Tracing Transitions and Connecting Communities in the Archaeology of Southwest Asia

Claudia Glatz is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests centre around the material production as well as resistance against early states and empires at both the landscape scale and through material culture. She is the author of numerous journal articles on the subject as well as the monograph The Making of Empire in Bronze Age Anatolia (CUP, 2020). She currently directs the Sirwan Regional Project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which combines regional survey, excavations, and cultural heritage initiatives. A first monograph summarising this work was recently published (Sidestone Press 2024: Place, Encounter, and the Making of Communities) Mónica Palmero Fernández has a PhD in archaeology from the University of Reading. Between 2019 and 2022, she was Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. She also served as Secretary of RASHID International between 2020 and 2025. Her research focuses on the interrelation between gender and the construction of power in antiquity, as well as the intersection of ethics, equitable research collaborations and the impacts of archaeology on society and the wider environment. She currently works at the University of Oxford in research strategy and policy. Amy Richardson is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, developing integrated digital and scientific approaches to clay bureaucratic objects. After completing her PhD at Reading, she was CZAP Project Manager, Wainwright Fellow at the University of Oxford, and MENTICA Project Assistant Director. Her research integrates material science and network analysis to examine prehistoric communities. Michael Seymour is Associate Curator in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He completed his PhD at University College London and worked at the British Museum in the Department of the Middle East before joining The Met in 2011. His research has focused on the later reception and representation of ancient Southwestern Asia, particularly the city of Babylon, the early history of archaeology in Iraq, and Mesopotamian art of the first millennium BCE and early centuries CE.

• ForewordAuthor BiographiesSelected Publications by Roger Matthews1. Devolving Early Neolithic community ecology: animal connections and interactions at Bestansur, Iraq Robin Bendrey2. “If only those jaws could move”. A narrative of Building 1 at ÇatalhöyükIan Hodder3. Beyond subsistence: new perspectives on Sialk North village, 6000-4900 BCEHassan Fazeli Nashli, Javad Hussainzadeh and Jebraeil Nokandeh4. Cities, symbols and deities: ancient and modern constructions of political power in Late Chalcolithic southern IraqMónica Palmero Fernández5. Washing hands and feet? Personal hygiene at Abu Salabikh (and further north)Nicholas Postgate6. To change, or not to change… Transitional glyptic styles in ED II Fara / Šuruppak and their relation to officialdomAdelheid Otto7. Two Babylonian beakers and an unpublished report on excavations at Ur in 1858John Curtis8. How high were the walls of Mesopotamia?John MacGinnis9. Large-scale pottery production at Middle Bronze Age QatnaDaniele Morandi Bonacossi10. The beads from the Achaemenid period of the archaeological site of Barikot, Swat Valley, northern Pakistan (c. 500-350 BCE): a preliminary typological studyMubariz Ahmed RabbaniInterlude 1: Roger’s deconstruction seminarBirger Ekornåsvåg Helgestad11. Human-environmental interactions in the Zagros region from the Epipalaeolithic to the Neolithic period: key debates and issuesMaria Rabbani12. Still mind the gap: a note on the ‘missing millennium’ between the Late Epipaleolithic and the Transitional Neolithic in the Central ZagrosHojjat Darabi13. The walking dead: a brief view on the mobility of mortuary remains and practices in the Neolithic central Zagros and adjacent regionsJudith Thomalsky14. Rural fortitude at Çadır Höyük: the 5.9 and 5.2 kya climate events on the Anatolian plateauMadelynn von Baeyer, Sharon R. Steadman and Benjamin Arbuckle15. Commensality, ritual and the making of transtopographic communitiesClaudia Glatz16. Ancient neighbourhoodsAlessandra Salvin17. “Alas the destroyed city!” A search for private houses of the Ur III period at UrElizabeth Stone and Paul Zimansky18. Thinking through and beyond the hinterland: towards a critical archaeology of rural settlements in Western AsiaChristoph Bachhuber19. Hilltop forts and pasture control: the spatial organisation of the semi-nomadic communities in the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age South CaucasusGuido Guarducci20. Archaeology of the recent past in mountainous Kurdistan: Kani Gund villageKarel Nováček, Lenka Starková and Hemin Naman KawesInterlude 2. A person of influence: in gratitude and admiration to Prof. Roger MatthewsRozhen Kamal Mohammed-Amin21. East India Company diplomats and antiquarians in early nineteenth-century IraqMichael Seymour22. Partialities, priorities and unintended glimpses of the archaeological process: a review of the site reports of the British excavations at CarchemishLisa Cooper23. Reverting to the Fertile Crescent: the story of the CZAP project 2008Yaghoub Mohammadifar with Leila Ghanbari24. Leading transitions in research excavations: impacts of the excavations at Neolithic BestansurAmy Richardson and Kamal Raeuf Aziz25. Decolonising knowledge-making on Iraq: a conversation with Zahra AliAlesia Koush