ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Kurdish-American archaeological team has uncovered a prehistoric settlement southeast of Erbil, preserved for thousands of years by an ancient earthquake.

The site, located in the Shamamok plains near Girdi Matrab, 40 kilometers southeast of Erbil, covers an area of about three hectares across four mounds. It is recognized as a significant archaeological site on Iraq and the Kurdistan Region’s heritage map.

Ali Bani Shari of Erbil’s Directorate of Antiquities and Heritage told Rudaw that “Girdi Matrab has an important strategic position and work there began in 2022,” adding that “this is the fourth season of excavation being successfully conducted.”

The project, co-led by the Erbil Directorate of Antiquities and Heritage and Bryn Mawr College in the United States, has revealed insights into rural life in Mesopotamia during the Late Chalcolithic (4500-3300 BCE) and Hellenistic (323-31 BCE) periods.

Finds include a six-room house with a kitchen and a larger structure believed to be a palace. One of the key discoveries is a Chalcolithic-era settlement abandoned after an earthquake.

Rocco Palermo, project director from Bryn Mawr College, noted, “We are researching two main phases, and we want to know how small rural communities responded to major changes such as the rise of civilizations and empires.”

He added that “there are no traces of violence or burning,” but that “hundreds of intact artifacts - pottery and everyday tools - were discovered left exactly where they were.

“This gives us a remarkably vivid snapshot of life from that period, something rarely uncovered in archaeology,” Palermo said.

Erbil itself is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, with human settlement dating back to 6000 BCE. Its UNESCO-listed Citadel marks centuries of layered habitation.