Ferhan Sakal

The Middle Euphrates region extends between Jezirah and Northern Levant; it follows the course of the Euphrates from the south flanks of the Taurus mountains in Turkey almost to the modern border with Iraq. The settlement area drawn out between steppes in the east and in the west owes its particular character to just that life line with its rich soil but also to the trade routes meeting at the Euphrates Bend and connecting Anatolia to Mesopotamia, and the Syrian east to the Levant. Especially for the 3rd millennium, finds and findings from the area under consideration show great cultural variety and demonstrate the different influences by the neighbouring regions that meet here at the Euphrates river.

The international rescue excavations in the wake of dam projects in Turkey as well as in Syria yielded abundant material. The present study takes into account the results of more than forty sites. In agreement with the principles of ARCANE the richly illustrated account is divided along find groups and written by experts who supplemented their specific chronological findings thus arriving at a new periodization and terminology for the 3rd millennium.

This volume provides a study on the 3rd millennium B.C. anthropomorphic clay figurines of the Middle Euphrates region. The research is based on over 2400 specimens, mostly in a fragmentary state, retrieved in thirteen different salvage excavations located along the Middle course of the Syrian Euphrates, from Tell Shiyukh Tahtani to the north to Tall Bi’a to the south.

The volume is subdivided in eight chapters and is aimed to give a deep insight on the anthropomorphic clay figurines of the region under examination. The new synthetic regional typology (based on the large amount of specimens) enables an understanding of figurines development and diffusion in a broader perspective. Particular attention is also paid to manufacturing aspects such as modelling, rendering and decoration. Moreover, the detailed mapping on their distribution provides new hints for the understanding of the use of these objects.

"Emar after the closure of the Tabqa Dam I constitutes the first volume of a new sub-series dedicated to the final publications of the Syrian-German excavations at Meskene Qadima / Emar (Syria), undertaken by the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen between 1996 and 2002. The contributions included in this first volume present the final reports on the Late Roman and Medieval cemeteries (archaeological and anthropological studies) and Environmental Studies (archaeozoological, archaeobotanical, anthracological and C-14 studies) on the Bronze Age Town Emar.

Part I: The Cemeteries of Late Roman and Medieval Times
F. SAKAL, Graves and grave goods of the Late Roman and Medieval cemeteries
M. KRAFELD-DAUGHERTY, The skeletal remains, an anthropological study

Part II: Environmental Studies
C. Y. GUNDEM, Animal based subsistence economy of Emar during the Bronze Age
S. RIEHL, Maintenance of agricultural stability in a changing  environment - The archaeobotanical evidence at Emar
K. DECKERS, Vegetation and wood use in the Bronze Age based on  charcoals from Emar

Part III: The radiocarbon dates from Emar
P. M. GROOTES - M.-J. NADEAU, The Analyses
U. FINKBEINER, The Samples: find context and meaning for the chronology of Emar

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This paper reports preliminary findings from select re-analyses and new excavations conducted under remit of the project ‘Human Populations and Demographics in Qatar from the Neolithic to the Late Iron Age’ (performed in cooperation with Sidra Medicine, the Department of Biology of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and Qatar Museums Authority). Due to the absence of large settlements, our understanding of pre-Islamic societies in Qatar has until recently been extremely limited. However, progress in bioarchaeological research methods offers new possibilities to address this knowledge gap. Several thousand pre-Islamic burials can now be used as an important resource to elucidate the relationship between population dynamics and socio-cultural changes in pre-Islamic Qatar. In addition to analysis of previously excavated skeletal remains, new excavations can be conducted in carefully chosen cemeteries from different pre-Islamic periods, thereby allowing bioarchaeological samples to be retrieved from undisturbed burial contexts.

Archaeological studies provide a powerful tool to understand the prehistoric societies, especially when combined to cutting-edge morphological and molecular anthropological analyses, allowing reconstructing past population dynamics, admixture events, and socio-cultural changes. Despite the advances achieved in the last decades by archaeological studies worldwide, several regions of the World have been spared from this scientific improvement due to various reasons. The Arabian Gulf represents a unique ground to investigate, being the passageway for human migrations and one of the hypothesized areas in which Neanderthal introgression occurred. A number of archaeological sites are currently present in the Arabian Gulf and have witnessed the antiquity and the intensiveness of the human settlements in the region. Nevertheless, the archaeological and anthropological investigation in the Gulf is still in its infancy. Data collected through archaeological studies in the area have the potential to help answering adamant questions of human history from the beginning of the structuring of genetic diversity in human species to the Neolithisation process. This review aims at providing an overview of the archaeological studies in the Arabian Gulf with special focus to Qatar, highlighting potentialities and shortcomings.

Several thousand fragments of anthropomorphic terracotta figurines dating from the 3rd millennium BC excavated in the Middle Euphrates region have been studied and published. Only a few of the figurines represent nude females. Some fragments have been identified as belonging to a very rare type thought to depict a partially dressed female. The present contribution takes a closer look at this type, which was in danger of remaining unnoticed among the great number of more common anthropomorphic terracotta figurines from the region.

In this paper, a science-based study of ceramic wares discovered in the Old Doha Rescue Excavations (ODRE) is presented. The ODRE project, run by Qatar Museums and UCL Qatar, discovered a stratigraphic sequence running from the earliest occupation of Doha in the early nineteenth century until the most recent archaeological levels. A strategic selection of ceramic wares from this sequence was studied to shed light on the technological background and provenance of the pottery utilized in Doha between the late nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century. The petrographic study of these wares has provided insight into their mineralogical and petrological composition and their textural characteristics. The textural elements have been used to understand the technology of production of the ceramics, which come from different places around the Gulf. The identification of components has moved us a step closer to the location of places of production by matching compositions and geological backgrounds. The study of glazes with hhXRF, SEM-EDS, and optical microscopy has given us further insight on technological processes in the application of glaze. Finally, a comparison between the macroscopic and microscopic analyses carried out has been produced to shed some light on the inherent difficulties associated with the identification of wares in Gulf ceramics.