Early Urban Development in the Near East

Ur, Jason; Karsgaard, Philip; Oates, Joan

doi:10.1126/science.1138728

Cited by 72 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…An intensive field survey of the surface of Tell Brak systematically recorded sherd densities at 50-to 100-m intervals (Fig. 3G), in an area about 5 km 2 in size (32,33), and one can evaluate true and false positives even at pixel level (Fig. 3F).…”

Section: Mapping Anthrosols At a Large Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a large scale

Menze

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

132

104

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The landscapes of the Near East show both the first settlements and the longest trajectories of settlement systems. Mounding is a characteristic property of these settlement sites, resulting from millennia of continuing settlement activity at distinguished places. So far, however, this defining feature of ancient settlements has not received much attention, or even been the subject of systematic evaluation. We propose a remote sensing approach for comprehensively mapping the pattern of human settlement at large scale and establish the largest archaeological record for a landscape in Mesopotamia, mapping about 14,000 settlement sites-spanning eight millennia-at 15-m resolution in a 23,000-km 2 area in northeastern Syria. To map both low-and high-mounded places-the latter of which are often referred to as "tells"-we develop a strategy for detecting anthrosols in time series of multispectral satellite images and measure the volume of settlement sites in a digital elevation model. Using this volume as a proxy to continued occupation, we find a dependency of the long-term attractiveness of a site on local water availability, but also a strong relation to the relevance within a basin-wide exchange network that we can infer from our record and third millennium B.C. intersite routes visible on the ground until recent times. We believe it is possible to establish a nearly comprehensive map of human settlements in the fluvial plains of northern Mesopotamia and beyond, and site volume may be a key quantity to uncover long-term trends in human settlement activity from such a record.A ssessment of the scale and spatial distribution of human communities in past societies has been a key objective for archaeological research over the last 50 y (1), especially in the Near East, where questions of the origins of urbanism, the state, and empires are almost always approached via a regional perspective (2), and most commonly using the methods of archaeological survey. The pioneering surveys of the 20th century focused on the top of the settlement hierarchy, in the form of the largest mounds (e.g., refs. 3 and 4), but it is now appreciated that by overlooking smaller sites such an approach can produce misleading portraits of settlement systems, particularly those of nonurbanized phases (5). The challenge for archaeologists is to maintain coverage extensive enough to discern significant spatial patterning while increasing survey intensity in order to locate these smaller sites. The first generation of survey archaeologists opted for the former half of this classic tradeoff; more recent generations have increasingly adopted the latter intensive approach.Many surveys have met this challenge by employing various remote sensing datasets. Of the three primary physical properties characterizing sedentary Near Eastern sites since the Neolithicdense surface artifact assemblage, moundedness, and anthropogenic sediments-the latter two can be detected in aerial or satellite imagery and can potentially be recorded at large scale. Indeed, nearly a...

show abstract

Section: Mapping Anthrosols At a Large Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a large scale

Menze

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

132

104

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Intensive systematic surface collection in these outer areas (the "suburbs") recovered LC2 sherds in discrete clusters of 2 to 4 ha, at intervals of 200-400 m from the central mound and from each other (Oates et al 2007, p. 597;Ur in press-a;Ur et al 2007). The total area of LC2 settlement at Brak covered at least 55 ha.…”

Section: Origins Of Complexity and Urbanism Ca 4400-3000 Bcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC

