Rethinking Halaf and Ubaid animal economies: Hunting and Herding at Tell Zeidan (Syria)

This study re-evaluates current models of Halaf and northern Ubaid subsistence strategies in light of new faunal data recovered from Tell Zeidan, a prehistoric settlement at the confluence of the Balikh and Euphrates rivers in Northern Syria. Our data indicates that a major shift in the animal economy at Zeidan took place between the Halaf and Ubaid periods. The Halaf period faunal assemblage from Tell Zeidan includes more than 50% wild game. Faunal data from other Halaf sites show that, while a heavy reliance on wild game was common, Zeidan was the only large, permanent settlement with a faunal assemblage that included more than 50% wild game. During the Ubaid period, the animal economy at Zeidan shifted to focus on the exploitation of domesticated taxa (90% of the assemblage), an intensifi cation probably driven by population increase at the site. This increasing use of domesticates does not, however, appear to have been a regional trend, as many Ubaid settlements continued to exploit high percentages of wild game. This study of faunal remains from Tell Zeidan presents a valuable new corpus of zooarchaeological data from a large, permanent settlement in Northern Mesopotamia and provides useful insights into changing regional patterns of animal exploitation during the Halaf and Ubaid periods.