Algaze Guillermo. Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. — 246 p. — ISBN10: 0226013774ж ISBN13: 978-0226013770The 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 Sumerian TakeoffNatural and Created Landscapes
A Reversal of Fortune
Forthcoming DiscussionsFactors Hindering Our Understanding of the Sumerian TakeoffThe Material Limits of the Evidence
Conceptual Problems
Methodological ProblemsModeling the Dynamics of Urban GrowthGrowth As Diversification
Growth As Specialization
Growth Situated
Growth InstitutionalizedEarly Mesopotamian Urbanism: Why?Environmental Advantages
Geographical Advantages
Comparative and Competitive AdvantageEarly Mesopotamian Urbanism: How?The Growth of Early Mesopotamian Urban Economies
The Uruk Expansion
Multiplier EffectsThe Evidence for TradeEarly Mesopotamian Urbanism in Comparative PerspectiveEvidentiary Biases
Florescent Urbanism in Alluvial Mesopotamia
The Primacy ofWarka: Location, Location, Location
Aborted Urbanism in Upper MesopotamiaThe Synergies of CivilizationPropinquity and Its Consequences
Technologies of the Intellect
The Urban Revolution RevisitedConclusion: The Mesopotamian ConjunctureEpilogue: Early Sumerian Civilization: A Research AgendaAgency
Paleoenvironment
Trade
Households and Property
Excavation and Survey
Paleozoology
Mortuary Evidence
Chronology
The Early Uruk ProblemSurveyed Early/Middle Uruk Sites in the Mesopotamian Alluvium Organized by Size and Presumed Functional Category
Surveyed Late Uruk Sites in the Mesopotamian Alluvium Organized by Size and Presumed Functional Category