Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:00:50.588Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Mesopotamian urbanism: a new view from the north

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Joan Oates ,
Augusta McMahon ,
Philip Karsgaard ,
Salam Al Quntar  and
Jason Ur
Joan Oates
Affiliation:
The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK (Email: [email protected])
Augusta McMahon
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK (Email: [email protected])
Philip Karsgaard
Affiliation:
Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Old High School, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LT, UK (Email: [email protected])
Salam Al Quntar
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK (Email: [email protected])
Jason Ur
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Harvard University Peabody Museum, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For many years, the southern Mesopotamia of Ur and Uruk, ancient Sumer, has been seen as the origin centre of civilisation and cities: ‘The urban implosion of late-fourth- and early-third-millennium Mesopotamia resulted in a massive population shift into large sites’ said Nissen in 1988. ‘These new city-states set the pattern for Mesopotamia as the heartland of cities’ (Adams 1981; Yoffee 1998). And for Stone & Zimansky (2005) ‘Remains of the world's first cities are the most noteworthy feature of the landscape in southern Iraq’. But at Tell Brak Joan Oates and her team are turning this model upside down. A long campaign of study, culminating in the new discoveries from 2006 reported here, show that northern Mesopotamia was far along the road to urbanism, as seen in monumentality, industrialisation and prestige goods, by the late fifth millennium BC. The ‘world's earliest cities’ are as likely to have been in north-eastern Syria as southern Iraq, and the model of a core from the south developing a periphery in the north is now ripe for revision.

