Datas on cultural interaction and communication during pre-pottery Neolithic Age in Upper Mesopotamia

ABSTRACT "DATAS ON CULTURAL INTERACTION AND COMMUNICATION DURING PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC AGE IN UPPER MESOPOTAMIA" As Friedell pointed out "According to the theory of relativity, time is a function of space. When it is transferred to historical sphere, it means: History is a function of space." Or with Marshack's words "Prehistory is silent!" This is because prehistory has usually the tiredness and silence of stories lived loudly, and this tiredness is buried as a great story in soil. Unless you are engaged in it, it continues to keep its grievances closed. As long as it remains closed, the time spirit never reaches the nub of its own story. However, time is an entity that does not become old in human. It is about its business. While time flies, what humans did are only happenings. When humans leave what they did and lived, time is again about its business. It is not interested in humans or any living being. Maybe partly because of it, we want that soil, mountains, water and plains do not keep their secrets forever and that they unveil secrets in the story of humans. May be that is why archaeology is so interesting. Who knows! Asking right questions is the leading motivation that makes human being approaching the truth. However, all right questions do not result in right answers. Usually wrong answers that were given to right questions lead people to defend the oldest mistakes of humanity as fact until someone destroy the power of mistake only by a simple thesis. That is relativity. It is possible to support this assumption, based on generally accepted examples and tens of issues from the most-discussed issues of our age to a series of historical mistakes. One can diversify these examples; for example, plague could be removed by the use of a simple a vaccine in modern times, or the assumption that the earth is flat was confuted. Moreover, these false facts and the assumption of truth that they created were the result of true questions. Yet, when one endeavors to answer the main questions, it is necessary to find persuasive and motivating propositions and, thus, to ask true questions to pursue these propositions. No good question, no good answer! As Friedell pointed out, "Characteristics of prehistory is that the most important questions such as religion, eroticism, social structure, and settlements remain in suspense while it has precise information on specific details of daily life. We know how prehistoric peoples did up shoelace and what they ate in the breakfast, but we do not know value judgements they had and their facial expressions. It does not talk with us unless we do not know this." Within this framework, during my academic researches, I accumulated many question marks on the issue of "Cultural Interaction and History of Communication," a subject that both theoretically and practically played a great role in the story of humanity. Certainly, various evidences played an important role in the formation of these questions and answers that I gave to them. However, the main thing that motivated me is the idea that we live in a region where had a key place in the story of humanity from prehistoric period. Actually, this fact is appreciated as a great chance. I comprehend that Anatolia and the most part of Mesopotamia (namely, Upper Mesopotamia) are the main regions through where I can answer my questions because of historical reality of the region. However, I could not find an opportunity to freely do research in the field because of physical conditions of today and conjunctural reasons. It is not about the time spirit but the great destruction that the war led and the wall that it put up. I must confess that this circumstance makes me so sad. It is a bad timing! However, I could visit museums and excavation sites in the greater region of the subject of the dissertation and its periphery; publications, excavation findings, and other materials were scanned, and the relevant literature is precisely examined. Symposiums, conferences, and various presentations were carefully followed. I benefited from views of experts of the field in various ways, had long conversations with them, and used their archives. Through all of these studies my aim was to get involved in the process of answering the question of communication/cultural interaction, one of the main issues which humanity tried to understand. Even I desired to benefit from "the chance to live in a region where had a key place in the story of humanity." On the other hand, I was aware of risks of the title that I planned to study in the dissertation. It is because the title "History of Communication from Neolithic Age to the Writing Periods" corresponded to a highly assertive subject. Besides, as discussed above, not all true questions could necessarily result in true answers. Then, there was a highly shallow presupposition that history of communication meant "History of Journalism"; it was a widespread idea. Or many concepts such as "Personal Communication" (a psychological-based concept that had a traumatic popularity) were everyone's mind, relevant or not. Because of false and/or deficient information of modern mass media, the concept of "history of communication" had also been completely abstracted from its true image, distorted, and adapted into the use of contemporary pragmatic expectations. Therefore, I had to limit the scope of the dissertation and to reach all materials to answer questions in my mind. Thus, I decided to limit the study with "Datas on Cultural Interaction and Communication During Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age in Upper Mesopotamia." Even as the study proceeded, limiting it with "Göbekli Tepe Culture Territory" where has been described by Özdoğan (including Göbekli Tepe, Nevalâ Çorê, Kortik Tepe, Çayönü, Hallan Çemî, Mezraa Teleilat and some other sample fields) and familiar settlements of neolithic cultures in a region including today's Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Batman, Mardin and Siirt became a necessity, not a preference. I both reasonably limited the geographical and chronological scope of the dissertation and obtained an opportunity to act in a comfortable and accessible region. Accordingly, I changed the title of the dissertation as "Datas on Cultural Interaction and Communication During Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age in Upper Mesopotamia." Thus, it would be possible both to make field research and comparative literature search more efficient and to carry out such a study, which was limited in the world and almost unprecedented in our country –except texts like lecture notes prepared for courses in departments of communication in some universities, including Istanbul University–, in a distinctive and tolerable manner. In conclusion I hope that this study would fill a gap. Key Words: Upper Mesopotamia, Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age, Neolithic, Cultural Interaction, Communication, PPNA, Symbolism, Trade, Belief Systems, Linguistic