2010

J Archaeol Res

Self Cite

198

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The intensification of fieldwork in northern Mesopotamia, the upper region of the TigrisEuphrates basin, has revealed two cycles of expansion and reduction in social complexity between 4400-2000 BC. These cycles include developments in social inequality, political centralization, craft production and economic specialization, agropastoral land use, and urbanization. Contrary to earlier assessments, many of these developments proceeded independently from the polities in southern Mesopotamia, although not in isolation. This review considers recent data from excavations and surveys in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey with particular attention to how they are used to construct models of early urban polities.Key words: Mesopotamia, complex society, urbanism, collapse 1 IntroductionOver a span of more than two millennia, northern Mesopotamia witnessed the emergence of urban complex society, its collapse and rebirth, and a further episode of collapse. This time span (ca. 4400-2000 BC) has been intensively studied by archaeologists over the last two decades, largely because of twin push (the closure of Iraq to foreign archaeology) and pull (salvage campaigns in advance of dam projects) forces. As a result, what was once considered to be the periphery of early urbanism and state formation in southern Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) has emerged as a region of interest in its own right. In many ways we now have a superior understanding of major social developments in the north (e.g., urbanism, craft production, agricultural and pastoral organization, the development of the landscape) than we do for the south, and improvements in chronology have revealed that many aspects of social complexity that were once assumed to have been imported from southern Mesopotamia have earlier and entirely indigenous origins.This review describes the development of social complexity from 4400 BC to the collapse of urban society at the end of the 3rd millennium BC in northern (or upper) Mesopotamia, defined here as the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys and the plains and steppe between them that fall today in northern Iraq, northern Syria, and southeastern Turkey (Fig. 1).Much archaeological research in the region, and in the Near East in general, adopts a culture historical approach that emphasizes typology and the development of sequences of material culture; here the emphasis is on anthropologically oriented research published since 1990.Geographically, the focus is on the river valleys and alluvial plains of Syria, and particularly the Upper Khabur basin of Hassake province. Occasionally I refer to sites beyond northern Mesopotamia proper when they are relevant to the discussion, particularly the western Syrian 2 cities of Ebla and Umm al-Marra; the important Syrian city of Mari, on the Euphrates near the Iraqi border, is largely southern Mesopotamian in orientation and will be not be discussed (although see Margueron 2004).In Mesopotamian archaeology generally, social complexity is described throug...

show abstract

“…As for the critique of the hierarchical model and the specific study of Tell Brak by A. Jason Ur, Philip and Joan Karsgaard Oaster in Science (Ur et al, 2007), "Early Urban Development in the Near East", according to the authors (Ur et al, 2007(Ur et al, : 1188:…”

Section: Archaeological Methodologies and Traces Of Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Around the site of Tell Brak (see Figure 3 below), considered an example of the traditional system of concentric development of a large town or city, the authors used (Ur et al, 2007 The authors found several villages that had coexisted for a long time before the creation of Tell Brak and the disappearance of the original villages; that is, the type 1 or "cooperative" villages existed before the type 2 or "hierarchical" city was created. Even among the Mayans, who are considered a people whose society was strongly hierarchical, such "cooperative" groupings also existed, according to the work of Philip Nondédéo concerning Rio Bec, Mexico (2005: 112):…”

Section: It Has Been Thought That the First Cities In The Near East Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structures of Human Societies

Meter¹

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We have previously shown ("How People See Society: The Network Structure of Public Opinion Concerning Social Conflicts", Connections, 2004, 26(1): 71-89) that opinions on social conflict are structured in very stable networks at the level of individuals, of arbitrary collections of individuals, of structured social groups and of representative samples of the French population, for more than thirty years. Similar surveys in Great Britain and Russia, for over ten years in Costa Rica, show the stability and extent of application of these results. Our first working hypothesis is that this network structure with two axesopenness/closure and emotional/non-emotional-applies to all human societies. For this, we look at recent developments in archaeology, which describe two and only two types of structure for Neolithic human groups: hierarchical structures and cooperative structures. We show that these two types of structure are the poles delimiting the openness/closure axis, that there are no other stable structures, and that human societies can thus be characterized by the set of "tools" elaborated in common, this is, socially, for managing social conflicts inherent in any viable and stable group of human beings. And finally, these "tools" form the system of "values" characteristic of each society.

show abstract

Early Urban Development in the Near East

Cited by 72 publications

References 2 publications

Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a large scale

Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a large scale

Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC

Structures of Human Societies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About