(PDF) Globalizing the Halaf

9.2 Globalizing the Halaf Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse Introduction Commenting on the organization of Middle Eastern societies in the millennia between the ori- gins of farming and the appearance of the first cities, David Wengrow has remarked, ‘This much neglected phase in world history needs a name. Perhaps it is best described as the first era of the global village’ (Wengrow 2010: 54–55). In appropriating Wengrow’s characterization of the Ubaid, my contribution to this volume will not be to argue that the Near Eastern Late Neolithic is simply ‘an early version of’, nor that we should trace back into the Late Neolithic the ‘roots’ of the globalizing Uruk cultures of the later fourth millennium (Jennings 2011: 57–76; this vol- ume) or those of the third millennium Early Bronze Age (Kohl 1987). Indeed, many colleagues working in the region would argue that extrapolating the concept into the Neolithic world would be anachronistic, an imposition of our modern world views onto others far removed from ourselves. Nor would prehistoric interactions literally qualify as ‘global’, as they connected regions at scales much more modest than during later times of urbanized, imperial states (e.g. Versluys 2014; Vroom this volume; Robertson this volume). Adapting globalization theory to just any prehistoric society might risk losing out of sight the distinguishing aspects of this concept to explain the inner workings of advanced, complex societies. Yet there are excellent reasons for exploring the applicability of the concept for pre-modern societies like the Halaf with an open mind. First, it forces us to look afresh at notions of the ‘global’. Taking the lead from scholars like Jennings (2011, this volume) and many others (Knappett this volume; Feinman this volume; Vandkilde this volume; Wengrow 2010), I argue that space should be seen contextually, at geographic scales appropriate to specific historical contexts. Further, globalization usefully draws attention to the ways the local and non-local were mutually constitutive; it asks us to theorize how activities and change processes at the vil- lage level contributed to processes operating over much larger geographic areas, and vice versa, how such macro-processes in turn impacted upon everyday village life (Hodos 2014). Moving beyond Near Eastern prehistory, such discussions may act back on broader theoretical debates on globalization, by highlighting the variability in inter-regional interaction in human cultures past and present. A deep historical perspective is vital to understand properly conditions of connectivity cross-culturally (Feinman this volume; Hopkins 2002; Pitts and Versluys 2014). 839 Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse This chapter shall explore to what degree aspects of globalization may be identified in this pre-modern case. Ancient Near Eastern prehistorians have had little difficulty accepting the vast spread of what has become known as the Halaf cultural tradition (for which see Akkermans 1993; Akkermans and Schwartz 2003; Campbell 1992; Hijara 1997; Matthews 2000; Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2013). Named after the site of Tell Halaf in northern Syria (Von Oppenheim and Schmidt 1943), the Halaf ‘package’ (c.6000–5300 cal. bce) stretched from the Mediterranean coast to the Iranian Zagros mountain range, and from the Taurus mountain range south to the Syrian desert and beyond. Traditionally associated with the semi-arid dry-farming belt of Upper Mesopotamia, in its ideal, normative form this ‘package’ comprised particular subsistence forms (a reliance of mixed dry-farming agriculture and animal husbandry), typical house plans (circular tholoi buildings), the adoption of stamp seals and abstract ‘tokens’ as administrative tools, and a decided preference for stylistically elaborated pottery containers. However, the key challenge has always been to understand the nature of Halaf interactions and the intriguing mixture of local and hyper-local scales at which these played out (Akkermans 1993; Campbell and Fletcher 2013). Earlier approaches tended to emphasize the strong cultural similarities over large regional distances as a Halaf hallmark, sometimes interpreting them as a sign of institutionalized social inequalities (Redman 1978). More recently, scholars have moved in the opposite direction, arguing that Halaf activities were mostly small scale, highly localized, and not indicative of sustained social inequality (Akkermans 2013; Bernbeck 2013; Hole 2013). For the enigma that is the Halaf, this tension makes it an interesting case study to explore the applicability of the concept of globalization. In what follows, I call for reconceptualizing the Late Neolithic landscape as being ‘global’ in nature. I make the case for a significant surge in inter-regional interaction starting in the later seventh millennium leading up to what we call ‘the Halaf’. I briefly review ideas on Halaf- period interaction, arguing that to such participants this resulted in a consciously perceived compression of time and space. Finally, I outline several cases of Halaf ‘glocalization’. I start with scrutinizing the concept of globalization. Globalizing aspects in pre-modern societies Exploring pre-modern societies through a globalizing lens represents something of a challenge. Below I discuss how prehistorians may explore the ‘global’ aspect of the concept in the specific case of the Halaf. But there are additional conceptual hurdles to overcome. As Pitts and Versluys (2014) put it, appropriating a nice-sounding term merely because it is currently fashionable is not enough: why should the concept be used and what does it add to the debate? Why would globalization matter to a prehistorian? The question is pertinent, as globalization has often been associated with world systems and modernity. After globalization emerged as a popular concept from the 1990s onward, scholars sought to ‘pluralize’ the perspective (Jennings 2011: 19), identifying numerous earlier episodes of globalizing interactions reaching deep into the past. Yet in many of its latest formulations, the spread of hyper-regional interactions remains associated with defining aspects of modernity, including imperialist adventures, state-organized trade, early forms of capitalism, and conspicu- ous elite activities (Chase-Dunn 2005; Frank and Gills 1993; Hopkins 2002). Lacking these in almost all of human prehistory, why bother with globalization as a concept? The world’s earliest globalization is currently traced to the later fourth millennium bce ancient Near Eastern Uruk culture (Jennings 2011: 57–76). Core–periphery relationships, long-distance trade organized by city states, and the role of Uruk as a powerful socio-political centre are at the heart of the Uruk 840 Globalizing the Halaf debate (Algaze 2008; Stein 1999; Helwing 2000). If modernity began at Uruk, might we ask if globalization also started there? The point is that key elements of the current understanding of globalization are not neces- sarily connected with modernity (Feinman this volume). Globalization as currently understood concerns those processes by which small-scale localities and peoples became increasingly inter- connected and interdependent (Pitts and Versluys 2014). As eloquently outlined by Jennings (2011: 13–14, 21–32), in order to fulfil the qualification of ‘global’, two broad conditions should be met. First, archaeologists should demonstrate a significant leap in inter-regional ‘interac- tion’, what Vandkilde calls ‘intensified interconnectedness’ across social, economic and cultural systems and borders (this volume). Second, they should demonstrate social changes associated with the establishment of a ‘global’ culture. Importantly, these terms are relative and should be assessed in specific historical contexts. Thus, ‘global culture’ does not equal long-distance exchange or supra-regional cultural similarity per se. Rather, it should be demonstrated that supra-local interactions had notice- able effects on how people interacted socially and through material culture. Foremost there should be the perceived experience amongst the communities concerned that the world was getting noticeably smaller. Some use the phrase time–space compression (e.g. Jennings 2011: 30, this volume), an acceleration of long-distance economic and social processes that shrink one’s experience of time and space. Others use transculture to refer to people’s perception of what is foreign to their small world (Epstein 1999; Vandkilde this volume). These concepts are emi- nently investigable by prehistoric archaeologists. Archaeologists routinely focus on those aspects of the material world that were symbolically important to actors in the past to negotiate iden- tities at scales larger than the local community. These offer tools to investigate the degree to which activities in one locale were perceived to have been affected by what happened at places far away. Other aspects central to current notions of global culture concern processes of standardization and homogenization that, paradoxically, go hand-in-hand with increased heterogeneity and a localized re-embeddednes of cultural expressions. During episodes of globalization both oppos- ing tendencies typically occur simultaneously (Appadurai 1996; Vandkilde 2007). A useful neologism is ‘glocalization’, from ‘global localization’ (Robertson 1992: 173–74). As global movements are locally translated this typically results in ‘hybrid’ forms of expression (Helwing 