complex societies and later civilizations arose. While much work has been done in the Near East, very few sites cover such a long expanse of time and contain such rich environmental information. The processes which led to the observed cultural phenomenon are not yet clear and in recent years increasing attention has focused on the role of environmental change as a causal factor. This region in Northern Syria is semi-desert and therefore can exhibit marked change in response to relatively small changes in rainfall. It provides an excellent situation to examine the relationship between environmental and cultural change. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide information of interest to many archaeologists. In 1998 the region will be flooded as part of a development project and the work must be done now. The project will also shed new light on the processes which led to the development of civilization and complex societies.
