Intrasite Variability and Changing Social Practices during the Ubaid-Late Chalcolithic Transition at Tell Zeidan, Syria

Abstract

By the mid-5th millennium BCE, the dark-on-light painted pottery style common to Ubaid societies across Greater Mesopotamia was slowly becoming less prominent relative to unpainted wares made using new, faster technologies. While this shift has helped identify the development of a Late Chalcolithic cultural complex, the material culture, polity types, and rates of change in the LC1 period are also characterised by both regional variation and local variability. Indeed, a gradual transformation belies an identifiable distinction between socially structuring elements of the Ubaid and LC1 periods. To explore the nature of this distinction, this paper considers artefact distribution, spatial function, and intrasite dynamics at Tell Zeidan, Syria. The latest Ubaid and earliest Late Chalcolithic levels at Zeidan reveal a course of development from an economically centralised society into an economically decentralised town marked by sociocultural variation. This dataset viewed in the broader regional context illustrates both LC1 variability and a commonality of socio-organisational departure from the Ubaid period. The paper concludes by proposing a theoretical model of sociopolitical change that highlights instrumental variability in craft production as a key factor.