2000). Larger, homogenizing cultural movements never existed by themselves in decontextu- alized isolation; they were always connected to local expressions at the level of the village or even the individual. The concept of glocalization helpfully emphasizes the degree to which the homogenizing elements of global culture were differentially incorporated into local cultures, in turn dialectically altering the course of the process (Pitts and Versluys 2014). Increasing similar- ity paradoxically brings a greater emphasis on difference as a direct response to, and a means of, distinguishing local groups (Hodos 2014). A global Late Neolithic landscape To what degree would the Halaf world qualify as ‘global’? An issue here is a workable formal definition of ‘the Halaf’. While most archaeologists would readily accept the short-hand defini- tion of the Halaf package outlined above, they would acknowledge that the archaeology in fact attests to an extraordinary heterogeneity (Akkermans 1993; Akkermans and Schwartz 2003). Nor do Halaf scholars unanimously agree on either the spatial or the chronological boundaries of the Halaf cultural tradition (Bernbeck and Nieuwenhuyse 2013). The traditional solution has 841 Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse been to break up the cultural spread into smaller sub-units. Famously, Perkins (1949) already outlined a dichotomy between ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ Halaf sub-traditions. Halaf expressions from northern Syria and northern Iraq are generally held to be ‘most typical’, hence normative, whereas those from adjacent areas such as the Levant are often put away as ‘Halaf influenced’ (Davidson 1977). ‘Slicing up’ the Halaf results in smaller spatial units that neatly suggest some ecological or cultural homogeneity. Thus it has become commonly accepted that the Halaf in its ‘most typical’ formula was associated mainly with the semi-arid dry farming steppes of Upper Mesopotamia. However, it unhelpfully moves the debate away from explaining the nature of social and mate- rial interactions in the Late Neolithic (Campbell and Fletcher 2013; Hole 2013; Özbal and Gerritsen 2013). It risks reifying into discrete, artificial entities what may in fact have been over- lapping social and economic networks (Nieuwenhuyse 2007). The archaeologist’s construction of ‘normative’ cultures implies directionality of cultural influences, thought to spread out from an active ‘core’ into acquiescent ‘peripheries’. For our purposes, I identify the Halaf world with those parts of the ancient Middle East in which we find ceramics made in the Halaf style as broadly understood (Figure 9.2.1). This admittedly somewhat circular definition includes the enigmatic ‘Halaf-Ubaid Transitional’ episode as well as the earlier Pre-Halaf and Transitional (Proto-Halaf) stages characterized by decorated ceramics foreshadowing subsequent Halaf developments (Cruells and Nieuwenhuyse 2004). It includes regions within the geographic spread of Halaf Fine Ware ceramics but also parts where this pottery type represented a minority or was locally emulated in alternative tech- nologies. In this definition, the Halaf phenomenon encompassed a vast territory that is today covered by at least three modern nation states: south-eastern Turkey, northern Syria and the Mediterranean, and northern Iraq including Iraqi Kurdistan. As Israeli archaeologists have not failed to observe, it stretched south to include the Wadi Rabah culture of Lebanon and northern Israel (Gopher and Gophna 1993). Obviously, seen from the perspective of a Late Assyrian civil servant, Persian scribe or Ottoman traveller, this area of some 800 km east–west by 500 km north–south would not be perceived as excessively large, corresponding to a mere administrative province or two. These latter-day individuals would have had excellent transport means to cross this area within a mat- ter of days, while efficient communications kept them informed on happenings in the far side of their empires. But to apply these proto-modern perceptions to a Late Neolithic dry-farming semi-pastoralist would be wholly inappropriate. To this prehistoric imaginary individual the Halaf world – in its broadest sense – would have been overwhelmingly large, ecologically het- erogeneous, and culturally diverse. In our times, trains, planes and automobiles make us roam the planet; in prehistory even villages in the next river valley could already be ‘far away’ (Diamond 2012). During the Late Neolithic, pack animals did not exist, save for perhaps the dog. Halaf communication transpired on foot. A recent study has modelled walking distances between parts of the Halaf world that we know interacted through the exchange of goods and resources (Ahmad 2014). These included obsidian, precious