Late Chalcolithic lithic assemblage at Tell Hamoukar’s Southern Extension
Résumé
Tell Hamoukar’s Southern Extension, occupied during the late Chalcolithic 1-2 period and located in northern Mesopotamia, presents a unique early household craft-manufacturing site at a scale never before seen for the period. The large quantities of obsidian on the site, collected through both systematic survey and excavation, are unattested for this period at such distances from available source zones. In addition to the large quantities of obsidian collected, the form in which this worked obsidian was recovered attests to a major obsidian production economy that is almost entirely dependent on this stone resource for tool production. This paper discusses the nature of the Southern Extension occupation and its possible role in obsidian circulation in this period through geochemical source analyses of a sample of the worked obsidian excavated as well as through a preliminary morpho-technological study of its residents’ lithic industry.
Mots clés
Near East
Syria
Mesopotamia
Northern Mesopotamia
lithics
lithic assemblages
obsidian
obsidian source
obsidian sourcing
Geochemistry
LA-ICP-MS
Tell Hamoukar
Khirbat al-Fukhar
Bingöl
Nemrut Dag
Chalcolithic
fifth millennium BC
prehistory
exchange networks
blades
Blade debitage
pressure blades
Late Chalcolithic 2
Late Chalcolithic