ILISU BARAJI İNŞAAT SAHASINA RASTLAYAN DİCLE VADİSİNİN TUNÇ VE DEMİR ÇAĞLARI'NDAKİ YERLEŞİM SİSTEMLERİ VE KÜLTÜR TARİHİ

Abstract

The field surveys carried out at the construction area of the Ilisu Dam, located on a small plain formed by the Tigris River between the Mardin Massive and the Eastern Taurus zone, revealed 65 ancient places used since the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (Okse vd 2006). Surface material dating to the 3rd-1st millennia BC is obtained from 15 sites. The surveyed area is 1600 ha in extend, situated on both banks of the river. The Early Bronze Age material is collected at three sites on the eastern bank - one large, one middle-sized and one small site close to each other. The sparseness of settlements is comparable with the contemporary settlements of the Upper Khabur and Upper Tigris regions. The material is composed by incised and painted Ninevite-V ware, orange ware, Dark Rimmed Orange Bowls and the Jezirah Grey Ware belonging to the Northern Mesopotamian culture dating to the 3rd millennium BC. One shard belonging to the Early Transcaucasian Ware points to the presence of the Northern Highland Culture during the last centuries of the millennium. The Middle Bronze Age material is found on two large and one middle-sized site on the western bank and one large and two middle-sized sites on the eastern bank, pointing to a dense settlement pattern of villages and hamlets/farmsteads, most probably based on rain-fed agriculture. The surface finds include the Monochrome Standard Ware, the Red Brown Wash Ware and the Khabur Painted Ware. Comparable settlement systems with similar ceramic assemblages determine the cultural parallelism of the region with the Upper Tigris and the Upper Khabur regions during the 19th-16th centuries BC. Late Bronze Age is represented by Mitannian and Middle Assyrian wares collected at one large and one small site on the eastern bank. This pattern points to a dramatic decrease in sedentary population within the surveyed region during the Mitannian and Middle Assyrian supremacy in the 15th-11th centuries BC. The hand-made Early Iron Age Pottery of Eastern Anatolia and the Upper Tigris region is collected on two large and two middle-sized sites on the western bank and on one large, two middle-sized and two small sized sites on the eastern bank. The frequency of sites and characteristics of material culture is comparable with the dense seasonal settlements of pastoralists in the Upper Tigris region as well as in Eastern Anatolia, so, the mobile pastoralists of the Northern Highlands seem to have lived also in the Mardin region during the weak period of the Assyrian Kingdom between the 11th-9th centuries BC. New Assyrian standard pottery is found on one large, two middle-sized and three small sites on the western bank and two large and six small sites on the eastern bank. This pattern points to a dense occupation determining a rural settlement hierarchy of farmsteads belonging to villages, similar to those established in Northern Jezirah during the 9th-6th centuries BC. The Late Iron Age is not represented by surface finds, since the material culture did not change so much in rural sites during the Late Babylonian and Persian Periods.