Uygarlığın beşiği olarak kabul edilen Yukarı Mezopotamya'nın tarihöncesine dair son yıllarda gerçekleştirilen arkeolojik çalışmalarda oldukça değerli bilgilere ulaşılmıştır. Son elli yıl içerisinde bu coğrafyaya hayat veren Fırat ve Dicle

The First Painted Potteries of the Upper Mesopotamia: Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf. New Interpretations and Approaches. Volume 1: Hassuna and SamarraRecent archaeological investigations carried out in the frame of several dam projects on the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers revealed valuable data on Upper Mesopotamian prehistory, the cradle of civilizations. The new data obtained from the salvage projects in the last 50 years claims a re-assessment of the earlier arguments. The traditional concepts on the earliest painted pottery of Upper Mesopotamia - the Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf potteries - are based on the arguments from the last century. Recently, the previous approaches are intensively discussed among specialists. The archaeological excavations carried out in South-eastern Anatolia and those in Northern Syria require a re-handling of this subject. This study deals with a detailed discussion on the mistakes of the previous approaches on the potteries of Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf, and on the new approaches and suggestions basing on recent informations. The first part of this study deals with the ambiguous explanations on the Hassuna and Samarra, and the second part with a detailed discussion of recent arguments on the Halaf