This is evident in the form of a rash of mainly small, dispersed settlements and more extensive lower towns. There was also much less settlement on the summits of tells after the third millennium bc. There were more settlements than at any other period during the Iron Age, and it appears that this was also the period of greatest population in the area. This conclusion, which is a result of the recognition of smaller sites, is counter to many earlier reports, which suggested that the Jazira was often sparsely populated in the Iron Age. Not only were there more sites of the first millennium bc, but also settlements were present in most environments, that is along the main wadis, on the rolling steppe beyond, and apparently for the first time, on the basalt plateau.
None show any signs of either gates or fortification walls.
Given that there was no commensurate increase in the size of settlements, it can be inferred that this decline represents a real decrease in the sedentary population of the area. Consequently, by the second millennium ad, the region was quite thinly populated. If this distribution is real, and not simply a result of the small area surveyed, it may be taken as indicating that the limit of viable rain-fed cultivation only spread as far south as Tell Beydar at this time. The long-term pattern of settlement is clear in general but obscure in detail. During the prehistoric periods, namely the ceramic Neolithic to Late Chalcolithic, settlement was dispersed into a mixed pattern of small sites, and presumably small but growing centers.