Excavations uncover evidence for the emergence and rejection of the earliest state institutions in Iraq

Excavations at a 4th millennium BCE settlement in Iraqi Kurdistan have revealed new clues about the origins of the world’s earliest governing institutions, suggesting they emerged partly from their ability to provide large-scale meals, potentially as payment for labor.

However, the later abandonment of these centralized structures, without signs of violent overthrow or environmental stress, points to a deliberate rejection of centralized forms of organization that likely involved increasing top-down control.

Professor Claudia Glatz from the University of Glasgow and lead author of the research led an international team of researchers to excavate the structures and analyze their contents at Shakhi Kora. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity.

The team has been carrying out excavations at Shakhi Kora since 2019 as part of the Sirwan Regional Project and in collaboration with the Garmian Directorate of Antiquities, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

“Our excavations at Shakhi Kora provide a unique, new regional window into the development, and ultimately the rejection, of some of the earliest experiments with centralized, and perhaps state-like, organization,” states Professor Glatz.

The excavations at Shakhi Kora uncovered a long sequence of structures spanning several centuries. Over time, the cultural items found at the site shifted from reflecting primarily local traditions to being closely associated with the major ancient city of Uruk in southern Iraq, one of the world’s first cities, which featured a large-scale monumental precinct in the later 4th millennium BCE and yielded thousands of clay tablets containing the earliest written texts.

Researchers found large quantities of simple, roughly made bowls in the institutional structures at Shakhi Kora, similar to Uruk and other contemporary sites in the wider region. This suggests that they were used to provide large-scale communal meals, potentially for workers who were dependent on or connected to the institutional households there.

Further analysis of the animal bones, including stable isotope results, as well as results of organic residue analyses of the lipids trapped inside the walls of ceramic vessels, indicate that these meals would have frequently consisted of hearty meat stews.

As such, the findings indicate the origins of the state and its institutions in Mesopotamia lie, in part at least, in their ability to provide food to members of a wider community. A series of deposits suggesting ritual activities may point to another important function.

Salah Mohammed Sameen, the director of the Garmian Department of Antiquities and Heritage says, “Shakhi Kora and the results of ongoing excavations there are providing critical new data that allow us to better understand this important period in Iraqi Kurdistan.”

However, the eventual abandonment of the final institutional building at Shakhi Kora, without any signs of it being violently destroyed or seemingly facing environmental pressures, points to a deliberate choice by the local community to move away from this centralized system of authority and resource distribution.

This challenges the idea that the development of powerful, hierarchical governments was an inevitable outcome or took place unopposed in early complex societies.

“This reaffirms that top-down, hierarchical forms of government were not inevitable in the development of early complex societies,” concludes Professor Glatz. “Local communities found ways to resist and reject tendencies towards centralized power.”