stone, raw copper, bitumen and painted pottery. Modelling walking speed as a function of carrying load, and using Google Maps to move from linear cartographic distances to actual walking distances, Ahmad has demonstrated that for procuring a vital raw material such as bitumen from sources in northern Iraq, the community living at Tell Sabi Abyad would have had to cover a walking distance of nearly 400 km if they were to go directly to the source. Carrying on average 15 kg per person, a direct return visit would have taken approximately a month, or two months if the farthest attested bitumen source was utilized (Ahmad 2014: 99–101). Yet despite these huge distances and time investments, goods travelled in a regular flow. 842 Figure 9.2.1 The Halaf world and sub-regions, showing the locations of sites mentioned in the text: (1) Tell Halaf, (2) Tell Sabi Abyad, (3) Domuztepe, (4) Tell Kurdu, (5) Chagar Bazar, (6) Hakemi Use, (7) Umm Qseir, (8) Fıstıklı Höyük, (9) Tell el-Kerkh, (10) Tell Begum Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse The world that people knew through such exchanges was ecologically very heterogeneous. Belying the view that the Halafians inhabited mainly the Upper Mesopotamian dry-farming belt, in fact this cultural tradition spread far beyond the confines of the steppe. We find an extraordinary range of ecosystems. They ranged from (predominantly) semi-arid steppes to the lush river valleys of the mighty Euphrates and Tigris rivers and their many tributaries, from steep foothills and intermontane planes to the Mediterranean coast. Not surprisingly, we find the Halaf cultural tradition associated with a huge variability in subsistence adaptations: from com- munities relying mainly on the hunt to those specializing in herding and secondary products, to others relying fully on agriculture (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003). To call the inhabitants of this world culturally diverse would be a serious understatement. Recent landscape studies attest to small (less than 0.5 ha), almost invisible hamlets as well as tall mounds running up to 20 ha or more (Akkermans 1993; Campbell 1992; Nieuwenhuyse 2000; Nieuwenhuyse and Wilkinson 2007). Some villages contained ephemeral constructions only and lots of open space, but others comprised dense agglomerations of architecture more commonly associated with Anatolian traditions (Özbal and Gerritsen 2013). Typical were the circular tholoi buildings, but many Halafian sites show rectilinear architecture instead. In some Iraqi Halaf villages we may find tripartite house forms more commonly associated with the Ubaid culture (Breniquet 1991). The smaller Halaf villages typically were rather short-lived, occupied for just a few generations. Scholars have debated how this may attest to the small-scale, non-hierarchical character of Halaf societies. Scalar stresses were mostly avoided by ‘voting with the feet’ (Akkermans 2013; Bernbeck 2013; Breniquet 1996). Throughout the period people were constantly on the move, abandoning villages and starting new ones. Yet some of the larger villages were inhabited for many generations. These will have been regional centres for the inhabitants of the wider land- scape. At Domuztepe in Turkey (Campbell and Fletcher 2013: 42–43), Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria (Akkermans et al. 2012; Verhoeven 2000), and Arpachiyah in northern Iraq (Hijara 1978), complex collective rituals involving notions of death and abandonment may have offered the social cohesion keeping these larger populations together. But the specific socio-political models adopted by Halaf groups appear to have differed from place to place. So did apparently ritual and religious practices. The burial record shows a bewildering idiosyncrasy, which has so far defied attempts to identify a common identity or a generally accepted religious belief system (Akkermans 1989; Verhoeven 2002). Even if we would adopt the more restricted definition of the Halaf in its ‘most typical’ form as restricted to the northern Syrian steppes, there is no reason to assume that the communi- ties inhabiting this landscape were ethnically homogeneous, or even spoke a similar language (Frangipane 2015; Hole 2013). And certainly if we accept the much broader definition espoused in this paper, any notion of cultural homogeneity evaporates, apart from the shared ceramic tradition. What we term the Halaf tradition in fact united a broad variety of earlier, much more localized traditions, each characterized by distinct ceramics, lithic tool traditions and material culture assemblages (Akkermans 1993; 1997; Cruells and Nieuwenhuyse 2004; Nieuwenhuyse 2007; Forest 2013). Aurenche and Kozlowski (1999) argue that these earlier culture groups reflected different regional–ethnic