Textile Extensification, Alienation, and Social Stratification in Ancient Mesopotamia

McCorriston, Joy

doi:10.1086/204643

Cited by 180 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These enhanced herd management practices, which were first evident at Uruk sites of the later fourth millennium BC (Algaze 2008, pp. 77-92), are consistent with the socalled commodification of textile production associated with many third millennium states in the region (Stein 2004, p. 70;Kouchoukos 1998;McCorriston 1997;Zeder 2003;Porter 2012, pp. 19-21).…”

Section: The Plant and Animal Economymentioning

confidence: 53%

“…Estimates of the number of sheep held by the city of Ebla range from 2 million, according to Butz (cited by Pettinato 1991, p. 82) to a more modest 670,000, according to Milano (1995). At relatively modest rates of stocking of 4.5 ha per animal (McCorriston 1997, p. 524, after Thalen 1979, it would appear that the entire state of Ebla might have formed sheep pasture, or agricultural lands devoted to producing feed for such sheep. Using the above stocking figures by way of indication, 700,000 sheep would have required a grazing range of around 31,500 km 2 (roughly equivalent to a circle of radius 100 km).…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper employs data from selected sample survey areas in the northern Fertile Crescent to demonstrate how initial urbanization developed along several pathways. The first, during the Late Chalcolithic period, was within a dense pattern of rural settlement. There followed a profound shift in settlement pattern that resulted in the formation of large walled or ramparted sites ('citadel cities') associated with a more dynamic phase of urbanization exemplified by short cycles of growth and collapse. By the later third millennium BC, the distribution of larger centres had expanded to include the drier agropastoral zone of northern and central Syria, termed here the 'zone of uncertainty'. This configuration, in turn, formed the context for Middle Bronze Age settlement, and the pattern of political rivalries and alliances that typified the second millennium BC. Evidence is marshalled from archaeological surveys and landscape analyses to examine these multiple paths to urbanization from the perspectives of (a) staple production within major 123J World Prehist (2014) 27:43-109 DOI 10.1007/s10963-014-9072-2 agricultural lowlands; (b) the shift towards higher risk animal husbandry within climatically marginal regions; (c) changes in local and inter-regional networks (connectivity); and (d) ties and rights to the land. Textile production forms the core of the proposed model, which emphasizes how the demand for wool and associated pasture lands opened up new landscapes for agro-pastoral production and settlement. The resultant landscapes of settlement are then compared with the picture in the southern Levant where a more restricted zone of uncertainty may have limited the opportunities for agro-pastoral production.

show abstract

Section: The Plant and Animal Economymentioning

confidence: 53%

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although animal fibers, including wool, were likely used on a household scale throughout the Chalcolithic (McCorriston, 1997;Payne, 1988;Shishlina et al, 2003;Sudo, 2010), demographic profiles and biometrics from Çadır indicate strategies consistent with intensive investment in wool production (Arbuckle, 2009). Given the abundance of expensive-to-maintain adult male sheep at LC Çadır compared to earlier Chalcolithic sites in the region, it is clear that this change represents a major reorganization of management strategies emphasizing the production of a commodity, wool, over subsistence-level production.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animals and inequality in Chalcolithic central Anatolia

Arbuckle

2012

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Yet explanations that focus on changes 1993; Tice 1995) offer a somewhat limited portrait in the nature of control over labor have largely failed of non-industrialized, non-western production as the to consider who comprises that labor pool (but see domain of economically and politically marginalized Zagarell 1986;Brumfiel 1991;Costin 1993Costin , 1996b; individuals and households. While this may be a fairly Wright 1996a;McCorriston 1997). How "labor" is complete characterization of remaining "traditional" to be coopted, coerced, or controlled depends artisans, it is unlikely that this stereotype accurately largely on the social position and social identities of and fully represents the makeup of pre-capitalist those workers.…”

Section: Identity and Meaning In Social Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Craft and Social Identity

Costin

1998

Archaeological Papers of the American

125

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Crafting and craft objects intersect with all cultural domains: economic, social, political, and ritual. Craft goods are social objects that assume an importance beyond household maintenance and reproduction. They signify and legitimize group membership and social roles, and become reserves of wealth, storing intrinsically valuable materials and the labor invested in their manufacture. Specialized craft producers are actors involved in the creation and maintenance of social networks, wealth, and social legitimacy. Artisans and consumers must accept, create or negotiate the social legitimacy of production and the conditions of production and distribution, usually defined in terms of social identity. The nature of that process defines the organization of production and the social relations of production that characterize the relationships between producers and consumers. Without attention to artisan identity, our reconstructions of production systems and explanations for their form and dynamic are destined to be unidimensional and unidirectional, lacking in key elements of social process and social behavior. It is this deficiency in the extant literature we hope to address in this volume.Archaeologists, with their primary focus on across a broad spectrum of social phenomena. Secmaterial culture, have had a long-term interest in ond, craft objects themselves often communicate craft production, with an emphasis on technology social identity, so that in the act of crafting, artisans (Shepard 1956;Rye 1981; Hagstrum 1989; Barber give material expression to ideas about roles, identi-1991) and the organization of production (van der ties, and relationships in the social world. Third, craft-Leeuw 1977; Evans 1978; Peacock 1982;Tosi 1984; ing almost always involves a relationship between a Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Clark and Parry 1990; producer and consumer (active or passive) and we Costin 1991; Wright 1991a, 1991b; Mills and Crown argue that the "economic" relationships between 1995; Wailes 1996). The essays in Craft and Social them cannot be understood apart from the social Identity build on earlier formulations about crafts by relationships that underlie them. Fourth, craft proextending the discourse to include the practical and duction is more likely than food procurement to be metaphorical ways in which the productive activi-subject to divisions of labor based on components ties involved in crafting create social identities, so-of social identity, whether it is task allocation within cial categories, and social relationships. Crafting is a the household or supra-household specialization, particularly effective medium for exploring the con-Therefore, social identity is often expressed in the struction and maintenance of social identity for sev-action of crafting, not just in the objects themselves, eral reasons. First, crafts and crafting intersect with Craft and Social Identity, in focusing on the activall cultural domains -the economic, political, so-ity of crafting and the identities of those who craft, cial, and ...

show abstract

Textile Extensification, Alienation, and Social Stratification in Ancient Mesopotamia

Cited by 180 publications

References 0 publications

Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC

Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC

Animals and inequality in Chalcolithic central Anatolia

Introduction: Craft and Social Identity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About