An excavation at Tell Brak, Syria, reveals charred cereals from the Early Bronze Age. A new study, led by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC-CERCA) and the University of Michigan, offers insights into farming strategies, trade dynamics, and water management in this ancient urban center.
Diffey C, Emberling G, Bogaard A, Charles M. 2024 “Cropping the Margins”: New Evidence for Urban Agriculture at Mid-3rd Millenium B.C.E. Tell Brak, Syria. Iraq. 2024:1-28. doi:10.1017/irq.2023.3
Abstract
The excavation of a large administrative building at the city of Tell Brak in northern Syria saw the recovery of a considerable quantity of charred cereals dated to the mid-third millennium B.C.E. This remarkable discovery provides a rare snapshot into the nature of agriculture in Upper Mesopotamia during the Early Bronze Age. The material has been studied using a combination of primary archaeobotanical analysis, crop stable isotope determinations, and functional weed ecology to deliver new insights into cultivation strategies at Tell Brak as well as to contribute to the wider debate regarding trade and crop importation in this region. Specific crop regime choices also reveal how the farmers of Tell Brak were able to reduce the overall risk of crop failure by careful water management, a vitally important factor in this semi-arid region, with potential implications for the analysis of other large-scale urban agro-economies in the Middle East and beyond.
Acknowledgements
The archaeobotanical work reported here was funded by the European Research Council (AGRICURB project, grant 312785, PI A. Bogaard) and awards from the Wolfson-Marriot-Archaeology-Graduate Scholarship, the Royal Pinner School and the Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust to C. Diffey for graduate study at Oxford. The authors would like to thank Helen McDonald for access to this archaeobotanical assemblage as well as Elizabeth Stroud and Amy Styring for assistance with the stable isotope work.
