An alternative situation arises, when an
important building or civic lay out is encountered, of the sort which may
afterwards need to be preserved as an archaeological monument. In this case,
the excavation will merely be extended to cover as much as is required of the
stratum concerned, and if a strati graphical sounding to a greater depth is
required, it will be made elsewhere.
However, to return to the creation and
development of mounds themselves, it would be a mistake to think that the
process is always as simple and straightforward as that already described. A
wide variety of circumstances may serve to disrupt their symmetry and
complicate their stratification.
For instance, the diminishing living space
at the summit or a sudden increase in the settlement’s population may cause the
focus of occupation to move away from its original center. In order to make
this clear, we may at this point enumerate some of the principal variations of
the theme of anatomical development, which are to be found, particularly in
Mesopotamian mounds.
Orthodox sequence
As a point of departure then, let us take
the orthodox sequence of developments illustrated in the upper part of Fig. 1.
This diagram represents the habitation of a village community with a static
population. The superimposed remains of five principal occupations have
gradually created a small artificial hill: but as the site of the village rose
in level, the building space on the summit became more and more restricted by
the sloping sides of the mound.
It may well have been for this reason that
the place was eventually abandoned. In any case, after the inhabitants of the
fifth settlement had departed, the ruins of their houses were molded by the
weather to form the peak of a symmetrical tumulus. Vegetation started to grow
upon it, and soon all traces of occupation had disappeared beneath a shallow
mantle of humus soil.
The second and third diagrams in Fig. I
both illustrate cases where the focus of occupation has shifted. The former
represents a phenomenon, which we shall later have an opportunity of studying
in detail at a particular site tell Hassuna in northern Iraq, which will
provide a perfect example.
I in the diagram, after five principal
periods of occupation, a small mound has been formed in a maimed exactly
similar to that in the previous instance. However, from this point onwards,
occupation has continued, not on the summit of the mound, since that had become
inadequate, but terraced into its sloping flank and spreading over an extended
area of new ground beneath.
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