The emergence of cultural identities and territorial policies in the longue durée. A view from the Zagros Piedmont

Since 2015, fieldwork in the Western Qara Dagh (Sulaymānīyah governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan) is opening up new perspectives on the dynamics of interaction between late prehistoric Southern and Northern Mesopotamia. Two sites, Girdi Qala and Logardan, are being investigated with a special focus on three main historical phenomena between 6th and 3rd millennia BC. A first major event is represented by the diffusion of the Ubaid horizon, which appears to occur as a very early process of acculturation between Halaf and Ubaid cultural entities. Then, the so-called Uruk “oikumene” is attested in the Qara Dagh, three centuries earlier than previously documented in Northern Mesopotamia, at the very beginning of the 4th millennium BC. Later, around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, the emergence of the so-called “Early Dynastic states” is documented at Logardan by the rebuilding of a monumental citadel. Architectural and ceramic data allow us to reassess these three major cultural dynamics, each of which implies specific modalities of interaction between the North and the South. This variable range of relationships shows that simplistic dichotomies between Northern and Southern people or “cultures” are misleading and ineffective. Indeed, as of the Late Prehistory, northern and southern communities have never evolved separately.