Maximum entropy and GIS: An approach to assessing the settlement pattern of the Ninevite 5 culture (3000–2500 BCE) in the Upper Great Zab region (Erbil Province, Kurdistan region of Iraq)

• The Ninevite 5 culture is an unevenly studied archaeological assemblage. • The study of archeological surveys in the Near East through the use of GIS. • Application of MaxEnt modelling for settlement pattern study in the UZGAR region. • Rivers and clustering are the main settlement factors in the UZGAR region during the first half of the third millennium. The Ninevite 5 culture extended across a large area throughout the Northern Mesopotamian plains, from the first ranges of the Zagros Mountains to the east, and the course of the Khabur River, in the plains of the Syrian Jazeera (Hassakah Province), to the west. This wide extension, combined with modern political divisions, the heterogeneous character of surveys undertaken in past decades, and uneven investigation efforts, has provided an incomplete general image of the settlement pattern of the Ninevite 5 period. This study addresses an attempt to describe the settlement pattern of a group of sites belonging to the Ninevite 5 period in a region in the Kurdistan of Iraq, an area known as UGZAR (Upper Great Zab Archaeological Survey). In order to fulfil our objective, the area has been studied using a combination of machine learning and GIS software to establish the settlement pattern through the modelling of several geographical and political variables. To do so, we applied the Maximum Entropy modelling to the UGZAR region during this period. Ultimately, this approach aims to overcome the fragmentary vision that currently rules the research on this period and offers an initial study of the Ninevite 5 settlement patterns and communities.