In South Mesopotamia the period is the earliest known period on the
alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the
alluvium.[3] In the south it has a very long duration between about 5500 and 3800 BC when it is replaced by the
Uruk period.[1]
The term "Ubaid period" was coined at a conference in Baghdad in 1930, where at the same time the
Jemdet Nasr and
Uruk periods were defined.[4]
Dating, extent and periodization
The Ubaid period is divided into six phases, styles, and/or periods:
Ubaid 0 (alternatively: the Oueili style;
c. 6500 – c. 5400 BC) is an Early Ubaid style first excavated at
Tell el-'Oueili.[5][6]
Ubaid 1 (alternatively: the Ubaid I, Early Ubaid, or Eridu style;
c. 5400 – c. 4700 BC) is a style centered at
Tell Abu Shahrain and limited to southern Iraq—on what was then the shores of the
Persian gulf. This style—showing clear connection to the
Samarra culture to the north—saw the establishment of the first permanent settlement south of the
five-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.[7][5][6]
Ubaid 2 (alternatively: the Ubaid II or Hadji Muhammed style;
c. 4800 – c. 4500 BC) is the style centered at
Hadji Muhammed that saw the development of extensive
canal networks from major settlements. Irrigation agriculture (which seems to have developed first at
Choga Mami and rapidly spread elsewhere) was pioneered by farmers who may have also brought with them elements of the Samarran culture from the first required collective effort and centralized coordination of labor.[8][5][6]
Ubaid 3 (alternatively: the Ubaid III style;
c. 5300 – c. 4700 BC) ceramics have been discovered at the
type site for which the period is named after: Tell al-'Ubaid. The appearance of these ceramics received different dates depending on the particular
archaeological sites, which have a wide geographical distribution. In recent studies; there's a tendency to narrow this period somewhat.[5][6]
Ubaid 4 (alternatively: the Ubaid IV or Late Ubaid style;
c. 4700 – c. 4200 BC)[5][9][6][10]
Ubaid 5 (alternatively: the Ubaid V or Terminal Ubaid style;
c. 4200 – c. 3800 BC)[6]
During the late Ubaid period around 4500–4000 BC, there was some increase in social polarization, with central houses in the settlements becoming bigger. But there were no real cities until the later
Uruk period.
The Ubaid culture and contemporary cultures circa 5000 BC
During the Ubaid 2 and 3 periods (5500–5000 BC), southern Mesopotamian Ubaid influence is felt further to the south along the coast of the
Persian Gulf.
Kuwait was the central site of interaction between the peoples of Mesopotamia and Neolithic
Eastern Arabia,[20][21][22][23][24] including
Bahra 1 and
site H3 in
Subiya.[20][25][26][27] Ubaid artifacts spread also all along the Arabian
littoral, showing the growth of a trading system that stretched from the Mediterranean coast through to Oman.[28][29]
Spreading from
Eridu, the Ubaid culture extended from the Middle of the Tigris and Euphrates to the shores of the
Persian Gulf, and then spread down past
Bahrain to the copper deposits at
Oman.
Obsidian trade
Starting around 5500 BC, Ubaid pottery of periods 2 and 3 has been documented at
site H3 in Kuwait and in
Dosariyah in eastern Saudi Arabia.
In Dosariyah, nine samples of Ubaid-associated
obsidian were analyzed. They came from eastern and northeastern
Anatolia, such as from
Pasinler, Erzurum, as well as from
Armenia. The obsidian was in the form of finished blade fragments.[30]
Decline of influence
The archaeological record shows that Arabian Bifacial/Ubaid period came to an abrupt end in eastern Arabia and the Oman peninsula at 3800 BC, just after the phase of lake lowering and onset of dune reactivation.[31] At this time, increased aridity led to an end in semi-desert nomadism, and there is no evidence of human presence in the area for approximately 1,000 years, the so-called "Dark Millennium".[32] The increased aridity might have been due to the
5.9 kiloyear event at the end of the
Older Peron.[31]
Numerous examples of Ubaid pottery have been found along the Persian Gulf, as far as
Dilmun, where
Indus Valley civilization pottery has also been found.[33]
Description
Ubaid culture is characterized by large unwalled village settlements, multi-roomed 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 centralized large sites of more than 10 hectares surrounded by smaller village sites of less than 1 hectare. Domestic equipment included a distinctive fine quality buff or greenish colored pottery decorated with geometric designs in brown or black paint. Tools such as
sickles were often made of hard fired
clay in the south, while in the north stone and sometimes metal were used. Villages thus contained specialised craftspeople, potters, weavers and metalworkers, although the bulk of the population were agricultural labourers, farmers and seasonal pastoralists.
