TEPE GAWK A SPEISER 421 



EARLY GAWRA 



The first settlers established themselves at Gawra at some early 

 stao:e of the fifth millennium B.C. This general date is obtained 

 by counting back from the established age of Gawra VI, which 

 starts, as we shall see, at about 3000 B.C. The six strata from Gawra 

 VI to Gawra I cover a span of 15 centuries. From Gawra VI down 

 to the lowest layer the number of occupations is considerably larger. 

 It is certainly not less than 10, probably more; a definite number 

 cannot be given before virgin soil has been reached. At any rate, two 

 millennia will be considered a conservative estimate for the duration 

 of the settlements prior to Gawra VI. To come back to the earliest 

 inhabitants, on present evidence they may be said to have made ex- 

 tensive use of painted pottery. There may exist still lower layers, 

 not reached by our trial trenches, in which the pottery will prove to 

 be undecorated. That reservation must be made. But the earliest 

 settlers whose remains we have discovered specialized in painted 

 wares. Their weapons and implements were made of flint, and of 

 obsidian imported from the Armenian mountains. A certain 

 amount of commercial travel is thus clearly established for this 

 remote archaic period. 



Who were these pioneer settlers, and from what district did they 

 arrive to take up habitation in the Middle Tigris valley? The 

 question is not merely one of local interest. The answer will apply 

 to the first inhabitants of Mesopotamia as a whole, for related re- 

 mains have been found recently in other sites of comparable antiq- 

 uity, in Lower Mesopotamia as well as in the region of Nineveh. 

 That is, when an answer is at length obtained. For the present it 

 is a matter of much dispute.^ The probability is that these visitors 

 came in from, or by way of, the neighboring mountains of Kurdistan 

 or Western Persia. Certain it is that the painted pottery technique 

 maintained itself through manj^ occupations. In the subsequent 

 stages of Gawra we find parallels with the fabrics of Tell el-Obeid 

 (near Ur) early Susa, Baluchistan, and even Neolithic China. By 

 that time, however, many diverse influences were evidently at work. 

 It is not necessary to assume that the racial stock remained the same 

 merely because the people continued to decorate their pottery with 

 painted designs, nor would such an assumption be plausible on the 

 face of it. If we group together the makers of these early civiliza- 

 tions on the basis of the general resemblances of their wares, it is 

 solely because criteria for a finer differentiation are not available 

 just now. In course of time we shall be able to analyze this com- 

 posite picture into its component elements. We shall then know 

 more about the human characteristics behind these very ancient 



*For literature on the subject see Amer. Journ. Archaeol., vol 37, pp. 455— JG6, 1933. 