identities. Whatever linguistic or ethnic categorizations existed prior to the Halaf, these almost certainly endured during the Halaf period. Of course, a fractured landscape alone makes no global world (Jennings this volume); it needs to be demonstrated that people crossed this world regularly, were aware of places far away, and were locally impacted by what happened elsewhere. Inhabited by small-scale localized societies, it might be argued, the flow of non-local goods across these territories was always in low quanti- ties. Most of it proceeded through down-the-line modes of exchange; there was little need for 844 Globalizing the Halaf shared institutions to allow cultural barriers to be crossed. More daring long-distance trading expeditions would have been exceptional and most people never looked much beyond the local horizon. This small-scale localized picture characterizes the earlier stages of the Late Neolithic. At the end of the seventh millennium, however, something remarkable happened. Local groups began to interact across all corners of this landscape with an intensity not previously seen. A surge in inter-regional interaction Starting c.6300 cal. bce, the archaeological record attests a series of profound transformations, the outcome of which was the emergence of the Halaf cultural tradition across Upper Mesopotamia c.5950 cal. bce (Akkermans 1993; 1997; Campbell 1992; Nieuwenhuyse 2007). Becoming part of the Halaf phenomenon, and in doing so actively creating it, the various Late Neolithic groups, previously highly localized, adopted similar house forms, administrative practices using stamp seals carrying similar iconography, and closely comparable practices involving stylistically elabo- rated ceramics. Three characteristics in conjunction support the notion that these innovations reflect a significant surge in inter-regional interaction. First, the striking stylistic similarities over large distances, crossing regional, ecological and geographic boundaries as if these never existed. Halaf interactions covered hundreds of kilome- tres. Although no archaeologist would claim that cultural expressions across these realms were uniform (see below), it cannot be denied that they became far more similar than ever before, and referenced geographic scales well beyond the local horizon. Second, rapid, continuous stylistic change. As Peter Akkermans (1993) observed, this may have been less obvious in earlier studies because of poor absolute dating and superficial ceramic analysis at key sites. For long, a rough tripartite distinction of ‘early’, ‘middle’ and ‘late’ was the closest we had to grasping stylistic innovation. Recent studies combine detailed stratigraphies with solid absolute dates to recognize micro-horizons at time spans within discursive memory to peoples of the past. Subtle design changes may now differentiate sub-phases of sometimes only 30–50 years (Akkermans 2014). People must have been aware that fashions were in constant flux. They would have known that their grandparents were using noticeably different containers and that subsequent generations would again be using different forms. Third, closely comparable style change occurring simultaneously over large distances. At Tell Sabi Abyad, Chagar Bazar and Hakemi Use, we find not only ceramic assemblages composed of the same wares, decorative techniques, and similar design structures and motifs, but also simi- lar rapid style changes (Cruells et al. 2013; Tekin 2013). Situated hundreds of kilometres apart as the crow flies, these three sites occupy distinct ecological niches and were in all likelihood inhabited by regional groups with different linguistic, ethnic and economic backgrounds. Yet, to the degree that we understand absolute dates, rapid style change at these localities may well have been near simultaneous. Understanding the nature of these interactions lies at the heart of Halaf archaeology. Interaction is contingent on the movement of goods, people or ideas; all three were relevant for the Halaf period. However, in spite of decades of research we remain insufficiently informed on the frequency, strength and direction of this networking (Knappett this volume). We know that painted vessels were exchanged, potentially over large distances, even if the organization of ceramic exchange remains elusive (Davidson 1977; Le Mière and Picon 2008; Spataro and Fletcher 2010). Other goods, too, travelled great distances, including raw copper, obsidian, bitumen and precious stone. Increased subsistence mobility and the emergence of semi-pastoralist lifeways fostered contacts and mutual dependencies between different groups (Verhoeven 1999). Jean-Daniel Forest (1996, 2013) has argued forcefully that the later seventh millennium saw 845 Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse a reorganization of marital exchange practices. In the Halaf period spouses could come from afar, bringing with them innovating ceramic knowledge and exotic design approaches. For pre- sent purposes, what these various interpretations have in common is an increased interdependency of local communities with groups or individuals far away. Rather than focusing too much on the formal properties of Halaf pottery, we should explore the social practices it came to represent. Importantly, the decorated vessels functioned in high- visibility contexts; they were pots to be seen (Hole 2013: 85). They reflect a new emphasis on stylistically elaborated commensal practices, including large-scale, collective feasts as well as everyday household events (Nieuwenhuyse 2007; Özbal and Geritsen 2013). The Halaf period saw the introduction of feast iconography in the form of dancing figures painted on Fine Ware serving vessels (Garfinkel 2003); the painted serving vessels were necessary props in such events. There were new foods, new ways of cooking, and new ways of eating (Campbell and Fletcher 2013: 45; Nieuwenhuyse 2013). These new practices probably involved a fair degree of compe- tition, spurring continuous emulation of new forms (Nieuwenhuyse 2007: 219–23), but partici- pants will ostensibly have emphasized hospitality and mutual understanding (Wengrow 2010). Adopting these practices allowed local communities to overcome cultural boundaries. Local and global in Halaf interaction At first sight, Halaf material culture looks very similar wherever one finds it. Watson and LeBlanc famously went as far as proposing that ‘80–90 percent of the sherds from any given Halafian site would not be out of place at any other Halafian site’ (1973: no page). In the 1970s and 1980s, scholars intrigued by this remarkable feat of social intercourse suggested one could measure both the strength and direction of Halaf interaction by computing the stylistic similarity in the painted designs (Davidson 1977; LeBlanc and Watson 1973; Watson 1983). More recent studies have seen a dedicated move away from these earlier emphases on stylistic homogeneity to search for localized differences behind the conspicuous similarities. In doing so, they have identified several instances of Halaf ‘glocalization’. One means has been through the adoption of a linguistic analogue. Scholars have sought to identify the rules of ‘grammar’ to define the Halaf painted language. In this approach, the abstract motifs (‘morphemes’) represent the smallest linguistic units which may be combined in overall design structures to create sentences and speech. Initially, such structuralist approaches focused on defining the Halaf style language as a whole and how it differed from contempo- raneous entities such as the Ubaid or Samarra (Bernbeck 1994; Hole 1984; Van Berg 1987). Fascinatingly, the approach has resulted in the identification of localized differences within the Halaf. Thus, Frank Hole (2013, in press) has identified several ‘dialects’ within the Halaf painted idiom. Carinated bowls from Chagar Bazar and Umm Qseir may look rather similar at first sight, but Hole’s structuralist close reading reveals consistent differences in the way motifs were selected in combination or sequentially ordered on the vessel. Implicit in Hole’s account is the notion that these differences were consciously perceived by Halaf participants. That is, the designs would have been instrumental in inducing a perception of ‘otherness’ and at the same time a sense of belonging vis à vis other Halafian communities. Delving even deeper into the fascinating world of Halafian geometric motifs, Gabriella Castro-Gessner (2010, 2013) studies what she calls the ‘anatomy of the brush stroke’, minutely reconstructing the châine opératoire of the individual painted designs. Identifying groups of closely interacting potters that potentially represent village-based production units, she demonstrates that pots that may look identical at the motif and design structure levels can be very dissimilar in the way these were sequentially constructed by individual potters. For instance, Halaf bowls 846 Globalizing the Halaf Figure 9.2.2  Halaf painted serving vessels from Tell Sabi Abyad (after Nieuwenhuyse n.d.) from Tell Sabi Abyad and Fıstıklı Höyük show the same geometric motifs, but built up from basic elements in different sequences (Figure 9.2.2). Such technological choices held social sig- nificance. The inhabitants of Sabi Abyad and Fıstıklı would have been able to distinguish their own community habitus from those of others, even if they were perhaps not able to articulate it (Castro-Gessner 2013: 132). Thus, their choices reflected on their identity as a member of their local community and as a participant