Demographic reconstruction of the Halaf culture society on the territory of the Eastern Euphrates

Abstract

The study of the problem of the population of the Halaf culture in the 6th millennium BC in the territory of the North-Eastern Syria is conducted for the first time in order to study the demographic situation of this region in the Late Neolithic. The statistical approach in paleodemographic reconstruction is the basis of the scientific procedure, because it’s source are the materials of the settlements. It also includes methods used in both Russian and foreign archeology. The basis was taken as the average population density, proposed by foreign anthropologists for the Neolithic in the Eastern Mediterranean, which was compared with the indicators of the southern part of Western Europe and Southwestern Iran. According to the calculations, 30-35 thousand people lived in the territory of northeast Syria during Halaf culture. These results were verified by the method of C. Reed and R. Braidwood, using the method of population density per settlement area by C. Renfrew as well as an indicator of natural annual population growth. This verification confirmed the obtained quantitative indicators of the Khalaf population in Eastern Euphrates. A variant of determining the population of the Halaf settlement of Sabi Abyad I by the residential buildings of the “Burnt Village”, which makes up 1/10 of the area of the monument, is proposed. This result can be an independent baseline for the reconstruction of the paleodemographic characteristics of the Late Neolithic culture of Mesopotamia. Conclusion based on the obtained paleodemographic data: Despite the high infant mortality, Khalaf society is characterised as developing. For comparison, this article presents the demographic indicators of the modern Syrian Arab Republic