Development of water management strategies in southern Mesopotamia during the fourth and third millennium B.C.E.

The last two decades witnessed increasing scholarly interest in the history of water management in southern Mesopotamia. Thanks to many geoarchaeological research projects conducted throughout the central and southern Iraqi floodplains, a general understanding of the macrophases of anthropogenic manipulation of this vast hydraulic landscape has been achieved. However, current narratives mostly rely on studies at a regional scale and are based on excessively long chronological phases (often spanning a whole millennium). A finer-tuned analysis at a submillennial scale is needed to better appreciate the dynamics that led to the development of artificial canals and irrigation systems and the creation of harbours in cities and other navigation-related facilities. The Iraqi-Italian QADIS project is addressing this issue through a systematic geoarchaeological investigation in the south-eastern area of the Qadisiyah province. We aim to update the current narrative by analysing case studies involving specific periods of occupation. We performed 17 boreholes to propose a date on the functioning period of the hydraulic works in five selected archaeological sites of this region. This approach allowed us to understand changes in water management strategies in both the short and the medium term (i.e., on a scale of centuries). In this paper, we present the results for the fourth and third millennia B.C.E. This period witnessed a crucial passage from the basic exploitation of natural watercourses for irrigation and occasional navigation to the emergence of the first system of artificial canals and intraurban harbours.     

公元前第3千纪初两河流域的大洪水

历史记载,考古证据及古气候研究一致表明在公元前第3千纪初,即3000 BC以后,在两河流域有一个洪水时期.大洪水的历史记载最早见于<旧约圣经>,19世纪考古发现亚述泥版及苏美尔泥版中也有大洪水的记载.古气候代用资料也支持公元前第3千纪初两河流域发生过洪水的结论.       

The Place Names of the Middle East Before and After Ptolemaic Cartography: An Emblematic Selection from Ancient Maps

The cultural gap between Europe and Asia (at first political and then religious) saw an increase with the spread of Islam, which, to the European imagination, was synonymous with ‘foreign’. This separation grew after the discovery of America (1492) with the loss of the central commercial position of the Mediterranean reducing the level of contact between the countries of its basin. Traces of these changes can be recognized on historic Western maps in the transformation of their toponyms (place names). Through a comparative cartographic analysis, this paper examines some of the key changes and phases that occurred during the era.     

Disentangling late quaternary fluvial and climatic drivers of palaeohydrological change in the Najaf Sea basin,Western Iraq

The water resource provided by lake basins in the western desert of Iraq is important for human occupation of areas outside the Tigris-Euphrates floodplain, both in the past and into the future. This paper presents the first geomorphological and geochronological study of the date of formation of the Najaf Sea and the only such study of any lake basin to the west of Mesopotamia. Geomorphological shoreline features and a palaeochannel linking to the Euphrates were studied and dated using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon dating. Provenance was determined using heavy mineral analysis. Past environments in the Najaf Sea were reconstructed by molluscan analysis. The earliest OSL ages date from c. 30 000 and 22 000 years ago and seem to predate lake formation. Younger OSL ages date the highest lake level at c. 19 m asl to between 1620–1760 AD (base) to 1906–1974 AD (near surface). The radiocarbon ages are affected by a freshwater reservoir effect, but the maximum ages recorded for either of the c. 15 m and c. 17 m asl shorelines are c. 800 cal. BC. This predates the first archaeological sites in the Najaf basin and is similar to maximum ages of c. 850 and c. 1100 cal. BC from the associated palaeochannel. This timing does not seem to be linked to a humid climate event. We therefore conclude that the establishment of the Najaf Sea in the Najaf basin occurred as a result of an avulsion event within the Euphrates system that diverted flow to the basin. The trigger for this avulsion event likely related to rapid sediment accumulation and may have been either autogenic or driven by human activity. This study therefore suggests that Najaf Sea formation facilitated human expansion beyond the Tigris- Euphrates floodplain and occurred due to avulsion of the Euphrates.