Tell Hassuna IB and Tell Hassuna IV

The Hassuna culture is a Neolithic culture in northern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) dating from 6000 to 5500 BCE. The people had moved into the foothills where there was enough rainfall to support "dry" agriculture. Irrigation was not used. Hassuna region is located a few kilometres to the south of Ninevah, and extended eastwards to the base of the Zagros Mountains. Hassuna people were the first farmers in northernmost Mesopotamia, settled in small villages or hamlets ranging in size from 0.81–3.24 ha. (2–8 acres).

Subsistence relied on cultivated emmer and einkorn wheat and tw0-rowed hulled barley. Inherited hunting skills provided the people with meat from cattle, gazelle, and wild ass (onager), and as well they domesticated pigs, sheep, goats, and cattle. Domestic architecture of Hassuna Ib was constructed with simple "adobe" mud brick that mixed circular and rectangular buildings built around open central courtyards with ovens and hearths. The early settlements may only have been semi-permanent, and the builders who were perhaps intensive foragers, may have left the area in years in which the level of rainfall was too low. The pottery was finely painted. Artifacts found include stone hand axes, sickles, grinding stones, storage bins, baking ovens, and bones of domesticated animals which indicated settled agricultural life way. Female ceramic figurines and jar burials suggest worship and belief in an afterlife. Domestic architecture of Hassuna IV evolved into more spacious and sophisticated permanent dwelling, with small rooms which had plastered floors for work and living, store rooms, and internal open air courtyards with ovens. Extended household compounds emerged with several storage silos that could support several nuclear families; there were also several hearths and ovens suggesting multiple kitchens. Each hypothetical nuclear family unit had a courtyard highlighted in color in the CG model shown here.

Elevation of Tell Hassuna is 300 m. (980 ft) above sea level.

Construction: Walls of adobe mud brick with hypothetical roofing of reeds and clay over wooden support structure either sloped and hipped, or flat (slightly slanted).

Sources of data fro CG model:
1. Lloyd, S., and Safar, F., 1945; Tell Hassuna: Excavations by the Iraqi Government Directorate General of Antiquities in 1943 and 1944; Journal of Ear Eastern Studies 4.
2. Banning, E. B. 2003; Housing Neolithic Farmers, Near Eastern Archaeology, Mar-Jun 2003; ProQuest.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266393614_Housing_Neolithic_Farmers