Palaeolithic to Chalcolithic periods The early occupation of the Euphrates basin was limited to its upper reaches; that is, the area that is popularly known as the
Fertile Crescent.
Acheulean stone
artifacts have been found in the Sajur basin and in the
El Kowm oasis in the central
Syrian steppe; the latter together with remains of
Homo erectus that were dated to 450,000 years old. In the Taurus Mountains and the upper part of the Syrian Euphrates valley, early permanent villages such as Abu Hureyra – at first occupied by
hunter-gatherers but later by some of the earliest
farmers, Jerf el Ahmar, Mureybet and
Nevalı Çori became established from the eleventh millennium BCE onward. In the absence of irrigation, these early farming communities were limited to areas where
rainfed agriculture was possible, that is, the upper parts of the Syrian Euphrates as well as Turkey. Late Neolithic villages, characterized by the introduction of
pottery in the early 7th millennium BCE, are known throughout this area. Occupation of lower Mesopotamia started in the 6th millennium and is generally associated with the introduction of irrigation, as rainfall in this area is insufficient for dry agriculture. Evidence for irrigation has been found at several sites dating to this period, including
Tell es-Sawwan. During the 5th millennium BCE, or late
Ubaid period, northeastern Syria was dotted by small villages, although some of them grew to a size of over . In Iraq, sites like
Eridu and
Ur were already occupied during the Ubaid period. Clay boat models found at
Tell Mashnaqa along the
Khabur indicate that riverine transport was already practiced during this period. The
Uruk period, roughly coinciding with the 4th millennium BCE, saw the emergence of truly
urban settlements across Mesopotamia. Cities like
Tell Brak and
Uruk grew to over in size and displayed monumental architecture. The spread of southern Mesopotamian pottery, architecture and
sealings far into Turkey and
Iran has generally been interpreted as the material reflection of a widespread trade system aimed at providing the Mesopotamian cities with raw materials.
Habuba Kabira on the Syrian Euphrates is a prominent example of a settlement that is interpreted as an Uruk colony.
Ancient history During the
Jemdet Nasr (3600–3100 BCE) and
Early Dynastic periods (3100–2350 BCE), southern Mesopotamia experienced a growth in the number and size of settlements, suggesting strong population growth. These settlements, including
Sumero-Akkadian sites like
Sippar, Uruk,
Adab and
Kish, were organized in competing
city-states. Many of these cities were located along canals of the Euphrates and the Tigris that have since dried up, but that can still be identified from
remote sensing imagery. A similar development took place in
Upper Mesopotamia,
Subartu and
Assyria, although only from the mid 3rd millennium and on a smaller scale than in Lower Mesopotamia. Sites like
Ebla,
Mari and
Tell Leilan grew to prominence for the first time during this period. Large parts of the Euphrates basin were for the first time united under a single ruler during the
Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) and
Ur III empires, which controlled – either directly or indirectly through vassals – large parts of modern-day Iraq and northeastern Syria. Following their collapse, the
Old Assyrian Empire (1975–1750 BCE) and Mari asserted their power over northeast Syria and northern Mesopotamia, while southern Mesopotamia was controlled by city-states like
Isin,
Kish and
Larsa before their territories were absorbed by the newly emerged state of
Babylonia under
Hammurabi in the early to mid 18th century BCE. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, the Euphrates basin was divided between
Kassite Babylon in the south and
Mitanni, Assyria and the
Hittite Empire in the north, with the
Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC) eventually eclipsing the Hittites, Mitanni and Kassite Babylonians. Following the end of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the late 11th century BCE, struggles broke out between Babylonia and Assyria over the control of the Iraqi Euphrates basin. The
Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BC) eventually emerged victorious out of this conflict and also succeeded in gaining control of the northern Euphrates basin in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE. in Gaziantep) In the centuries to come, control of the wider Euphrates basin shifted from the Neo-Assyrian Empire (which collapsed between 612 and 599 BC) to the short lived
Median Empire (612–546 BC) and equally brief
Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BC) in the last years of the 7th century BC, and eventually to the
Achaemenid Empire (539–333 BC). The Achaemenid Empire was in turn overrun by
Alexander the Great, who defeated the last king
Darius III and died in Babylon in 323 BCE. Subsequent to this, the region came under the control of the
Seleucid Empire (312–150 BC),
Parthian Empire (150–226 AD) (during which several
Neo-Assyrian states such as
Adiabene came to rule certain regions of the Euphrates), and was fought over by the
Roman Empire, its succeeding
Byzantine Empire and the
Sassanid Empire (226–638 AD), until the
Islamic conquest of the mid 7th century AD. The
Battle of Karbala took place near the banks of this river in 680 AD. In the north, the river served as a border between
Greater Armenia (331 BC–428 AD) and
Lesser Armenia (the latter became a Roman province in the 1st century BC).
Modern era over the Euphrates, –1910|alt=Refer to caption After
World War I, the borders in Southwest Asia were redrawn in the
Treaty of Lausanne (1923), when the
Ottoman Empire was
partitioned. Clause 109 of the treaty stipulated that the three riparian states of the Euphrates (at that time Turkey,
France for its
Syrian mandate and the
United Kingdom for its
mandate of Iraq) had to reach a mutual agreement on the use of its water and on the construction of any hydraulic installation. An agreement between Turkey and Iraq signed in 1946 required Turkey to report to Iraq on any hydraulic changes it made on the Tigris–Euphrates river system, and allowed Iraq to construct dams on Turkish territory to manage the flow of the Euphrates. The river featured on the
coat of arms of Iraq from 1932 to 1959. Turkey and Syria completed their first dams on the Euphrates – the Keban Dam and the Tabqa Dam, respectively – within one year of each other and filling of the reservoirs commenced in 1975. At the same time, the area was hit by severe drought and river flow toward Iraq was reduced from in 1973 to in 1975. This led to an international crisis during which Iraq threatened to bomb the Tabqa Dam. An agreement was eventually reached between Syria and Iraq after intervention by Saudi Arabia and the
Soviet Union. A similar crisis, although not escalating to the point of military threats, occurred in 1981 when the Keban Dam reservoir had to be refilled after it had been almost emptied to temporarily increase Turkey's hydroelectricity production. In 1984, Turkey unilaterally declared that it would ensure a flow of at least per second, or per year, into Syria, and in 1987 a bilateral treaty to that effect was signed between the two countries. Another bilateral agreement from 1989 between Syria and Iraq settles the amount of water flowing into Iraq at 60 percent of the amount that Syria receives from Turkey. In 2008, Turkey, Syria and Iraq instigated the Joint Trilateral Committee (JTC) on the management of the water in the Tigris–Euphrates basin and on 3 September 2009 a further agreement was signed to this effect. On 15 April 2014, Turkey began to reduce the flow of the Euphrates into Syria and Iraq. The flow was cut off completely on 16 May 2014 resulting in the Euphrates terminating at the Turkish–Syrian border. This was in violation of an agreement reached in 1987 in which Turkey committed to releasing a minimum of of water per second at the Turkish–Syrian border. During the
Syrian civil war and the
Iraqi Civil War, much of the Euphrates was controlled by the
Islamic State from 2014 until 2017, when the terrorist group began losing land and was eventually defeated territorially in
Syria at the
Battle of Baghouz and in Iraq in the
Western Iraq offensive respectively. == Economy ==