During the Ubaid Period (5000–4000 BC), the movement towards urbanization began. "Agriculture and animal husbandry [domestication] were widely practiced in sedentary communities".[34] There were also tribes that practiced domesticating animals as far north as Turkey, and as far south as the
Zagros Mountains.[34] The Ubaid period in the south was associated with intensive irrigated
hydraulic agriculture, and the use of the plough, both introduced from the north, possibly through the earlier
Choga Mami,
Hadji Muhammed and
Samarra cultures.
The Ubaid period as a whole, based upon the analysis of
grave goods, was one of increasingly polarized
social stratification and decreasing
egalitarianism. Bogucki describes this as a phase of "Trans-egalitarian" competitive households, in which some fall behind as a result of downward
social mobility.
Morton Fried and
Elman Service have hypothesised that Ubaid culture saw the rise of an elite class of hereditary
chieftains, perhaps heads of kin groups linked in some way to the administration of the temple shrines and their granaries, responsible for mediating intra-group conflict and maintaining social order. It would seem that various collective methods, perhaps instances of what
Thorkild Jacobsen called
primitive democracy, in which disputes were previously resolved through a council of one's peers, were no longer sufficient for the needs of the local community.
Ubaid culture originated in the south, but still has clear connections 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
Sumeriancivilisation. Whatever the ethnic origins of this group, this culture saw for the first time a clear tripartite 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.
Stein and Özbal describe the Near East
oecumene that resulted from Ubaid expansion, contrasting it to the colonial expansionism of the later
Uruk period. "A contextual analysis comparing different regions shows that the Ubaid expansion took place largely through the peaceful spread of an ideology, leading to the formation of numerous new indigenous identities that appropriated and transformed superficial elements of Ubaid material culture into locally distinct expressions."[35]
The earliest evidence for
sailing has been found in
Kuwait indicating that sailing was known by the Ubaid 3 period.[9]
There is some evidence of warfare during the Ubaid period although it is extremely rare. The
"Burnt Village" at Tell Sabi Abyad could be suggestive of destruction during war but it could also have been due to other causes, such as wildfire or accident. Ritual burning is also possible since the bodies inside were already dead by the time they were burned. A mass grave at
Tepe Gawra contained 24 bodies apparently buried without any funeral rituals, possibly indicating it was a mass grave from violence. Copper weapons were also present in the form of arrow heads and sling bullets, although these could have been used for other purpose; two clay pots recovered from the era have decorations showing arrows used for the purpose of hunting. A copper axe head was made in the late Ubaid period, which could have been a tool or a weapon.[36]
Stamp seal and modern impression: horned animal and bird; 6th–5th millennium
Late Ubaid–Middle Gawra; drop-shaped (tanged) pendant seal and modern impression with quadrupeds, not entirely reduced to geometric shapes;
c. 4500 – c. 3500 BC; Northern Mesopotamia; Metropolitan Museum of Art
^
abcCarter 2006a, p.
2: "Radiometric data suggest that the whole Southern Mesopotamian Ubaid period, including Ubaid 0 and 5, is of immense duration, spanning nearly three millennia from about 6500 to 3800 B.C."
^Carter, Robert (2002). "Ubaid-period boat remains from As-Sabiyah: excavations by the British Archaeological Expedition to Kuwait". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 32: 13–30.
JSTOR41223721.
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