Interaction of Uruk and Northern Late Chalcolithic Societies in Anatolia

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the Uruk period. It considers the disagreement over an analysis of the organization and evolution of societies in southeastern and eastern Anatolia represented by a number of key sites. If one accepts, as most people do, that an Uruk Expansion trading system existed, and furthermore, if one accepts that the south had tremendous structural advantages in this trade, does that necessarily imply that Wallerstein's description of the periphery applies to the Mesopotamian case, in particular to the development of northern and Anatolian societies? It is argued that first, the northern societies were involved in this trade, and that it did affect the evolution of these societies; but that, second, they were already developing, so that the nature of this interaction was not the same in extent or kind as in the sixteenth century CE and the indigenous societies of the New World and their initial European colonists.