Keywords

MesopotamiaSyriacitiesorigins of civilisationtell settlementsurbanism
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 313 , 1 September 2007 , pp. 585 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. McC. 1981. Heartland of Cities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Algaze, G. 2001. Initial Social Complexity in Southwestern Asia: The Mesopotamian Advantage. Current Anthropology 42: 199–215.Google Scholar
Algaze, G. 2005. The Sumerian Takeoff. Structure and Dynamics: eJournal of Anthropological and Related Science 1, article 2. http://repositories.cdlib.org/imbs/socdyn/sdeas/vol1/iss1/art2 Google Scholar
Akkermans, P. & Duistermaat, K.. 1997. Of storage and nomads: the sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria. Paléorient 22/2: 17–44.Google Scholar
Cowgill, G. L. 2004. Origins and Development of Urbanism: Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 525–49.Google Scholar
Dewar, R. E. 1991. Incorporating Variation in Occupation Span into Settlement-Pattern Analyses. American Antiquity 56: 604–20.Google Scholar
Emberling, G. & McDonald, H.. 2003. Excavations at Tell Brak, 2001-2002. Iraq 65: 1–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esin, U. 1994. The Functional Evidence of Seals and Sealings of De?girmentepe, in Ferioli, P., Fiandra, E., Fissore, G. G. & Frangipane, M. (ed.) Archives Before Writing: 59–81. Turin: Scriptorium.Google Scholar
Feriolo, P., Fiandra, E., Fissore, G. G. & Frangipane, M. (ed.) 1994. Archives Before Writing. Rome: Scriptorium.Google Scholar
Frangipane, M. 2001. Centralization Processes in Greater Mesopotamia: Uruk 'Expansion' as the Climax of Systemic Interactions among Areas of the Greater Mesopotamian Region, in Rothman, M. (ed.) Uruk Mesopotamia and its Neighbors: 307–47. Santa Fe (NM): School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, M. & Maktash, M.. 2000. Tell Hamoukar: early city in north-eastern Syria. Antiquity 74: 477–78.Google Scholar
Gibson, M., Al-Azm, A., Reichel, C., Al-Quntar, S., Franke, J., Khalidi, L., Hritz, C., Altaweel, M., Coyle, C., Colantoni, C., Tenney, J., Aziz, G. & Hartnell, T.. 2002. Hamoukar: A Summary of Three Seasons of Excavation. Akkadica 123: 11–34.Google Scholar
Helwing, B. 2003. Feasts as a Social Dynamic in Prehistoric Western Asia. Paléorient 29/2: 63–86.Google Scholar
Mallowan, M.E.L. 1947. Excavations at Brak and Chagar Bazar. Iraq 9: 1–259.Google Scholar
Matthews, R. 2003. Excavations at Tell Brak, Vol 4: Exploring an Upper Mesopotamian regional centre, 1994-96 (McDonald Institute Monograph). London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq & Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Nissen, H. J. 1988. The Early History of the Ancient Near East. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nissen, H. J. 2002. Uruk: key site of the period and key site of the problem, in Postgate, J. N. (ed.) Artefacts of Complexity, Tracking Uruk in the Near East: 1–16. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.Google Scholar
Oates, D. 1990. Innovations in mud-brick: decorative and structural techniques in ancient Mesopotamia. World Archaeology 21: 388–406.Google Scholar
Oates, D. & Oates, J.. 1993. Excavations at Tell Brak 1992-93. Iraq 55: 155–99.Google Scholar
Oates, D. 1997. An Open Gate: Cities of the fourth Millennium BC (Tell Brak 1997). Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7: 287–97.Google Scholar
Oates, D., Oates, J. & McDonald, H.. 2001. Excavations at Tell Brak, Vol. 2: Nagar in the third millennium BC (McDonald Institute Monograph). London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq & Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 1996. A Prehistoric Communication Revolution. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6: 165–73.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 2002. Tell Brak: The 4th Millennium Sequence at Brak and its Implications, in Postgate, J. N. (ed.) Artefacts of Complexity, Tracking Uruk in the Near East: 111–22. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 2005. Archaeology in Mesopotamia: Digging Deeper at Tell Brak. Proceedings of the British Academy 131: 1–39.Google Scholar
Oates, J. & Oates, D.. 2002. The Reattribution of Middle Uruk Materials at Brak, in Ehrenberg, E. (ed.) Leaving No Stones Unturned: essays on the ancient Near East and Egypt in honor of Donald P. Hansen: 145–54. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Oates, J. & Oates, D.. 2004. The Role of Exchange Relations in the Origins of Mesopotamian Civilization, in Cherry, J., Scarre, C. & Shennan, S. (ed.) Explaining Social Change: studies in honour of Colin Renfrew: 177–92. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Reichel, C. 2002. Administrative Complexity in Syria in the 4th Millennium BC - the Seals and Sealings from Tell Hamoukar. Akkadica 123: 35–56.Google Scholar
Rothman, M. 2002. Tepe Gawra: The Evolution of a Small Prehistoric Center in Northern Iraq. Philadelphia: University Museum Monographs 112.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. 1997. Climatic cycles and behavioural revolutions. Antiquity 71: 271–87.Google Scholar
Stein, G. 1994. Economy, Ritual and Power in Ubaid Mesopotamia, in Stein, G. & Rothman, M. (ed.) Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East (Monographs in World Archaeology 18): 35–45. Madison (WI): Prehistory Press.Google Scholar
Stein, G. 2002. From Passive Periphery to Active Agents: Emerging Perspectives in the Archaeology of Interregional Interaction. American Anthropology 104: 903–16.Google Scholar
Stone, E. C. & Zimansky, P.. 2005. The Tapestry of Power in a Mesopotamian City. Scientific American 15,1: 62–7.Google Scholar
Tobler, A. J. 1950. Excavations at Tepe Gawra 2. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Ur, J. A. 2002. Settlement and Landscape in Northern Mesopotamia: The Tell Hamoukar Survey 2000-2001. Akkadica 123: 57–88.Google Scholar
Ur, J. A., Karsgaard, P. & Oates, J.. In press. Earliest Urban Development in the Near East. Science.Google Scholar
Weber, J. 2003. Animal processing in the fourth millennium BC at Tell Brak: preliminary results. Iraq 65: 22–6.Google Scholar
Wengrow, D. 2002. The Evolution of Simplicity: Aesthetic Labour and Social Change in the Neolithic Near East. World Archaeology 33: 168–88.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, T. J. 1994. The Structure and Dynamics of Dry-Farming States in Upper Mesopotamia. Current Anthropology 35: 483–505.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, T. J., French, C.A.I., Matthews, W. & Oates, J.. 2001. Geoarchaeology, Landscape and the Region, in Oates, D., Oates, J. & McDonald, H. (ed.) Excavations at Tell Brak, Vol. 2: Nagar in the third millennium BC (McDonald Institute Monograph): 1–14. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq & Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Yoffee, N. (Baines, J. & Yoffee, N.). 1998. Order, Legitimacy and Wealth in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, in Feinman, G. M. & Marcus, J. (ed.) Archaic States: 199–260. Santa Fe (NM): School of American Research Press.Google Scholar