Early Mesopotamian Urbanism: A New View from the North

摘要: For many years, the southern Mesopotamia of Ur and Uruk, ancient Sumer, has been seen as origin centre civilisation cities: "The urban implosion late-fourth- early-third-millennium resulted in a massive population shift into large sites" said Nissen 1988. "These new city-states set pattern for heartland cities" (Adams 1981; Yoffee 1998). And Stone & Zimansky (2005) "Remains world's first cities are most noteworthy feature landscape Iraq". But at Tell Brak Joan Oates her team turning this model upside down. A long campaign study, culminating discoveries from 2006 reported here, show that northern was far along road to urbanism, monumentality, industrialisation prestige goods, by late fifth millennium BC. The "world's earliest likely have north-eastern Syria Iraq, core south developing periphery north is now ripe revision.