The Structure and Dynamics of Dry-Farming States in Upper Mesopotamia [and Comments and Reply]

Wilkinson, T. J.; Bintliff, John; Curvers, Hans H.; Halstead, Paul; Kohl, P. L.; Liverani, Mario; McCorriston, Joy; Oates, Joan; Schwartz, Glenn M.; Thuesen, Ingolf; Weiss, Harvey; Courty, Marie‐Agnès

doi:10.1086/204314

Cited by 179 publications

(118 citation statements)

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“…The surplus-shipping model assumes that surplus production will be externally motivated, in this case under the impetus of an extractive centralized polity, and is As is the case with the Middle Khabur region discussed above, it would be a mistake to assume that they were homogeneous subsistence-oriented villages; excavations have revealed a remarkable degree of specialized features. To understand how the massive population concentrations at 3rd millennium cities were able to sustain themselves, T.J. Wilkinson and colleagues have developed an evolving set of models that use these settlement, landscape, and agropastoral variables as inputs, along with data from traditional Near Eastern agriculture and the cuneiform record (Christiansen and Altaweel 2006;Wilkinson 1994;2000b;Wilkinson et al 2007a;). Wilkinson's "first principles" approach (1994, p. 484) prioritizes the productive potential of the land surrounding early urban settlements, based on human biological needs and principles of least effort.…”

Section: -121)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The staple economies of the largest settlements operated close to the limits of sustainability, and could collapse when faced with a run of dry years (Wilkinson 1994;Wilkinson 1997). Smaller settlements could weather such droughts through a combination of exchange and the extension of agricultural cultivation, but urban centers near the 100 ha size threshold, which were already cultivating all of the available land, could not (Wilkinson et al 2007a, pp.…”

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Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC

2010

J Archaeol Res

193

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Abstract:The intensification of fieldwork in northern Mesopotamia, the upper region of the TigrisEuphrates basin, has revealed two cycles of expansion and reduction in social complexity between 4400-2000 BC. These cycles include developments in social inequality, political centralization, craft production and economic specialization, agropastoral land use, and urbanization. Contrary to earlier assessments, many of these developments proceeded independently from the polities in southern Mesopotamia, although not in isolation. This review considers recent data from excavations and surveys in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey with particular attention to how they are used to construct models of early urban polities.Key words: Mesopotamia, complex society, urbanism, collapse 1 IntroductionOver a span of more than two millennia, northern Mesopotamia witnessed the emergence of urban complex society, its collapse and rebirth, and a further episode of collapse. This time span (ca. 4400-2000 BC) has been intensively studied by archaeologists over the last two decades, largely because of twin push (the closure of Iraq to foreign archaeology) and pull (salvage campaigns in advance of dam projects) forces. As a result, what was once considered to be the periphery of early urbanism and state formation in southern Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) has emerged as a region of interest in its own right. In many ways we now have a superior understanding of major social developments in the north (e.g., urbanism, craft production, agricultural and pastoral organization, the development of the landscape) than we do for the south, and improvements in chronology have revealed that many aspects of social complexity that were once assumed to have been imported from southern Mesopotamia have earlier and entirely indigenous origins.This review describes the development of social complexity from 4400 BC to the collapse of urban society at the end of the 3rd millennium BC in northern (or upper) Mesopotamia, defined here as the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys and the plains and steppe between them that fall today in northern Iraq, northern Syria, and southeastern Turkey (Fig. 1).Much archaeological research in the region, and in the Near East in general, adopts a culture historical approach that emphasizes typology and the development of sequences of material culture; here the emphasis is on anthropologically oriented research published since 1990.Geographically, the focus is on the river valleys and alluvial plains of Syria, and particularly the Upper Khabur basin of Hassake province. Occasionally I refer to sites beyond northern Mesopotamia proper when they are relevant to the discussion, particularly the western Syrian 2 cities of Ebla and Umm al-Marra; the important Syrian city of Mari, on the Euphrates near the Iraqi border, is largely southern Mesopotamian in orientation and will be not be discussed (although see Margueron 2004).In Mesopotamian archaeology generally, social complexity is described throug...

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Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC

2010

J Archaeol Res

193

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“…A working model was developed for disentangling the effects of aridity and manuring on cereal δ 15 N values (Styring et al 2016, figure 4). This study opens the way for using cereal δ 15 N alongside δ 13 C values as evidence of arable growing conditions in (semi-)arid areas such as northern Mesopotamia, where early processes of urbanisation have variously been related to agricultural intensification (increasing inputs of, for example, manure or midden material per unit area -Wilkinson 1982-Wilkinson , 1993Wilkinson et al 1994), extensification (expansion of arable with decreasing inputs per unit area -Halstead in Wilkinson et al 1994;Halstead 1995) or a combination of the two (Ur 2015;cf. Wilkinson 2003, 118, figure 6.16).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Landscape survey around Tell Brak and other thirdmillennium cal BC cities has identified 'hollow ways' radiating out from urban cores and plausibly tracing the extent of their arable catchments (Wilkinson et al 1994;Wilkinson 2003, 111-20;Ur, Karsgaard, and Oates 2011;Ur 2015). The evidence reported here is consistent with this picture, but clarifies that cereal production was predominantly under extensive, low-intensity management.…”

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From Traditional Farming in Morocco to Early Urban Agroecology in Northern Mesopotamia: Combining Present-day Arable Weed Surveys and Crop Isotope Analysis to Reconstruct Past Agrosystems in (Semi-)arid Regions

Bogaard

Styring

Ater

et al. 2016

Environmental Archaeology

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We integrate functional weed ecology with crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to assess their combined potential for inferring arable land management practices in (semi-)arid regions from archaeobotanical assemblages. Weed and GIS survey of 60 cereal and pulse fields in Morocco are combined with crop sampling for stable isotope analysis to frame assessment of agricultural labour intensity in terms of manuring, irrigation, tillage and handweeding. Under low management intensity weed variation primarily reflects geographical differences, whereas under high management intensity fields in disparate regions have similar weed flora. Manured and irrigated oasis barley fields are clearly discriminated from less intensively manured rain-fed barley terraces in southern Morocco; when fields in northern and southern Morocco are considered together, climatic differences are superimposed on the agronomic intensity gradient. Barley δ 13 C and δ 15 N values clearly distinguish among the Moroccan regimes. An integrated approach combines crop isotope values with weed ecological discrimination of low-and high-intensity regimes across multiple studies (in southern Morocco and southern Europe). Analysis of archaeobotanical samples from EBA Tell Brak, Syria suggests that this early city was sustained through extensive (low-intensity, large-scale) cereal farming. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…He demonstrated how inter-annual variability in rainfall, and household-based adaptations via manuring, imposed a ceiling on urbanization. Wilkinson's model (Wilkinson 1994) was a deft combination of empirical field data, ethno-historic reports, and modern instrumental data on rainfall and crop productivity, and it remains the best understanding of the operation of Early Bronze Age subsistence.…”

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Tony Wilkinson and the water history of the Near East

Ertsen

2015

Water Hist

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The Structure and Dynamics of Dry-Farming States in Upper Mesopotamia [and Comments and Reply]

Cited by 179 publications

References 2 publications

Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC

Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC

From Traditional Farming in Morocco to Early Urban Agroecology in Northern Mesopotamia: Combining Present-day Arable Weed Surveys and Crop Isotope Analysis to Reconstruct Past Agrosystems in (Semi-)arid Regions

Tony Wilkinson and the water history of the Near East

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