Under the direction of Dr. Richard Zettler, MS Jill Weber will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. The goal of her project is to understand how early civilizations in the Near East managed, with relatively simple subsistence technologies, to feed large numbers of individuals many of whom were removed from direct daily contact with the land. In contrast with its southern counterpart, Northern Mesopotamia, which forms the focus for this study, has low rainfall which makes it marginally productive for rain fed agriculture and societies were forced to develop strategies to deal with a highly unpredictable environment and frequent droughts. Many anthropologists have postulated that large and dense population aggregations could be achieved only through a centrally controlled economy which de-emphasized production for local consumption and instead focused on specialized intensive and spatially desecrate production of agricultural produce and livestock in environmentally suitable localities. For such a system to work, an effective redistribution system based on independent markets or other alternatives is required to minimize risk and move animal and plant products as necessary to create the necessary resiliency. Through the analysis of fauna remains excavated from three Bronze Age sites MS Weber will reconstruct the pastoral production system. The species of animals raised, the age at which they are slaughtered and the relative numbers of males and females removed from the population are dependent on a number of factors. Archaeologists have shown that culling patterns of animals raised for sale and non-local consumption differ in significant ways from that of animals locally consumed. The three sites which MS Weber will examine were occupied for substantial periods of time and excavation has shown that all were subject to cycles of growth and decline, accompanied by increased and decreased political centralization. Through a comparison of political and subsistence (as measured through animal bone) change it will be possible to understand how early civilizations managed the resources necessary for their survival. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed light on how an early civilization thrived in an environmentally marginal situation and help to further the professional development of a promising young scientist.
