Page 104 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

-80-

evidence for a central-place influence, which relegated the south coast to a
hinterland relationship with the north coast settlements and Qala'at al-Bahrain.
While it would be desirable to demonstrate this relationship quantitatively
through a hierarchy of size-ranked settlements, these archeological settlement
data were not recorded in early surface surveys. It is clear, however, that the
Barbar period population-distance relationship between tomb clusters is similar to
the modern pattern shown in Figure 2. Given this commonly observed pattern of
population distribution and projecting it into the past, the greatest number of
Barbar period villages would have been similarly clustered along the north coast of
Bahrain and located near springs. Pending a suitable palynological study to
indicate the contemporary domesticated plant species, it is helpful to view the
major Barbar period land-use zones as related to date and cereal cultivation. The
modern agricultural pattern shows vegetables intercropped with dates in gardens
along the north coast. Such crops requiring frequent care are grown in close
proximity to the central market, while more durable crops are produced in outlying
areas. The Barbar period, by analogy, may have displayed a similar pattern. Here
again, herding probably took place along the periphery of the cultivated areas
where competition for land was less severe.
The end of the Barbar period on Bahrain was quite sudden. The last
temple at Barbar was razed without further attempt at reconstruction. The break
in the ceramic sequence at Qala’at al-Bahrain is also abrupt; Barbar n levels are
often overlain by Hellenistic and later occupations, Yet, we know that the
immediate successor to the Barbar period was the of Kassite Dynasty of
Mesopotamia. At Qala’at al-Bahrain the Kassite buildings, dated to the late second
millennium, overlie the Barbar sequence, which dates to little later than the
Isin-Larsa period. Thus, there was a hiatus in occupation at the Qalat. At least
four hundred years of settlement are unaccounted for in the archeological
sequence. The distinctive ceramic forms of the Kassite period, however, help to
define what little is known of the late second millennium on Bahrain.
Only two Kassite period occupation sites are known. These are Qala’at
al-Bahrain and Barbar village (site 203). Other evidence comes solely from burials.
Both occupation sites are located less than 1 km inland from the north coast while