项目标书摘要：The Late Neolithic period(7000-5300 cal.BC)in the ancient Near East has recently emerged as a time of major\tsocio-economic,ritual and material transformations.The practice of fashioning durable,portable containers made in a heterogeneous suite of easily-transformed raw materials was a major Late Neolithic innovation.If the Neolithic of the Near East as a whole was the Age of Clay,the Late Neolithic might be dubbed the Age of Containers.Portable containers became key to social life,figuring center-stage in virtually all the activities and changes that archaeologists are currently documenting for the Late Neolithic.This research invesitgates the complex socio-economic and symbolic roles of containers in the Late Neolithic in ancient Mesopotamia.
