Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia

Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia PDF Author: Glenn M. Schwartz
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 193877096X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 691

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Book Description
This book presents the results of the extensive excavation of a small, rural village from the period of emerging cities in upper Mesopotamia (modern northeast Syria) in the early to middle third millennium BC. Prior studies of early Near Eastern urban societies generally focused on the cities and elites, neglecting the rural component of urbanization. This research represents part of a move to rectify that imbalance. Reports on the architecture, pottery, animal bones, plant remains, and other varieties of artifacts and ecofacts enhance our understanding of the role of villages in the formation of urban societies, the economic relationship between small rural sites and urban centers, and status and economic differentiation in villages. Among the significant results are the extensive exposure of a large segment of the village area, revealing details of spatial and social organization and household economics. The predominance of large-scale grain storage and processing leads to questions of staple finance, economic relations with pastoralists, and connections to developing urban centers.

Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia

Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia PDF Author: Glenn M. Schwartz
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 193877096X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 691

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Book Description
This book presents the results of the extensive excavation of a small, rural village from the period of emerging cities in upper Mesopotamia (modern northeast Syria) in the early to middle third millennium BC. Prior studies of early Near Eastern urban societies generally focused on the cities and elites, neglecting the rural component of urbanization. This research represents part of a move to rectify that imbalance. Reports on the architecture, pottery, animal bones, plant remains, and other varieties of artifacts and ecofacts enhance our understanding of the role of villages in the formation of urban societies, the economic relationship between small rural sites and urban centers, and status and economic differentiation in villages. Among the significant results are the extensive exposure of a large segment of the village area, revealing details of spatial and social organization and household economics. The predominance of large-scale grain storage and processing leads to questions of staple finance, economic relations with pastoralists, and connections to developing urban centers.

Interpreting the Late Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia

Interpreting the Late Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia PDF Author: Olivier Nieuwenhuyse
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9782503540016
Category : Civilization, Assyro-Babylonian
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The times between the Neolithic and Urban revolutions in Mesopotamia have for a long time been interpreted as a period of stagnation. This volume is part of an emerging discourse that challenges such assumptions. Focussing upon the northern parts of ancient Western Asia, where most recent research has concentrated, an international group of researchers demonstrates that Upper Mesopotamia underwent complex historical changes that we just begin to grasp fully. The Late Neolithic was a critical phase of the history of the ancient Middle East. Authors investigate settlement patterns, practices of painting pottery, distributions of various raw materials, the role of craft industries, the emergence of seals and other issues from a variety of theoretical and practical questions. The book is a must-have for prehistorians working in the Near East, and a rich source of information for archaeologists working in other parts of the world. Olivier Nieuwenhuyse is a Research Fellow at Leiden University and at the DAI-Berlin. His research focuses on reconstructions of landscape and prehistoric settlement and the meanings of material culture. Reinhard Bernbeck is professor at the Freie Universitat Berlin and Binghamton University, New York. His research focuses on critical assessments of ancient Western Asian prehistory and historical periods. Peter Akkermans is professor at Leiden University. He is the director of the excavatons at Tell Sabi Abyad and had published widely on the prehistory of the ancient Near East.

The Archaeology of Political Spaces

The Archaeology of Political Spaces PDF Author: Dominik Bonatz
Publisher: ISSN
ISBN: 9783110265958
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book, consisting of 12 contributions, unites the most recent results from archaeological research in the Upper Mesopotamian piedmont. Under the growing influence of expanding territorial states, which were established during the 2nd millennium BCE, this region experienced a substantial change in social and political life during that time. The discussion is centered on settlement shapes, developments in material culture, as well as written documents that attest to this change. In summary, this book emphasizes the significant role of archaeological research in the reconstruction of models concerning the formation and transformation of political spaces in the ancient world.

Making Ancient Cities

Making Ancient Cities PDF Author: Andrew Creekmore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107046521
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
Investigates how the structure and use of space developed and changed in cities, and examines the role of different societal groups in shaping urbanism.

Integrative Approaches to the Archaeology and History of Kültepe-Kaneš

Integrative Approaches to the Archaeology and History of Kültepe-Kaneš PDF Author: Fikri Kulakoğlu
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782503585598
Category : Excavations
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This third volume of the Kultepe International Meetings (KIM) series draws together multidisciplinary approaches to the archaeology and history of complex urban sites using Kultepe-Kanesh as a case study, with particular emphasis on Bronze Age material. The 3rd Kultepe International Meeting aimed at exploring multidisciplinary approaches to the archaeology and history of complex urban sites using Kultepe-Kanesh as a case study. As a result, the conference proceedings involve a wide variety of disciplines: archaeology, ceramics, paleobotany, paleoecology, palynology, archaeometallurgy, geo- and archaeo-magnetism, art history, philology, history, computer science, and last but not least, videogame design. Indeed, the aim of the Kultepe International Meetings (KIM) is to facilitate the dialogue between these different disciplines and to combine their data in order to build an accurate view of Kultepe and its environment. The 3rd KIM more than fulfilled this goal, demonstrating once again how Kultepe functions as an international experimental laboratory in which disciplines and sub-disciplines can be tested, improved, and developed. All the contributions presented here provide a good overview of the ongoing multidisciplinary studies being carried out at Kultepe and Central Anatolia.

