Regionalised Trajectories and Socio-Political Transformations in the late 4th - early 3rd millennia BCE in Mesopotamia.

The late 4th-early 3rd millennium BCE in Mesopotamia featured widespread changes, often cited as a period of societal collapse.

TRANSFORM will explore the effect of this rapid change through close examination of pottery production at the site of Kani Shaie in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).

The key research question driving TRANSFORM is: To what extent are the major societal transformations during this period replicated in the production of pottery at Kani Shaie?Pottery production is the realisation of a set of social and technological choices.

Thus, sudden changes to it the likes of which are documented during this period at Kani Shaie are socially and culturally significant.

Thus, TRANSFORM will reconstruct the pottery manufacturing process across this transitional period, to investigate the effects of these societal transformations, and how the occupants at Kani Shaie adapted to them.

This project will transcend traditional approaches by examining the social dimension of pottery production through application of a multidisciplinary methodology which seamlessly integrates archaeology, material science, geology, and anthropological theory.

The researchers background and methodology uniquely place him to critically examine how localised trajectories underpin larger socio-cultural transformations.

The project will benefit from the researchers cross disciplinary skills, combined with unprecedented access to an extensive archaeological dataset, and expertise at UC.

In questioning the effect of the LC-EBA transition at Kani Shaie, TRANSFORM will produce significant results by highlighting the effect that local communities had upon, and how they were affected by supraregional cultural processes.

This investigation presents an exciting opportunity to examine behavioural transformations when faced with major societal upheavala better understanding of which should give us pause to consider the ramifications of impending transformations facing us today.