Pottery making and knowledge transmission in early complex societies of Northern Mesopotamia

Pottery making and knowledge transmission in late prehistoric Northern Mesopotamia: a case study from the Balikh Valley, Syria (late 6th to 4th millennia BC). This research investigates the Ubaid and Late Chalcolithic 1-2 (ca. 5300 – 3900 BC) ceramics from the Balikh Valley, modern northern Syria, in order to gain a deeper understanding of pottery technology and related contexts of knowledge transmission within the region. A chaîne opératoire approach coupled with archaeometric analyses will be applied to the study of selected pottery assemblages from the Valley to reconstruct how those vessels were made at different sites, how their production was organized in relation to the physical and social landscape, and how did artisanal skills and technical knowledge travel across space and time.