Ongoing Excavations of the Early Bronze Age Strata at Kani Shaie, Iraqi Kurdistan (2023 – 2024).
LEWIS, Michael / RENETTE, Steve / TOMÉ, André
Excavations in 2023 and 2024 at Kani Shaie, located in the Bazian Basin, Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan have continued to explore the transition between the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age (late 4th – early 3rd millennia BCE). Here, several successive phases of occupation feature large scale structures, extensive evidence for food storage as well as complex administrative devices. Alongside these was extensive archaeobotanical material, and a substantial ceramic assemblage. Taken together, these findings are beginning to provide evidence for spatial usage of these structures, and the close connections between the residents of the site, and the wider Zagros Region. The evidence collected presents exciting evidence that, following the collapse of the Uruk Phenomenon, the residents of Kani Shaie were remarkably resilient, and indeed that local dynamics survived, and even thrived. This presentation will provide an overview of the last two seasons of excavations at Kani Shaie, as well as aim to contextualise the findings within existing archaeological excavations of sites along the waterways of the Adhaim-Sirwan Basin.
Session 4. Crafting Identity and Clusters through Material Culture, Iconography and Texts [info]