Middle East (4,365 – 2,638 BCE) Late Neolithic / Chalcolithic — Canal Oases, Copper, and Exchange Webs

Geographic and Environmental Context

• Anchors: the Tigris–Euphrates alluvium and marshes; the Zagros (Luristan, Fars), Alborz, Caucasus (Armenia–Georgia–Azerbaijan); northern Syrian plains and Cilicia; Khuzestan and Fars lowlands; the Arabian/Persian Gulf littoral (al-Ahsa–Qatar–Bahrain–UAE–northern Oman); northeastern Cyprus and the Lebanon coastal elbow (north).

Climate & Environment

• Warm with beginning arid pulses; alluvial levees shifted; marsh belts waxed/waned in Lower Mesopotamia.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Canalized fields in Khuzestan–Lower Tigris–Euphrates; Ubaid-like village networks (style influences) in our north–east periphery; mixed farming in Iranian fans; pastoral transhumance in Zagros.

• Caucasus highlands developed the Shulaveri–Shomu/Leilatepe-type agro-villages (shared horizon with South Caucasus).

Technology & Material Culture

• Copper tools/adornments; stamp seals; painted ceramics; long-house compounds; boat building on marsh edges.

Corridors

• Alluvium ⇄ Gulf watercraft; overland Zagros caravan trails; Araxes–Kura to the Caucasus.

Symbolism

• Temple-precursor spaces; canal-opening rites; ancestor veneration persists.

Adaptation

• Canal maintenance, pasture switching, and oasis redundancy hedged against channel avulsion and aridity.

Transition

Toward the Bronze Age, metallurgy and canal polities will scale up into early states (Uruk/Ur—south of our boundary—interfacing with our oases).