An Old Paleolithic hand axe (Photo Ella Egberts)
Ella Egberts (VUB), Jaafar Jotheri (University of Al-Qadisiyah) and Andreas Nymark (independent researcher) went to Iraq in November and December to look for archaeological surface material as part of a pilot project. This surface material should help to understand the geomorphological history of the Iraqi Western Desert, in the vicinity of Al-Shabakah, and to investigate the potential for the preservation of archaeological sites with Old and Middle Palaeolithic material (Old and Middle Stone Age). The campaign was a bull's-eye and now Egberts wants to continue working for the VUB in the area.
"The fieldwork was a great success," Egberts confirms. "Our focused fieldwork resulted in the discovery of seven Paleolithic sites in an area of 10 by 20 km. One site was selected for a systematic survey to determine the spatial distribution of the Paleolithic material and to carry out preliminary technological and typological analyses."
The focus of the prospecting campaign was on an area where there was a large lake during the Pleistocene, which has now completely dried up and where old wadis or dry riverbeds cross the landscape. Egberts collected more than 850 artefacts, from very old hand axes from the Early or Old Paleolithic to Levallois reduction axes from the Middle Paleolithic, all surface material. "The other sites deserve an equally thorough systematic investigation, which will undoubtedly yield similar amounts of lithic material."
"Based on the distribution of the sites and the advancing insight into the geomorphological history of the region, indications of early human landscape use are beginning to emerge. In the future, I hope to expand my research to a larger area, systematically sampling all sites and conducting an in-depth technological and typological artefact analysis. We then want to integrate the new insights we bring from Iraq into the broader understanding of human evolution and behavior in the Arabian Peninsula."
There is also a didactic side to Egberts' work in Iraq: "An essential part of the fieldwork was to train Iraqi archaeology students in geo-archaeology and palaeolithic archaeology. Three students joined us in the field and, through a workshop at Al-Qadisiyah University after the fieldwork, we got many more students and academics excited about Iraq's Paleolithic. At a conference in Karbala, we shared our findings with a multidisciplinary academic audience, with an interest in the history of the Western Desert. At the Writers' Union in Najaf, we presented our results to a general audience and the press. And we loved teaching the children at the local primary school about prehistoric flint finds."
The work in Iraq, a country that most remember as one big powder keg, is not too bad, according to Egberts. "Apart from the presence of numerous checkpoints, we were able to do our work there without any problems. The people are friendly and it is actually very nice to work in Iraq. Initially, earlier last year, we had to postpone our expedition, after a safety warning. Perhaps that had to do with the war in Gaza..."
"The Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage appreciates our work and encourages us to continue," said Egberts. From now on, she will continue to work on her research at VUB. "The next step will be to get funding that will hopefully allow me to reconstruct Pleistocene environmental changes and early human presence and behavior in the Western Desert."
Egberts' mission was funded by the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, a fund she was entitled to thanks to her honorary fellowship at the University of Leicester in Great Britain.
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