Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization : The Evolution of an Urban Landscape.
Title:
Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization : The Evolution of an Urban Landscape.
Author:
Algaze, Guillermo.
ISBN:
9780226013787
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (249 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue -- Chapter 1. The Sumerian Takeoff -- Natural and Created Landscapes -- A Reversal of Fortune -- Forthcoming Discussions -- Chapter 2. Factors Hindering Our Understanding of the Sumerian Takeoff -- The Material Limits of the Evidence -- Conceptual Problems -- Methodological Problems -- Chapter 3. Modeling the Dynamics of Urban Growth -- Growth As Diversification -- Growth As Specialization -- Growth Situated -- Growth Institutionalized -- Chapter 4. Early Mesopotamian Urbanism: Why? -- Environmental Advantages -- Geographical Advantages -- Comparative and Competitive Advantage -- Chapter 5. Early Mesopotamian Urbanism: How? -- The Growth of Early Mesopotamian Urban Economies -- The Uruk Expansion -- Multiplier Effects -- Chapter 6. The Evidence for Trade -- Chapter 7. Early Mesopotamian Urbanism in Comparative Perspective -- Evidentiary Biases -- Florescent Urbanism in Alluvial Mesopotamia -- The Primacy of Warka: Location, Location, Location -- Aborted Urbanism in Upper Mesopotamia -- Chapter 8. The Synergies of Civilization -- Propinquity and Its Consequences -- Technologies of the Intellect -- The Urban Revolution Revisited -- Chapter 9. Conclusion: The Mesopotamian Conjuncture -- Epilogue Early Sumerian Civilization: A Research Agenda -- Agency -- Paleoenvironment -- Trade -- Households and Property -- Excavation and Survey -- Paleozoology -- Mortuary Evidence -- Chronology -- The Early Uruk Problem -- Appendix 1. -- Appendix 2. -- Notes -- Reference List -- Source List -- Index.
Abstract:
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.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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