哈姆卡尔的发掘结果在重新定义学术界对于文明发展的理解过程中扮演了重要的角色。早期的工作曾经使人们相信，城市文明最早出现在幼发拉底河河谷的下游河段——这一区域通常被称作南美索不达米亚。那些促使北方地区城市化启动的最早的城市中心是乌鲁克文化的一部分，其本质是随着南方文明民族寻找如木头、石料、以及南美索不达米亚所缺乏的金属等原材料的活动而被建立起来的殖民地。
哈姆卡尔的考古工作最初由麦盖尔·吉布森开启，此人系东方研究所的教授，在1999年-2008年之间的发掘工作中，他的团队发现了一些城市文明的要素。这些要素的发展与南方的影响无关。在那一轮工作的最后，种种迹象显示两股势力曾经在哈姆卡尔进行过一次暴力冲突。
“南方人似乎在城市的毁灭中扮演了关键角色，”理查说，“本季度我们对覆盖在建筑物上面的残墙断瓦的发掘工作中，许多探坑中都出土了数量庞大的、来自南方的乌鲁克文化的陶器。这一景象令人激动。即便乌鲁克人没有对这个城市发射过炮弹，他们也确然由此受益。因为该地区刚刚遭到毁灭性的打击，乌鲁克人就接管了此地。”

图：哈姆卡尔的房屋
具有讽刺意味的是，对于考古工作而言，古代战争拥自有其优越性，特别是那些被困住的人们也许还会震惊不已。“无论如何，在这些建筑被他们掩埋起来，原原本本地呆在那里等着我们来发现。”除此之外，许多有价值的东西更是隐藏在大量的残墙断瓦之后，这类“冻结的情境”对于有效的分析来说是至关重要的。它们可以帮助我们识别那些诸如家庭单元、烹饪场所、生产部门所在区域或者拥有管理、宗教职能的建筑物等等考古学单元。
在公元前四千纪中期，哈姆卡尔聚落有着许多鲜明的城市化特征。到目前为止，该区域已经发掘出了两个围绕着方形庭院的复杂的建筑。尽管这些建筑紧密地继承了我们从伊拉克和叙利亚的发掘中所熟知的那些家庭住址的平面布局，但是在这里，它们的功能看上去却不像是一种住宅。
每一个建筑都包含着一个大厨房，其中有一系列大型研磨石镶嵌在泥制的长椅当中，还有一个大得足以塞满整个房间的烘焙箱，这显示出了超越一般家庭所需的生产能力。每一个建筑复合体包含着三个单元（一个单元包含着一个被小型房间包围着的中心房屋）。
在2001年的发掘工作中，其中一个复合建筑中的物品得以重见天日，包括一些平面印章和封泥（一种用于封闭容器的泥块，经常印以章鉴），表明它曾经作为商品仓库和分配管理中心。在2005年，考古工作者发现了更多的平面印章和超过100块封泥，其中一些以雕刻图案代替印章图案的封泥暗示同样的活动也存在于第二个复合建筑当中。新的材料提供了对先前所提出的理论的进一步的证明，那就是在2005念得第一次发掘中所提出的，在公元前四千纪中期，哈姆卡尔已经出现了城市。
在本季的发掘工作中得到了更多确定的证据，表明在聚落被摧毁的几个世纪之前专业化的技术已经出现于哈姆卡尔。

图：哈姆卡尔发现的平面印章

图：哈姆卡尔发现的封泥

三条壕沟在整个遗址的南部被清理出来，而之前在此地的调查工作已经显示出无数的黑曜石碎片的存在，无论是刀刃还是生产过程中的碎片都可以追溯到公元前五千纪的中期，这些碎片分布在700-800英亩（280-320万平方米）的庞大区域中。
“发现生产过程中的碎片在实际上和石头工具同样重要——如果不是更重要的话，”萨拉姆·奥昆塔解释道。同时他指出，如今一个保存良好的黑曜石石核进显示，当时人们是对原材料行的剥片处理而制成具有辐射状的纹样的长而窄的刀刃的。“一个面积达700英亩聚落不可能存在于公元前五千纪，”奥昆塔说道，“所以我们假设它实际上是一个规模小而不断移动着的聚落，在长达几个世纪的时间里，它不断迁移其位置，最终形成了整个遗址。目前几乎没有发现建筑，但是一个储存库遗存——其中拥有数量庞大的石质容器——被识别出来，大量的泥质‘眼睛偶像’被猜测为与宗教敬拜活动有关联。”

