Since the present writer could not go to Iraq and himself pick out samples for investigation of the plant food in the above described site excavated by Diana Kirkbride, a small series of samples was brought to Copenhagen by the excavator. Although this may be described as an emergency measure, the slender results justify the labour involved. A widened investigation would probably improve the picture quantitatively, but hardly very much qualitatively. The question was whether that meagre tract was exploited for agriculture in the Neolithic, and the findings prove that this was the case.

The samples consisted of a small collection of house debris, plaster and clay, as also some earth samples suitable for notation.

Two different categories of house material were examined: a crude, sandy plaster, probably made up of gypsum and clay with many small pebbles in it; and a fine-grained levigated (wall ?) plaster of a yellowish-white colour, to an extent of c. 80 per cent soluble in acetic acid and thus mainly calcareous.

The coarse material was copiously tempered with husk and straw fragments (tibn), but gave few usable imprints. The yellow plaster, heavily tempered with the same material, produced a small number of determinable imprints of spike parts of cereals. All imprints in this material are characterized by a thin rusty-coloured coating representing the decomposed vegetable matter.