Concluding the Neolithic

Concluding the Neolithic PDF Author: Arkadiusz Marciniak
Publisher: Lockwood Press
ISBN: 1937040844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
The second half of the seventh millennium BC saw the demise of the previously affluent and dynamic Neolithic way of life. The period is marked by significant social and economic transformations of local communities, as manifested in a new spatial organization, patterns of architecture, burial practices, and in chipped stone and pottery manufacture. This volume has three foci. The first concerns the character of these changes in different parts of the Near East with a view to placing them in a broader comparative perspective. The second concerns the social and ideological changes that took place at the end of Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic that help to explain the disintegration of constitutive principles binding the large centers, the emergence of a new social system, as well as the consequences of this process for the development of full-fledged farming communities in the region and beyond. The third concerns changes in lifeways: subsistence strategies, exploitation of the environment, and, in particular, modes of procurement, consumption, and distribution of different resources.

Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization

Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization PDF Author: Guillermo Algaze
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226013782
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the “cradle of civilization,” owing to the scale of the processes of urbanization that took place in the area by the second half of the fourth millennium BCE. In Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization, Guillermo Algaze draws on the work of modern economic geographers to explore how the unique river-based ecology and geography of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvium affected the development of urban civilization in southern Mesopotamia. He argues that these natural conditions granted southern polities significant competitive advantages over their landlocked rivals elsewhere in Southwest Asia, most importantly the ability to easily transport commodities. In due course, this resulted in increased trade and economic activity and higher population densities in the south than were possible elsewhere. As southern polities grew in scale and complexity throughout the fourth millennium, revolutionary new forms of labor organization and record keeping were created, and it is these socially created innovations, Algaze argues, that ultimately account for why fully developed city-states emerged earlier in southern Mesopotamia than elsewhere in Southwest Asia or the world.

The Archaeology of Mobility

The Archaeology of Mobility PDF Author: Hans Barnard
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 1938770382
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 617

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Book Description
There have been edited books on the archaeology of nomadism in various regions, and there have been individual archaeological and anthropological monographs, but nothing with the kind of coverage provided in this volume. Its strength and importance lies in the fact that it brings together a worldwide collection of studies of the archaeology of mobility. This book provides a ready-made reference to this worldwide phenomenon and is unique in that it tries to redefine pastoralism within a larger context by the term mobility. It presents many new ideas and thoughtful approaches, especially in the Central Asian region.

First Civilizations

First Civilizations PDF Author: Robert Chadwick
Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd.
ISBN: 9781904768784
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
First Civilizations is the second edition of a popular student text first published in 1996 in Montreal by Les Editions Champ Fleury. This much updated and expanded edition provides an introductory overview of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. It was conceived primarily for students who have little or no knowledge of ancient history or archaeology. The book begins with the role of history and archaeology in understanding the past, and continues with the origins of agriculture and the formation of the Sumerian city-states in Mesopotamia. Three subsequent chapters concentrate on Assyrian and Babylonian history and culture. The second half of the book focuses on Egypt, begining with the physical environment of the Nile, the formation of the Egyptian state and the Old Kingdom. Subsequent chapters discuss the Middle Kingdom, the Hyksos period, and the 18th Dynasty, with space devoted to Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, the Ramesside period. The text ends with the Persian conquest of Mesopotamia and Egypt. First Civilizations also contains sections on astronomy, medicine, architecture, eschatology, religion, burial practices and mummification, and discusses the myths of Gilgamesh, Isis and Osiris. Each chapter has a basic bibliography which emphasizes English language encyclopedias, books and journals specializing in the ancient Near East.

A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East

A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East PDF Author: D. T. Potts
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444360779
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1509

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Book Description
A COMPANION TO THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East is a comprehensive and authoritative overview of ancient material culture from the late Pleistocene to Late Antiquity. This expansive two-volume work includes 58 new essays from an international community of ancient Near East scholars. With coverage extending from Asia Minor, the eastern Mediterranean, and Egypt to the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Indo-Iranian borderlands, the book highlights the enormous variation in cultural developments across roughly 11,000 years of human endeavor. In addition to chapters devoted to specific regions and particular periods, many contributors concentrate on individual industries and major themes in ancient Near Eastern archaeology, ranging from metallurgy and agriculture to irrigation and fishing. Controversial issues, including the nature and significance of the antiquities market, ethical considerations in archaeological praxis, the history of the foundation of departments of antiquities, and ancient attitudes towards the past, make this a unique collection of studies that will be of interest to scholars, students, and interested readers alike.