The meanings of late Neolithic stamp seals in North Mesopotamia
The late Neolithic of North Mesopotamia has long been held up as the first example of a âglobalâ culture with aspects of shared material culture, most notably pottery styles and subsistence strategies, spread across North Mesopotamia, the Northern Levant, and parts of south-east Anatolia. Increasing research in the past twenty years has illustrated that the material similarities visible in the late Neolithic do not represent a closed cultural community, but instead reflect a network of loosely connected groups who were members of imagined communities that linked people within shared cosmologies. Since their discovery in the early decades of the twentieth century stamp seals have been treated as a type artefact of the late Neolithic (particularly one of its constituent parts the Halaf) where they have been used to argue for the presence of sealing systems based around administrative storage of personal or communal property and possibly trade relations. However, except for a thesis published in 1990, late Neolithic stamp seals have never been comprehensively studied or interpreted primarily within their own context. Instead previous studies of stamp seals have tied stamp seals into a modernist narrative
Denham, Simon
Late Neolithic  ; North Mesopotamia ; Middle East ; Middle Eastern Archaeology ; 7th Millennium BC ; 6th Millennium BC ; Stamp Seals ; Prototype Theory ; Symbolism ; Identity ; Archaeology ; Semiotics ; Halaf ; Pottery Neolithic ; Classification
The meanings of late Neolithic stamp seals in North Mesopotamia. The late Neolithic of North Mesopotamia has long been held up as the first example of a âglobalâ culture with aspects of shared material culture, most notably pottery styles and subsistence strategies, spread across North Mesopotamia, the Northern Levant, and parts of south-east Anatolia. Increasing research in the past twenty years has illustrated that the material similarities visible in the late Neolithic do not represent a closed cultural community, but instead reflect a network of loosely connected groups who were members of imagined communities that linked people within shared cosmologies. Since their discovery in the early decades of the twentieth century stamp seals have been treated as a type artefact of the late Neolithic (particularly one of its constituent parts the Halaf) where they have been used to argue for the presence of sealing systems based around administrative storage of personal or communal property and possibly trade relations. However, except for a thesis published in 1990, late Neolithic stamp seals have never been comprehensively studied or interpreted primarily within their own context. Instead previous studies of stamp seals have tied stamp seals into a modernist narrative
meaning late_neolithic stamp seal north_mesopotamia late_neolithic north_mesopotamia long hold first example global culture aspect share material_culture notably pottery_style subsistence_strategy spread_across north_mesopotamia northern_levant part south_east anatolia increasing illustrate material similarity visible late_neolithic represent close cultural community instead reflect network loosely connect group member imagine community link people within share cosmology since discovery stamp seal treat type artefact late_neolithic particularly constituent_part use argue presence seal system base_around administrative storage personal communal property possibly trade relation however except publish late_neolithic stamp seal never comprehensively study interpret primarily within_context instead previous_study stamp seal tie stamp seal modernist narrative