Takahiro ODAKA
Since 1996, I have participated in several archaeological field projects in the Near Eastern countries such as Syria, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Iran. Currently I am directing the field project at Shakar Tepe and Shaikh Marif in the Shahrizor Plain, the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan. My main concern is the process from early farming society to civilized urban society, which stimulated the formation of the historic world of the ancient Near East. Through pottery studies, I am trying to identify the multilayered spatiotemporal framework by considering ecological environments, subsistence economy, and human mobility.
In this project, I am participating in the field archaeology in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Particularly, my research focuses on the rise of mobility of early farmers and their dispersals into the outside of the Fertile Crescent in the Late Neolithic period, considering the emergence of nomadism as a result of these phenomena. I aim to understand the developmental process of nomadism in the historic context of the reorganization of early farming societies, broadly occurred in the Near East around 6000 BC, through comparative studies of archaeological evidences recovered by our excavations in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraqi Kurdistan.
Selected publications
・Odaka, T., O. Nieuwenhuyse, and S. Muhl (2019) “From the 7th to the 6th Millennium BC in Iraqi Kuridistan: A Local Ceramic Horizon in the Shahrizor Plain". Paleorient 45(2): 67-83.
・Odaka, T. (2019) “Neolithic Potsherds from Matarrah, Northern Iraq: The Collection of the University Museum, the University of Tokyo.” In: Decades in Deserts: Essays on Near Eastern Archaeology in Honour of Sumio Fujii, edited by S. Nakamura, T. Adachi, and M. Abe, pp. 251-260. Tokyo: Rokuichi Syobou.
・Odaka, T. (2018) “Neolithic Pottery with Horizontal Applied Bands from Tell el-Kerkh, the Rouj Basin.” In: II Workshop on Late Neolithic Ceramics in Ancient Mesopotamia: Pottery in Context, edited by A. Gomez Bach, J. Becker, and M. Molist, pp. 25-34. Barcelona: Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya.
・Odaka, T. (2017) “Decoration of Neolithic Pottery in the Northern Levant: A View from the Rouj Basin.” In: Painting Pots - Painting People. Investigating Decorated Ceramics of the Late Neolithic Near East, edited by W. Cruells, I. Mateiciucova, and O. P. Nieuwenhuyse, pp. 177-185. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
・Odaka, T. (2017) “The Emergence of Pottery in Northern Levant: A Recent View from Tell el-Kerkh.” In: The Emergence of Pottery in West Asia, edited by A. Tsuneki, S. Campbell, and O. P. Nieuwenhuyse, pp. 61-71. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
