AntiquesObjects. Places. Stories.
AccessibilitySearch
עבריתEnglishРусский
English
Menu

PERIOD GUIDE · Mesopotamia

The Neolithic in Mesopotamia: from farming communities to pottery styles

The Met's timeline divides the Mesopotamian Neolithic into a Pre-Pottery phase, about 10,000-7000 BCE, and a Pottery phase, about 7000-5500 BCE. It dates the pottery styles of the north, Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf, in overlapping ranges.

Approximately 10,000-5500 BCE
2 articles and guides

Move through the periods

Its place in the Mesopotamia scheme

The whole scheme with this period marked; the periods before and after are its neighbours in the row. Boundaries follow the sources and are not to scale.

All periods and subdivisions
  1. The Neolithic in Mesopotamia10,000-5,500 BCE
  2. The Chalcolithic in Mesopotamia5,500-3,000 BCE
  3. The Early Bronze Age in Mesopotamia3,000-2,000 BCE
  4. The Middle Bronze Age in Mesopotamia2,000-1,600 BCE
  5. The Late Bronze Age in Mesopotamia1,600-1,200 BCE
  6. The early Iron Age in Mesopotamia1,200-911 BCE
  7. The Neo-Assyrian period911-612 BCE
  8. The Neo-Babylonian period626-539 BCE
  9. Achaemenid Mesopotamia539-331 BCE
  10. Macedonian and Seleucid Mesopotamia331-138 BCE
  11. Parthian Mesopotamia138 BCE - 224 CE
  12. Sasanian Mesopotamia224-637 CE
  13. Early Islamic and Abbasid Mesopotamia637-1,258 CE
  14. Mesopotamia from the Ilkhanids to the Aq Quyunlu1,258-1,508 CE

The frame

The site arranges Mesopotamia according to the Met's Heilbrunn Timeline and keeps the north and the south apart wherever the source separates them. The page for 8000-2000 BCE gives two general labels for this period: "Pre-Pottery Neolithic", about 10,000-7000 BCE, and "Pottery Neolithic", about 7000-5500 BCE. Its overview says that by 8000 BCE agricultural communities were already established in northern Mesopotamia. For the north the source lists the Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf periods; for the south it has no entry before the Ubaid period. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

The northern periods do not follow one another: Samarra is dated about 7000-6300 BCE and Hassuna about 6900-6500 BCE, so they overlap, and Halaf, about 6500-5500 BCE, runs to the end of the period. In the south the Ubaid period begins about 6200 BCE, that is, still within the range of this page, but the site presents it in the Chalcolithic, where most of its range lies. The key events overlap too: the polychrome painting of the Samarra and Halaf styles appears in the event of 6000-5000 BCE, which crosses 5500 BCE and is later than the end of the Samarra period in the list. Source 1.

On this site

Two articles are placed in this period. "Jarmo: what counts as evidence of domestication" looks at the sentence in which the source places, about 8000-7000 BCE, the first evidence of domesticated grains and animals, and separates the two claims it contains. "Hassuna: a pottery style named after a site" looks at an incised, lightly fired pottery style and at the difference between a style name and a place of manufacture. Both rest on the same timeline page; the site has no item yet from southern Mesopotamia in this period, and no dated museum object has been added to it. Source 1.

Source

Sources and further reading

The research and references behind this page. Rights to external content remain with their owners.

  1. 1 Mesopotamia, 8000-2000 B.C. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Chronology)

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Checked

Related periods, objects and places

Period

The Chalcolithic in Mesopotamia: from Ubaid to Uruk

Approximately 5500-3000 BCE

Reading, accessibility & privacy tools

Adjust the reading experience to suit you. These tools complement your browser and device accessibility settings. Changes apply to this page; they are kept for another visit only if you allowed that in the privacy dialog.