To return use your browser's back button.
Mege has produced the most complete sequence of all the excavations with a depth of 6.80 m beginning around 800 cal BC and reaching up to AD 1983 when the village was abandoned. When comparing the sequences of Mege and Kursakata we are currently able to distinguish five ceramic phases. In the lower levels rocker stamping, incisions and cord wrapped stick decoration is dominant. Above, increasing amounts of string roulette decoration appear. It is during this phase, that the Iron Age begins. Phase II is characterized by abundant amounts of string roulette, and should represent the developed Iron Age. While the sequence of Kursakata does not show any younger material and quite well might end at around AD 650 in Mege two more phases can be distingiushed. No evidence of the coarse ware of the so called "So-Pots" have been found in Kursakata while there are ample remains of this characteristic pottery in the Mege sequence between a depth of - 2.50 m and - 1.00 m. Also one burial is associated with a feature of such sherds at a level of - 2.50 m. These layers form what Connah has termed 'Daima III'. Pottery of the uppermost part of the Mege sequence is decorated by carved roulette and strip roulette. It is here where the first evidence of more extensive clay layers appear which might indicate a change in architecture.
As at Kursakata the lowest cultural layer is situated immediately on top of a clay band, which surprisingly is not detectable in all four sides of the trench. Initial settlement thus seems to have been on a dry spot close to water or immediately after a flood left the area dry. Remarkable is the fact that below this thin clay layer no further traces of similar accumulations are found. Yet the lower cultural layers at Mege (Phase I ~ Daima I) are interlocked by more or less sterile clay layers, a phenomenon which has also been observed at the Daima sequence and in Connah's trench at Kursakata. It is suggested here that these layers were formed during extensive wet phases, whether through floods or excessive rains which washed some material down from more elevated parts of the mound. Probably the site was uninhabited during those times. Also harpoons, which are characteristic of Daima I material, demonstrate that the dependance on aquatic resources must have been high.
To return use your browser's back button.