Archaeology in the Land of Carchemish: landscape surveys in the area of Jerablus Tahtani, 2006

Abstract

The first season of survey around the site of Tell Jerablus Tahtani, conducted in March and April 2006, demonstrated the existence of occupations from the Neolithic to the Early Islamic period. Tell Jerablus Tahtani was fringed to the west by a lower settlement of Late Uruk and early third millennium BC date, at which time settlement was also evident at Tell Sha'ir to the west and at Duluk near the junction with the Sajour. Tells formed the main mode of occupation during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, but this pattern of occupation broke down during the Hellenistic through Late Antique periods when a more dispersed pattern of rural settlements and small towns developed. The landscape became progressively more “busy” during the Hellenistic through Late Antique periods, when the presence of conduits, canals and other landscape features attest to both increasingly intensive and extensive systems of land use.