Northern Iraq is particularly rich in archaeological sites, some of which have been occupied for thousands of years, sometimes since prehistoric times.
The first sedentary communities
Around 12,000 BC, at the end of the last ice age, the warming climate favoured the development of the first-known long-term sedentary settlements in the crescent-shaped area traditionally known as the Fertile Crescent, which covers Northern Iraq in particular. The oldest known villages have been found there.
Some four thousand years later, this area also saw the gradual emergence of a new economy known as the Neolithic, combining agriculture and husbandry of gradually domesticated animals. The appearance of ceramics around 7000 BC has made it possible, thanks to the varied decorations and shapes of the vessels, to distinguish more clearly between groups of village communities who shared a common culture and integrated into exchange networks that grew over time.
Yarim Tepe
The prehistoric collections of the Mosul Cultural Museum, located on the mezzanine level, displayed artefacts from these prehistoric periods. When the museum closed in 2003, these collections were transferred to Baghdad, with the exception of a Neolithic oven from the site of Yarim Tepe, which remains in the museum today. This site, dating from the 5th and 6th millennia BC, was excavated by a Russian team in the 1970s and yielded remains documenting the lifestyles of Neolithic people, their dwellings and their everyday tools, both stone and metal. The kiln preserved in the Mosul Cultural Museum is also one of the first witnesses to the mastery of ceramic firing at such an ancient period.
Hassuna
Many other sites in the Mosul region document the long Neolithic period. At Hassuna, for example, an Iraqi team from the General Directorate of Antiquities in the 1940s demonstrated the existence of a village culture dating back to the end of the 7th millennium. It was recognisable by its rather coarse ceramics, most often decorated with incised geometric motifs, sometimes painted in reddish-brown.
Arpachiyah
At Arpachiyah, British and Iraqi excavators researched the so-called Halaf and Ubaid ceramic cultures, dating from the 6th and 5th millennia BC. The Halaf culture, extending over a vast area from the Mediterranean to the Zagros foothills, is known for its beautiful ceramics decorated with floral and geometric motifs. These have been found in small villages of circular houses, which sometimes had corridor annexes, next to quadrangular houses.
Tepe Gawra
At Tepe Gawra, an American team uncovered evidence of village communities organised into chiefdoms dating from the 5th millennium BC and characteristic of the so-called Ubaid culture, recognisable by its ceramics — with geometric and animal motifs painted in brown on a light background. Although it remained village-based, the Ubaid culture went beyond the stage of the first inward-looking communities to gradually establish the foundations of a new hierarchical society characterised by increasing long-distance exchanges.
