The relative chronology used for Mesopotamian archaeology was set up at an international conference in 1929 on the basis of two coordinated schemes: one for prehistory, the other for historic phases. Prehistoric periods were named after the individual sites then thought to characterize best a particular stage of development. These type-sites, standing for distinct cultures, were arranged into a continuous sequence according to the stratigraphic evidence from excavations up to that point. They eventually attributed the earliest Mesopotamian settlement to the site of Has-suna, in northern Iraq, and the latest prehistoric ones to Uruk and Jemdet Nasr in the south. The first occurrence of writing in the Uruk IV and Jemdet Nasr phases prompted, in 1931, the adoption of the label Protoliterate period to describe that stage more vividly, and to highlight a perceived transition into the succeeding chronological scheme (although not without protest: Mallowan 1970: 328-30). The terms Late Uruk-Jemdet Nasr and Protoliterate are still used interchangeably today for the centuries on either side of 3000 bce.
For archaeological phases following the Protoliterate period, a sequence of prominent historical markers was chosen in preference to the type-site system. The third millennium was divided into three major periods - Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Ur III or Neo-Sumerian - and coordinated with stratigraphic sequences and artifact typologies mainly from the Chicago Oriental Institute’s excavations in the Diyala Valley (Lloyd 1984: 91). This terminology was intended to bind archaeological and historical findings into one harmonious, compatible system. Like the type-site sequence, it assumed that a linear development best reflected ancient Mesopotamian history. It also presumed that historical periods offered a more flexible framework for integrating new archaeological findings than cultural stages could, and that Mesopotamian culture was monolithic, without significant regional variants. It was especially based on the idea that a historical perspective should take precedence over a cultural or archaeological one - a view that was fully endorsed by the excavators themselves (Parrot 1953: 40-1).
This chronological framework has proved a poor fit from both perspectives. Historians have struggled in vain to stretch the Sumerian King List over the three phases of the Early Dynastic period: Early Dynastic I, II, and III (Hallo and Simpson 1971: 34-9; Lloyd 1984: 90-3, Kuhrt 1995: 29-31). In archaeological terms, this system has not proved satisfactory either. The artificial division created by this phasing between Protoliterate and Early Dynastic I has obscured the cultural continuity linking the two periods. The Early Dynastic I archaeological assemblage of pottery types and seals, and households at sites like Abu Salabikh, illustrate the economic decline of southern Mesopotamia after the collapse of Protoliterate state organization, rather than the political structure of the Sumerian city-states that emerged in Early Dynastic II. A more accurate scheme from both the archaeological and the historical perspective would make Early Dynastic I the closing phase of the Protoliterate, followed by a break before the onset of Early Dynastic II-III. Recent general discussions about the Sumerian city-states (Roaf 1990: 79-88; Postgate 1994) have avoided attributing specific developments to all three phases within Early Dynastic, a sign that they are now recognized as coinciding poorly with the current understanding of this period. Akkadian and Neo-Sumerian reflect the next two (brief) cultural and historical stages more comfortably. But for the rest of the second and first millennia BCE, where individual periods last longer and the fit is, in consequence, superficially less awkward, cultural realities in the archaeological record remain concealed or distorted by the need to formulate them in historical parameters applicable to restricted geographical areas only. Shifting population groups and transitional stages before and after the existence of centralized states disappear within this scheme.
Finally, this relative chronology has isolated both Mesopotamian history and archaeology from the greater Near East, which uses the Three Age system: Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Perhaps an initial reason behind choosing the historical sequence was that it was thought a simpler expedient into which archaeological levels could be slotted (Parrot 1953: 40). Implicit to the original scheme, however, was the concept that Mesopotamia, the core civilization, was central to developments elsewhere, and that the burden of cross-dating rested with the peripheries. Efforts to cross-reference the two systems have carried little weight with archaeologists working primarily with Mesopotamian material (Hallo and Simpson 1971). Adopting the
Three Age system would require a complete review of Mesopotamia’s diagnostic cultural features to key them in with the sequences in other regions. Because this task can be circumvented by using the two in parallel, however loosely, no radical overhaul has yet been introduced.
The consequences of this relative dating system have hindered rather than clarified issues even pertaining to internal Mesopotamian history, since some of its complexities can be resolved only from outside the core, with reference to the archaeological record. To cite one instance: where, in the larger scheme of things, do the First Dynasty of Babylon and by extension the Old Babylonian period coordinate with specific archaeological phases in the eastern Mediterranean, with which it entertained political relations, but whose sites and levels use the Bronze Age system? This question is only one of many with a direct bearing on absolute chronology, in which archaeology plays the critical role.
World History
