Abstract
Cities generate challenges as well as confer advantages on their inhabitants. Recent excavations and surveys in northern Mesopotamia have revealed extensive settlements with diverse populations, institutions, extended hinterlands, and mass production by the early fourth millennium BC, comparable to well-known evidence for cities in their traditional homeland of southern Iraq. However, early northern Mesopotamian cities incorporated low-density zones and flexible uses of space not yet identified in southern Mesopotamia. Evidence for violent conflict in northern Mesopotamian cities also raises questions about urban sustainability; cities succeeded despite new sources of social stress.
Highlights
Cities are extraordinarily successful and adaptable, present in almost every region around the globe
Sociology and urban planning literature is rife with negatives of urban living: crowding, poverty, unemployment, crime, inadequate municipal services, and inefficient transportation
They address the issue of nonagricultural and noncontiguous hinterlands; based on site locations and excavated evidence for raw materials acquired over long distances, they propose the primary reason for the growth of LC cities was their importance as “hubs” in trade and political systems
Summary
Cities are extraordinarily successful and adaptable, present in almost every region around the globe. They note that urban centers of the Late Chalcolithic are strongly associated with dense patterns of small sites; large rural populations and cities are closely correlated They address the issue of nonagricultural and noncontiguous hinterlands; based on site locations and excavated evidence for raw materials acquired over long distances, they propose the primary reason for the growth of LC cities was their importance as “hubs” in trade and political systems. This result dovetails with Menze and Ur’s (2012) assessment of settlement potential, which shows the largest sites somewhat paradoxically near the southern edge of the Upper Khabur in areas of lower rainfall. These episodes instead express the short-term social stresses that accompanied urbanism
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