图：哈姆卡尔的黑曜石刀刃

图：哈姆卡尔的“眼睛偶像”
曾几何时，哈姆卡尔接纳了南方的文化因素，而此种联系的本质尚待更加充分的调查。理查指出，哈姆卡尔和南美索不达米亚以及西南伊朗的建筑之间显示出许多确凿无疑的相似性，三单元式布局的建筑体现得尤为明显。一些印章的设计也体现出了与南美索不达米亚及西南伊朗地区相似的动机。发掘区域出土的陶器和几乎所有的其他工艺品尽管整体上体现出地方性的特征，但并不背离南方的影响。“我们猜想一些贸易联系存在于哈姆卡尔和乌鲁克文化之间，但是没有迹象显示在战争之前乌鲁克曾经控制或者统治了这里。”他说。但是南部的乌鲁克的确在战争之后的地层中显示出了在此地的控制力。

2005季的发掘工作是在哈姆卡尔展开的第四轮发掘。在1999年到2001年之间，联合总指挥麦盖尔·吉布森指导了三个季度的发掘工作。随着第四年工作的间断以及2003年爆发的伊拉克战争，政治局面由于美国和叙利亚之间的相互的不信任而蒙上了一层阴影。在这样的一个敏感时期，冒险重组一个美国-叙利亚联合团队并且在叙-伊边境上进行考古活动看上去也许令人惊讶。
尽管理查说他对与参与发掘的叙利亚官方人士进行合作感到骄傲，他们在发掘过程中保证安全并且提供了后勤上的支援，“他们就像老朋友一样欢迎我”——不过有些问题即使存在，也很少能够被报道出来。
负责叙利亚文化遗产管理的阿布达尔-拉兹克·莫拉兹，文化部副部长说道：“在哈姆卡尔的发掘已经在重新定义学术界对于文明起源和发展的理解方面扮演了重要的角色。此时叙利亚-美利坚联合考古的尝试表明，叙利亚愿意在此类田野考古的领域进行合作，它使得文化交流和两国人民之间的相互理解成为可能，并分享属于全人类的文化遗产。”除了芝加哥大学，普林斯顿研究院、宾夕法尼亚大学以及其他大学也向叙利亚派出了考古队进行工作，他说道。
附，考古中的细节发现：

图：房屋地板处的泥质回收坑，由图可见，块状的封泥和战争期间射入房间的泥弹丸保存得一样好。其年代为3500B.C.

图：在回收坑中发现的抛射弹的特写镜头。

附英文原文：
Earliest evidence for large scale organized warfare in the Mesopotamian world
University of Chicago-Syrian team report on work near the Iraqi border
A huge battle destroyed one of the world's earliest cities at around 3500 B.C. and left behind, preserved in their places, artifacts from daily life in an
urban settlement in upper Mesopotamia, according to a joint announcement from the University of Chicago and the Department of Antiquities in Syria.
"The whole area of our most recent excavation was a war zone," said Clemens Reichel, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Reichel, the American co-director of the Syrian-American Archaeological Expedition to Hamoukar, lead a team that spent October and November at the site. Salam al-Quntar of the Syrian Department of Antiquities and Cambridge University was Syrian co-director. Hamoukar is an ancient site in extreme northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border.
The discovery provides the earliest evidence for large scale organized warfare in the Mesopotamian world, the team said.
The team found extensive destruction with collapsed walls, which had undergone heavy bombardment by sling bullets and eventually collapsed in an ensuing fire. Work during an earlier season showed the settlement was protected by a 10-foot high mud-brick wall.
The excavators retrieved more than 1,200 smaller, oval-shaped bullets (about an inch long and an inch and a half in diameter) and some 120 larger round clay balls (two and half to four inches in diameter). "This clearly was no minor skirmish. This was 'Shock and Awe' in the Fourth Millennium B.C.," Reichel said.
Excavations at Hamoukar have played an important role in redefining scholar's understanding of the development of civilization. Earlier work had contended that cities first developed in the lower reaches of the Euphrates valley, the area often referred to as Southern Mesopotamia. Those early urban centers, part of the Uruk culture, established colonies that led to the civilization of the north, as the people sought raw materials such as wood, stone, and metals which are absent in southern Mesopotamia.
Work at Hamoukar, first undertaken by McGuire Gibson, Professor at the Oriental Institute, between 1999 and 2001 showed that some of the elements associated with civilization developed there independently of influences in the south. The latest work suggests that the two forces may have had a violent confrontation at Hamoukar.
"It is likely that the southerners played a role in the destruction of this city," Reichel said. "Dug into the destruction debris that covered the buildings excavated this season were numerous large pits that contained vast amount of southern Uruk pottery from the south. The picture is compelling. If the Uruk people weren't the ones firing the sling bullets they certainly benefited from it. They took over this place right after its destruction."
Ironically, for archaeological work, ancient warfare has its advantages, especially when the besieged people may have been surprised. "Whatever was in these buildings was buried in them, literally waiting to be retrieved by us." In addition to many objects of value that are left behind, buried under massive amounts of debris, such "frozen contexts" are vital for functional analyses, helping to identify architectural units as domestic units, cooking facilities, production sites or buildings of administrative or religious use.