in the broader Halaf phenomenon. A conspicuous case of Halaf ‘glocalization’ comes from Tell el-Kerkh in the northern Levant. Here ceramic assemblages were dominated by dark-coloured, glossy Dark-Faced Burnished Ware (DFBW). Intriguingly, Kerkh potters produced serving vessels identical to the painted Halaf pottery from northern Syria in shape, size and design structure (Figure 9.2.3). There was one minor difference: they made them in DFBW and decorated them with pattern-burnish- ing instead (Tsuneki et al. 2000). To prehistorians adhering to strict typological definitions of what constitutes Halaf pottery, the Kerkh DFBW bowls would fall beyond the scope of any Halaf discussion. But if we leave aside purist typologies to examine the potential social roles of decorated vessels, the two categories may have functioned in similar ways. Both would have symbolically carried associations with conspicuous commensality, feasting and demonstrating hospitality. That they did so in stylistically similar ways suggests strong connectivity with groups from northern Syria no less significant than those between northern Syrian groups and their other Halafian neighbours. Rather than as a peripheral response to ‘influences’ stemming from a presumed Halaf ‘core’, the Kerkh bowls should be seen as an active ‘northern Levantine’ con- tribution to the Halaf phenomenon. Not far from Tell el-Kerkh, Tell Kurdu provides an intriguing perspective on a northern Levantine community participating in not just the Halaf phenomenon, through which they emphasized their west–east connections, but also ritual practices connected to the southern Levant (Özbal and Gerritsen 2013). Most of the ceramics at Kurdu were locally made, undeco- rated DFBW and plain unburnished ware used for cooking (Figure 9.2.4). However, in each of the excavated households a small proportion of painted Halaf Fine Ware occurs. Mostly locally produced, the decorative style reflected the broader, ‘international’ Late Halaf taste of the time (Özbal and Geritsen 2013: 111–12). Similar to the Tell el-Kerkh DFBW bowls, the Kurdu 847 Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse Figure 9.2.3 Halaf pattern-burnished DFBW service vessels from Tell el-Kerkh (courtesy Prof. A. Tsuneki, Tsukuba University) Halaf pottery would have been used for serving and consuming food and drink either within individual households or at the level of the village. The inhabitants of Tell Kurdu thus were able to play their part hosting and feasting visitors in ‘Halaf fashion’, while also emphasizing their local ‘Kurdu’ identity. Intriguingly, in addition to Halaf vessels, fenestrated pot stands were found concentrated in one part of the village. Alien to Halaf assemblages, the type is well known from the southern Levant where it had ritualized uses. Through participating in these practices, some Kurdu households maintained their contacts with groups farther south. The excavators emphasize that these foreign styles were not merely simply ‘imitations’, but were appropriated selectively to meet local needs (Özbal and Gerritsen 2013: 108, emphasis added). The contemporaries of the Halafians in northern Israel, for their part, certainly were aware of cultural developments further north. During the Wadi Rabah period, southern Levantine groups choose to emulate Late Halaf vessel shapes (Garfinkel 1999; Gopher and Gophna 1993). Halaf-style stamp seals attest the adoption of administrative systems initiated by northern Syrian 848 Figure 9.2.4 The Late Halaf village at Tell Kurdu and associated ceramics (after Özbal and Gerritsen 2013: figsres 8.3–4) Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse groups several centuries earlier (Getzov 2011). Provenance studies have shown that participants of the Wadi Rabah tradition maintained exchange networks to facilitate a regular stream of Anatolian obsidian and northern Levantine dark-stone vessels into northern Israel (Rosenberg et al. 2010). Significantly, some of these luxurious stone vessels resemble Halaf carinated bowls closely (Rosenberg et al. 2010: 286–87, figure 6). As with Halafian sites further north, the sty- listically elaborated Wadi Rabah serving vessels would have functioned in the realm of feasting, hosting and entertaining guests, thus allowing Wadi Rabah participants to be part of the Halaf phenomenon while simultaneously keeping to their southern Levantine identity. Finally, at Tell Begum in the Shahrizor Valley of Iraqi Kurdistan we find another localized expression of the Halaf. Already in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, we are on the eastern margins of the Halaf distribution, what Ismail Hijara (1997) dubbed the ‘Halaf Mountains’. Halaf sites are well represented on this fertile but enclosed intermontane plain (Altaweel et