Regionalised Trajectories and Socio-Political Transformations in the late 4th - early 3rd millennia BCE in Mesopotamia.

Project Information

TRANSFORM

Grant agreement ID: 101108815

DOI

10.3030/101108815

Project closed

EC signature date 17 April 2023

Start date 2 October 2023

End date 1 October 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 156 778,56

Coordinated by

UNIVERSIDADE DE COIMBRA
Portugal

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRANSFORM (Regionalised Trajectories and Socio-Political Transformations in the late 4th - early 3rd millennia BCE in Mesopotamia.)

Reporting period: 2023-10-02 to 2025-10-01

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

TRANSFORM was designed to address a major gap in our understanding of how communities experienced and adapted to the socio-political transformations that unfolded between the Late Chalcolithic (LC) and Early Bronze Age (EBA) in northern Mesopotamia. This period is one traditionally characterised through a narrative of “collapse” and remains poorly understood in the Zagros foothills due to a lack of long-term, stratified datasets and limited archaeological science-based investigations. The archaeological site of Kani Shaie provides one of the rare continuous occupation sequences spanning the LC-EBA transition in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, offering an unparalleled context for reconstructing technological practices, social organisation, and resilience during a time of regional fragmentation and reconfiguration. Against this backdrop, TRANSFORM’s prime objective was to integrate ceramic analysis, archaeological science, and anthropological theory to reconstruct pottery production, resource use, technological knowledge, and everyday practices as indicators of social and economic change.


Through combining archaeological science, macroscopic analysis of ceramics, archaeological excavation and analysis of the chaîne opératoire, the project applies a thoroughly interdisciplinary methodology. This integration allows technological choices, production organisation, and culinary practices to be interpreted not merely as material data, but as expressions of individual or group-based identity, knowledge transmission, adaptation, and community-level decision-making. In doing so, the project situates past technological behaviour within broader questions of resilience, transformation, and human agency.

The expected impact of TRANSFORM is significant: it establishes the first comprehensive, high-resolution ceramic technological sequence for the LC-EBA in Kurdistan, thus refining regional ceramic chronologies. It provides a comprehensive dataset which challenges long-standing narratives of collapse and contributes to heritage preservation and international research collaboration. Project scientific results will support future comparative studies across southwest Asia, while the project’s methodological integration sets a model for interdisciplinary archaeological research. Ultimately TRANSFORM generates new knowledge that enhances our understanding of how ancient societies negotiated periods of instability and therefore provides insights relevant not only to archaeology, but to contemporary discussions of resilience, cultural heritage, and long-term human adaptation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

TRANSFORM investigated the Late Chalcolithic (LC) to Early Bronze Age (EBA) transition in Mesopotamia, with a focus on ceramic production, technological innovation, and social adaptation during times of significant societal and political change.
In terms of scientific activities, TRANSFORM has explored or achieved:

• Pottery Documentation: Over 5,000 sherds from the archaeological site of Kani Shaie have been fully documented, recording more than 30 variables per sherd, supported by several hundred pages of ceramic drawings. This dataset represents one of the largest and most detailed ceramic corpora for this period in Mesopotamia.
• Technological Analysis: Reconstruction of the pottery chaîne opératoire seems to distinguish the presence of both household production and also specialist pottery production, as well as identification of new production techniques emerging at the dawn of the EBA.
• Compositional Analysis: Collaborative analysis of INAA demonstrates predominantly local pottery production with minimal evidence of imports of ceramics to the site. All ceramics were also recorded using a DInoLite micro-USB with future petrographic analysis scheduled to confirm visual identification of key minerals, rock fragments and temper choices.
• Organic Residue Analysis: GC-MS analysis of was initiated and will continue to explore change or continuity in LC-EBA culinary practices at the site across the LC-EB transition.
• Fieldwork: As Assistant Co-Director at Kani Shaie, continued excavation during the fellowship revealed multiple architectural phases, including monumental buildings, continuous occupation across the LC-EBA transition, and an extensive, regionally significant ceramic dataset.


TRANSFORM's key achievements are as follows:
• Completion of one of the largest and most detailed ceramic datasets for the LC-EBA transition in Mesopotamia to date.
• Reconstruction of the pottery production sequence, arguably providing evidence for household ceramic production, complemented by more specialist ceramic production. The recognition of new production recipes at the dawn of the EBA is also significant.
• (Ongoing) development and presentation of compositional and residue anaçysis datasets providing new insights into local production, interregional exchange, and culinary practice.
• Documentation of ceramics associated with complex architectural sequences, demonstrating continuous occupation and adaptation, challenging alternative assumptions of this period representing one of societal collapse.
• Testing of an integrated interdisciplinary methodology encorporating archaeological excavation, ceramic typology, petrography, geochemistry, and residue analysis.
• Creation of robust data and preliminary findings that underpin several forthcoming high-impact publications.

To summarise therefore, TRANSFORM has delivered and indeed will continue to deliver significant results for the archaeological community through its combination of archaeological excavation, high-resolution ceramic documentation, and archaeological science. The project has generated new insights into technological innovation, craft specialisation, and social resilience during the LC-EBA transition, providing a strong foundation for ongoing and future research outputs.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

TRANSFORM has contributed significantly to furthering our understanding of the LC-EBA transition in Mesopotamia, in particular in regard to pottery production, technological innovation and choice, and human adaptation to socio-political change.

Regarding the results beyond the state of the art, a few things are required to ensure further uptake and success overall for the project:

1) Completion of the petrographic and GC-MS analyses are required to complete the technical characterisation of pottery and provide definitive interpretations of production techniques and culinary practice.
2) Dissemination to the archaeological community is ongoing. The publication of the stratigraphic, ceramic, and analytical results is essential to fully integrate TRANSFORM findings into regional and comparative archaeological scholarship. These publications are outlined within the Final Report and will be attained through a carefully designed future publication plan.
3) International collaboration and continued partnerships with (inter)national laboratories and researchers will facilitate high-quality peer reviewed publication across a range of different articles.
4) The dataset generated through TRANSFORM provides a foundation for subsequent research projects, comparative studies across Mesopotamia, and training of early-career researchers.