Pottery jar from Late Ubaid Period

The tell (mound) of Ubaid near Ur in southern Iraq has given its name to the prehistoric chalcolithic culture which represents the earliest settlement on the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia. The Ubaid culture had a long duration beginning before 5300 BCE and lasting until the beginning of the Uruk period, circa 4000 BCE. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1815x1830, 213 KB) Summary Computer-enhanced photograph of a pottery jar on display in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (item number 1986. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1815x1830, 213 KB) Summary Computer-enhanced photograph of a pottery jar on display in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (item number 1986. ... See also Tell (poker). ... Ur seen across the Royal tombs, with the Great Ziggurat in the background, January 17, 2004 Ur was an ancient city in southern Mesopotamia, located near the original mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers on the Persian Gulf and close to Eridu. ... Prehistory (Greek words προ = before and ιστορία = history) is the period of human history prior to the advent of writing (which marks the beginning of recorded history). ... The Chalcolithic (Greek khalkos + lithos copper stone) period, also known as the Eneolithic (Aeneolithic) or Copper Age period, is a phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools. ... Alluvium is soil land deposited by a river or other running water. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Uruk period is a protohistoric sequence in the history of Mesopotamia which stretches from 4100 to 3300 BC, before the apparition of a writing system. ...

The Ubaid period is divided into three principle phases:

• Early Ubaid - sometimes called Eridu, (5300 - 4700 BCE) a phase limited to the extreme south of Iraq, on what was then the shores of the Persian Gulf. This phase, showing clear connection to the Samara culture to the north, saw the establishment of the first permanent settlement south of the 5 inch rainfall isohyet. These people pioneered the growing of grains in the extreme conditions of aridity, thanks to the high water tables of Southern Iraq.

• Middle Ubaid - sometimes called Hadji Muhammad, (4800 - 4500 BCE)after the type site of the same name, saw the development of extensive canal networks from major settlements. Irrigation agriculture, which seem to have developed first at Choga Mami (4700 - 4600 BCE) and rapidly spread elsewhere, from the first required collective effort and centralised coordination of labour.

• Later or "Classic Ubaid" - In the period from 4500 - 4000 BCE) saw a period of intense and rapid urbanisation with the Ubaid culture spread into northern Mesopotamia replacing (after a hiatus) the Halaf culture. Ubaid artefacts spread also all along the Arabian littoral, showing the growth of a trading system that stretched from the Mediterranean coast to Oman.

Ubaid culture is characterised by large village settlements, characterised by multiroomed rectangular mud-brick houses and the appearance of the first temples of public architecture in Mesopotamia, with a growth of a two tier settlement hierarchy of centralised large sites of more than 10 hectares surrounded by smaller village sites of less than 1 hectare. Domestic equipment included a destinctive fine quality buff or greenish coloured pottery decorated with geometric designs in brown or black paint; tools such as sickles were often made of hard fired clay in the south. But in the north, stone and sometimes metal were used. Eridu (or Eridug) was an ancient city seven miles southwest of Ur . ... The Samara culture was an aeneolithic or eneolithic (copper age) culture of the early 5th millenium BC at the Samara bend region of the middle Volga, discovered during archaeological excavations near the village of Syezzheye (Съезжее) in Russia. ... Isohyetal map An isohyet or isohyetal line is a line joining points of equal precipitation on a map. ... Pîrî Reîs World Map Piri Reis (originally Hadji Muhammad) (1465 – 1554) was an Ottoman admiral born around 1465, in Gallipoli on the Dardanelles. ... // Events 4860 BC - Mount Mazama in Oregon collapses, forming a caldera that later fills with water and becomes Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. ... (6th millennium BC – 5th millennium BC – 4th millennium BC – other millennia) Events 4860 BC - Mount Mazama in Oregon collapses, forming a caldera that later fills with water and becomes Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. ... (5th millennium BC – 4th millennium BC – 3rd millennium BC - other millennia) Events City of Ur in Mesopotamia (40th century BC). ... Hunting scene relief in basalt found at Tell Halaf, dated 850-830 BCE Tell Halaf is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, near the Turkish border. ... Using a sickle A sickle is a curved, hand-held agricultural tool typically used for harvesting grain crops before the advent of modern harvesting machinery. ... The Gay Head cliffs in Marthas Vineyard are made almost entirely of natural clays. ...

The Ubaid period as a whole, based upon the analysis of grave goods, was one of increasingly polarised social stratification and decreasing egalitarianism. Bogucki calls this a phase of "Trans-egalitarian" competitive household in which some falls behind as a result downward social mobility. Thus Ubaid culture would seem to be one in which Morton Fried and Elman Service have hypothesised the rise of an elite of inherited chieftains, perhaps heads of kin groups (a shiekdom?) linked in some way to the administration of the temple shrines amd their granaries, were responsible for mediating intra-group conflict and maintaining social order. It would seem that various collective methods, perhaps through what Thorkild Jacobsen called primitive democracy, in which disputes were previously resolved through a council of one's peers, were no longer sufficient to the needs of the local community. Social stratification is a sociological term for the hierarchical arrangement of social classes, castes, and strata within a society. ... Egalitarianism can refer to moral as well as factual theories. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Elman Service was a cultural anthropologist. ... This article is about the leader. ... Shaikh (شيخ, also rendered as Sheik, Shaykh or Sheikh) is a word in the Arabic language meaning an elder or a revered old man. ... The history of democracy traces back from its origins in prehistoric times to its re-emergence and rise from the 17th century to the present day. ...

The Ubaid culture was clearly intrusive into southern Iraq, though it has clear connection to earlier cultures in the region of middle Iraq. The appearance of the Ubaid folk, has sometimes been linked to the so-called Sumerian problem, related to the origins of Sumerian civilisation. Whatever the ethnic origins of this group, we here see for the first time a clear tripartitie social division between intensive subsistence peasant farmers, with crops and animals coming from the north, tent-dwelling nomadic pastoralists dependent upon their herds, and hunter-fisher folk of the Arabian littoral, living in reed huts. Sumer (or Shumer, Egyptian Sangar, Bib. ... For other uses, see Civilization (disambiguation). ...

External links

• http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Ubaid_Culture.html

References

• Nissen, Hans J. (1990) (Elizabeth Lutzeier translator) "The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000-2000 B.C." (University Of Chicago Press) ISBN 0226586588
• Mellaart, James (1975) "The Neolithic of the Near East" (Thames and Hudson) ISBN 06841448322
• Bogucki, Peter (1990) "The Origins of Human Society" (Blackwell History of the World) ISBN 1577181123