al. 2012; Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2016; Wengrow et al. 2016). In general, the associated material cul- ture fits well in the common Halaf repertoire, in particular the stylistically elaborated serving vessels. However, on closer look the Shahrizor pottery is not exactly similar to what we have come to known as Halaf elsewhere. Local potters chose slightly different preparation strategies for making their painted vessels, tempering their clays with fine chaff. This would have been unthinkable to a northern Syrian Halaf potter. Moreover, they developed a stunning array of polychrome painted designs. Polychrome painted Halaf ceramics are well known from sites elsewhere (Gomez-Bach et  al. 2012), but both quantitatively and qualitatively the Shahrizor material so far remains unique. Apparently Late Neolithic communities in the Zagros thought it important to be part of the Halaf phenomenon, but to do so on their own terms. Concluding remarks To the Halafians, then, the world was large and complex and they knew it. Certainly, commu- nities were mostly self-sufficient and most activities were conducted locally. Most people were socialized close to their native village. Probably no Late Neolithic individual ever travelled the entire swathe of the Halaf realm. Yet, the archaeology overwhelmingly suggests that starting in the later seventh millennium bce, the increasing interaction across a culturally and ecologically diverse world that we reconstruct as archaeologists was felt in a very real sense by Late Neolithic groups inhabiting this world. To globalization theorists, discussing Halaf interactions through a globalizing lens may offer a valuable additional case study in a far earlier, much less familiar context that however has seen significant research recently. The Halaf phenomenon was characterized by specific types of net- working, operated at scales specific to this historic context, and saw specific material and social consequences emanating from increased interactions. Near Eastern prehistorians, for their part, may profit from the explicit emphasis on studying interactions and social practices at a variety of scales. We cannot understand the Halaf if we focus on the local exclusively, nor can we make sense of it by prioritizing the supra-local. The globalization discourse may add to the conceptual toolbox we use to study the Halaf. Discussing the Halaf phenomenon as an early example of globalizing tendencies, I have argued that we may identify aspects of globalization in this specific case. These include a ‘global’, cul- turally diverse landscape, a surge in inter-regional interaction, a perceived compression of time and space, and several instances of ‘glocalization’. As regional groups increasingly became inter- dependent, increasing homogenization and cultural standardization went hand-in-hand with marked expressions of localized practices and identities. For past scholars, this cultural variability often either led to the attempt to ‘slice up’ the cultural spread of the Halaf into smaller, more 850 Globalizing the Halaf homogeneous sub-entities, or to an uneasiness about the proper culture–historical attribution of key sites. Instead, we should acknowledge that such localized expressions of a shared idiom were not deviations from a hypothesized norm but were at the core of the Halafian world. The globalization literature offers an interesting array of ‘-izations’ for specific regional, temporal and cultural studies. Thus, we now have ‘Romanization 2.0’ (Versluys 2014), ‘Minoanization’ (Knappett this volume), ‘Bronzization’ (Vandkilde this volume), even ‘Euroasianafricanization’ (Knappett this volume). One issue with such terms is that they are not all the same, and they should not be seen as equivalent. On the one hand, as Knappett and Feinman observe (this volume), such terms helpfully convey the notion that social changes lead- ing to intensified connectivity unfolded over space and time. On the other hand, globalization differs from other such ‘-izations’ because of the singular priority they assign whatever the root is, e.g. the Romans, Minoans, or bronze as a valuable commodity. More flexible and culturally neutral, the concept of globalization is about shared sets of practices, not identically replicated ones, enabling one to balance common features against localized differences. The concept pulls away from core–periphery frameworks, and notions of politicized cultural dominance. I would therefore shy away from proposing ‘Halafization’. For the Halaf the term would selectively prioritize one specific material culture, so-called Halaf Fine Ware. It would assign ‘core’ status to those parts where this pottery dominated the ceramic assemblages. 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