Archeologists
in recent years have noted that, no matter how deep they have
dug into civilization's cradlelands, the beginnings of settled
life still seem some distance away.
Tepe
Gawra's lowest level, for example, was already a few rungs up
the ladder of mankind's progress in settled communities. The
bottom layer at Hassuna, south of Mosul, pushed prehistory back
a little further.
But
the absolute beginnings of he settled occupation, which mark
man's divorce from nomadic existence, are believed to have been
found only in 1948 with the discovery of this primitive site
in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Expedition
members of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
here stand at the top of the Jarmo, civilization's oldest known
village.
Dr
Robert J Braidwood, head of the expedition, has reason for dating
the settlement between 5000 and 6000 BC. Its ruins stand 30
miles east of Kirkuk, the Iraqi oil centre.
From Wonders of The Past
