Living on the Tigris Banks. An overview of Settlements and Networks in the Mosul Dam area during the 3rd millennium BC.

The aim of this paper is to outline some of the major features that characterize settlement patterns and networks among sites located along the Tigris Valley in correspondence with the present Mosul Lake (northern Iraq), during the third millennium BC. The study of data provided by surveys and excavations carried out in the context of the Saddam Dam Salvage Project have been combined with the analysis of declassified CORONA images, and data of recent archaeological projects conducted in the area since 2011 with the purpose of contextualize the settled landscape; but also, to find evidence about hierarchies between sites, and of socio-political complexity. I suggest that the first half of the third millennium BC reveals a complex settled landscape consisting of small-sized sites with a remarkable level of specialization and socio-political complexity. Additionally, data from the second part of the period uncovers a landscape where sites seem not to grow into large urban centers yet continue to live as small to medium-sized settlements. This trend is of particular interest as it contrasts with the trend observed in the Jazira as well as in the territories detected by the Eastern Khabur Archaeological Survey (EHAS), the Upper Greater Zab Archaeological Recoinnassance (UGZAR), and the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS). Generally, the results show a deep relationship between the geomorphology of the region and the settled landscape embedded in a complex archaeological scenery in which the river is a border as well as a joining/trading route.