Carlo Colantoni’s research while affiliated with University of Leicester and other places

State Archives of Assyria Bulletin XXVI: 89-112. Abstract: In early 2019 a piece of an inscribed Neo-Assyrian clay tablet was discovered by a fisherman at the site of Gird-i Gulak, located on the Rania Plain in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The fragmentary text, a contract for the sale of a field, is the first Neo-Assyrian tablet found on the Rania Plain. It joins copies of a Middle Assyrian inscription which also came from the Rania Plain, as well as another fragmentary Neo-Assyrian text found in the neighbouring Peshdar Plain. These discoveries support the growing archaeological evidence for the region in the Neo-Assyrian period, when it played a strategic role in the creation and stabilisation of Assyria’s eastern frontier.

Zagros Studies : Proceedings of the NINO Jubilee Conference and Other Research on the Zagros Region. PIHANS 130: 35-54 Abstract: Interaction is a recurrent theme in the scholarly discussion about early urban societies in Greater Mesopotamia. It is by no means a coincidence that interaction often plays a leading role in these discussions and as an explanation for important cultural change and developments. Greater Mesopotamia twice witnessed an intense influx of material culture originating in Lower Mesopotamia. The two cultural influxes – the first coined the “Ubaid Expansion” – took place in the late sixth to mid-fifth millennium BC; the second – the “Uruk Expansion” – unfolded around a thousand years later during the middle to late fourth millennium BC. Despite the similar origins of the Ubaid and Uruk cultural horizons, they were, however, very different in nature and had diverse impacts on neighbouring cultures. This contribution to the proceedings of the Netherlands Institute of the Near East’s 75th jubilee conference examines new evidence for the Uruk culture in the Zagros foothills and the challenges faced in explaining the expansion of southern Mesopotamian Uruk culture into Upper Mesopotamia. We focus on the recent work by the Danish Archaeological Expedition to Iraq (DAEI) in the Rania Plain region of the foothills of the Zagros Mountains (Kurdish region of Northeastern Iraq). Intriguing remains from the Late Chalcolithic 2-5 period (4200-3100 BC) have been uncovered on the plain, encapsulating the developments preceding the Uruk expansion as well as the first cultural contact with Uruk Mesopotamia. See: www.nino-leiden.nl/publication/zagros-studies.

Ash-sharq. Bulletin of the Ancient Near East Archaeological, Historical and Societal Studies This paper presents the first results of a study of pottery evidence from a new archaeological project being conducted at the site of Tepe Gryashan located in the province of Kurdistan, western Iran. The collected pottery, including Sprig ware-like sherds and Flint-scraped Coba bowls, are rare evidence of material culture contact with northern Mesopotamia from the early Late Chalcolithic period.

The Marivan region of western Iran is not well understood, hence the Marivan Plain Archaeological Project aims to gain new insights into the region's occupation history and cultural interaction with Mesopotamia.

This paper presents new evidence of early urban development on the Rania Plain from the investigations by the Danish Archaeological Expedition to Iraq. Fascinating remains from the Late Chalcolithic 2-5 periods have been uncovered, encapsulating developments occurring during the period of the first cultural contact with Uruk Mesopotamia. The evidence will act as a focal point in a brief discussion of cross-regional interaction and early urban development. It sheds new light on how strategies for handling and managing garbage were spatially expressed in early urban societies and how this may reflect the transformations of communities on the plain.