鄙人英语水平不高，再加上赶工翻译，难免出现许多错漏。如果发现翻译的问题，还望花的心思看帖的达人赐教。在下先行谢过了
原帖作者：阿尔卑斯蓝

我记得这好像是13年的文章，不过事实上我对此是比较怀疑的。据我了解，乌鲁克在3500bc只有约80ha，而且此时乌鲁克没有城墙。而文章中的哈姆卡尔有约300ha，而且有城墙。不太合理

乌鲁克的影响在该城后来地层中得到确认，因此“据信”该战争是乌鲁克所为。
可如果参考一历史事件：”赫梯人攻破巴比伦第一王朝王都，得益者却为：加喜特人“。
恐怕也可以得出，战争是任何城邦任何势力所为，乌鲁克文化只是作为后来得益者。

The mid-fourth millennium B.C. settlement at Hamoukar has many distinctively urban features. The area excavated so far contains two large building complexes built around square courtyards. Though both buildings follow closely a house plan known from other sites in Syria and Iraq, their function seems to have been non-domestic.
One of the structures contained a large kitchen with a series of large grinding stones embedded in clay benches and a baking oven large enough to fill a whole room, suggesting that food production occurred here beyond the needs of a single household. Each complex also contained a tripartite building (a unit consisting of a long central room surrounded by smaller rooms).
Objects retrieved from one of them, excavated in 2001, included stamp seals and clay sealings (lumps of clay used to close containers, usually impressed with a seal), suggesting that it was used as a storage and redistribution center for commodities. More stamp seals and over 100 clay sealings were found in 2005, including some sealings with incised drawings instead of seal impressions indicating that similar activities occurred in the second complex. The new data lends further proof to the theory, suggested first after the 1999-2001 excavations, that a city existed at Hamoukar during mid-fourth millennium B.C.
Work this season reinforced that certain elements of technological specialization were already present at Hamoukar several hundred years earlier than the time of the settlement's destruction.
This season three trenches were excavated in the southern area of the site where previous survey work had shown the presence of countless pieces of obsidian,
both blades and production debris dating to the mid-to-late fifth millennium B.C., spread over an area of 700 – 800 acres.
"Finding production debris is actually as important, if not more important, than finding actual stone tools," explained Salam al-Quntar, pointing out a well-preserved obsidian core from which long, narrow blades had been flaked off in a radial pattern. "A settlement of 700 or more acres cannot have existed in the fifth millennium B.C.," al-Quntar says, "so we are assuming that this is a smaller 'shifting' settlement, which over centuries 'moved' across the area of the site. Little architecture has been found so far, but the remains of a storage room, which contained numerous large storage vessels, were identified, and numerous clay 'eye idols' assumed to be connected with cultic activities."
The nature of the contact that Hamoukar entertained with the south at that time remains to be investigated more fully. Reichel points out certain similarities that the architecture of Hamoukar shows with buildings in southern Mesopotamia, notably in the layout of the tripartite buildings. Some seal designs also show scenes resembling motives found in southern Mesopotamia and southwestern Iran. The pottery and almost all the other artifacts from the excavated area, however, were entirely of local character, betraying no southern influence. "We assume that some trade relations existed with the Uruk culture, but there is no evidence of Uruk control or domination over Hamoukar before the destruction," he said. But the southern Uruk clearly dominates the layers just above the destruction.
The 2005 season was the fourth season of archaeological work at Hamoukar. Between 1999 and 2001 three seasons were conducted under the co-directorship of McGuire Gibson. Following a four year hiatus and the 2003 Iraq War, in a political climate now overshadowed by misgivings between the U.S. and Syria, the resumption of a joint Syrian-American archaeological venture at this time on a site located so close to the border with Iraq may seem surprising.
Little if any problems could be reported, however, said Reichel, who praised the cooperation of Syrian government officials who issued excavation permit swiftly and offered logistical support. "They welcomed us like old friends."
Abdal-Razzaq Moaz, Deputy Minister of Cuture, in charge of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Syria, said, "Excavations at Hamoukar have played an important role in redefining scholar's understanding of the rise and development of civilization in the world. The resumption of a joint Syrian-American archaeological venture at this time shows the Syrians are interested to have such collaboration in the field of archaeology which allowed to have cultural exchange and mutual understanding between the two people, and to share a world heritage which belong to all the humanity." Besides the University of Chicago, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania and other universities have teams doing archaeological work in Syria, he said.

这些弹丸是怎么发射的，那时候有投石机吗