Revolutionizing a world

This book investigates the long-term continuity of large-scale states and empires, and its effect on the Near East’s social fabric, including the fundamental changes that occurred to major social institutions. Its geographical coverage spans, from east to west, modern-day Libya and Egypt to Central Asia, and from north to south, Anatolia to southern Arabia, incorporating modern-day Oman and Yemen. Its temporal coverage spans from the late eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE during the rise of Islam and collapse of the Sasanian Empire. The authors argue that the persistence of large states and empires starting in the eighth/seventh centuries BCE, which continued for many centuries, led to new socio-political structures and institutions emerging in the Near East. The primary processes that enabled this emergence were large-scale and long-distance movements, or population migrations. These patterns of social developments are analysed under different aspects: settlement patterns, urban structure, material culture, trade, governance, language spread and religion, all pointing at movement as the main catalyst for social change. This book’s argument is framed within a larger theoretical framework termed as ‘universalism’, a theory that explains many of the social transformations that happened to societies in the Near East, starting from the Neo-Assyrian period and continuing for centuries. Among other influences, the effects of these transformations are today manifested in modern languages, concepts of government, universal religions and monetized and globalized economies

Empires and the acceleration of wealth inequality in the pre-Islamic Near East: an archaeological approach

We present an approach comparing wealth inequality between c. 3000 BCE and 224 CE in the Near East using house sizes and urban area from 1060 houses in 98 archaeological sites. We divide this dataset into two chronological phases, firstly c. 3000-800 BCE and secondly 800 BCE - 224 CE. The first phase is characterised by small, relatively weak states, while the second phase is characterised by major empires and large states, termed as the Age of Empire (AoE). For these two periods, inequality is measured using house size in relation to settlement scaling, and applying, in addition, the Gini and Atkinson indices on house sizes. Results demonstrate that pre-AoE houses have a lower scaling metric (β) that measures house size relative to site size (0.24), while for the AoE the value is higher (0.41). This indicates more rapid median house size expansion during the AoE as cities grew larger. For the pre-AoE, Gini and Atkinson inequality measures result in 0.45 and 0.16, respectively, while the AoE demonstrates 0.54 and 0.24 for the same measures, respectively. This demonstrates greater house size inequality in the AoE. Overall, we see that wealth inequality is not only greater in the AoE, but that increased wealth inequality has a likely power law relationship to increased settlement area. Alternative metrics to minimise data biases affecting results, including median house size and bootstrap sampling, are applied to strengthen these results and overall conclusions

Revolutionizing a World

This book investigates the long-term continuity of large-scale states and empires, and its effect on the Near East’s social fabric, including the fundamental changes that occurred to major social institutions. Its geographical coverage spans, from east to west, modern-day Libya and Egypt to Central Asia, and from north to south, Anatolia to southern Arabia, incorporating modern-day Oman and Yemen. Its temporal coverage spans from the late eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE during the rise of Islam and collapse of the Sasanian Empire. The authors argue that the persistence of large states and empires starting in the eighth/seventh centuries BCE, which continued for many centuries, led to new socio-political structures and institutions emerging in the Near East. The primary processes that enabled this emergence were large-scale and long-distance movements, or population migrations. These patterns of social developments are analysed under different aspects: settlement patterns, urban structure, material culture, trade, governance, language spread and religion, all pointing at movement as the main catalyst for social change. This book’s argument is framed within a larger theoretical framework termed as ‘universalism’, a theory that explains many of the social transformations that happened to societies in the Near East, starting from the Neo-Assyrian period and continuing for centuries. Among other influences, the effects of these transformations are today manifested in modern languages, concepts of government, universal religions and monetized and globalized economies

Revolutionizing a world

This book investigates the long-term continuity of large-scale states and empires, and its effect on the Near East’s social fabric, including the fundamental changes that occurred to major social institutions. Its geographical coverage spans, from east to west, modern-day Libya and Egypt to Central Asia, and from north to south, Anatolia to southern Arabia, incorporating modern-day Oman and Yemen. Its temporal coverage spans from the late eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE during the rise of Islam and collapse of the Sasanian Empire. The authors argue that the persistence of large states and empires starting in the eighth/seventh centuries BCE, which continued for many centuries, led to new socio-political structures and institutions emerging in the Near East. The primary processes that enabled this emergence were large-scale and long-distance movements, or population migrations. These patterns of social developments are analysed under different aspects: settlement patterns, urban structure, material culture, trade, governance, language spread and religion, all pointing at movement as the main catalyst for social change. This book’s argument is framed within a larger theoretical framework termed as ‘universalism’, a theory that explains many of the social transformations that happened to societies in the Near East, starting from the Neo-Assyrian period and continuing for centuries. Among other influences, the effects of these transformations are today manifested in modern languages, concepts of government, universal religions and monetized and globalized economies

Urbanscape, Land Use Change and Centralization in the Region of Uruk, Southern Mesopotamia from the 2nd to 1st Millennium BCE

We produce results that bridge the gap between physical and textual study of the ancient Mesopotamian landscape in the region south and west of the city of Uruk (Biblical Erech, Modern Warka). A brief survey of gazetteers of Mesopotamia, volumes listing place-names drawn from translated and published cuneiform texts from the 2nd and 1st Millennium BCE, are presented. The various gazetteers were reviewed for relevant place-names, and the results were recorded and analyzed. These are described in detail below, as are their implications. The resulting data are then compared to the results of a recently-completed archaeological survey of the same region. The synthesis of textual and archaeological surveys indicates a more exacting methodology to add geographic objectivity to textual results, while connecting physical results to the qualitative detail available within the Uruk textual record. More broadly, we demonstrate how long-term historical records align with archaeological data, delineating state-level and local land use efforts around a major Mesopotamian city. In the 2nd millennium BCE, settlements were generally small but more numerous, but in the 1st Millennium BCE there was a shift towards fewer and larger settlements connected to the city of Uruk. These shifts reflect deliberate central, government policy and local responses

The heritage of Brexit: Roles of the past in the construction of political identities through social media

This article assesses the role of the pre-modern past in the construction of political identities relating to the UK’s membership in the European Union, by examining how materials and ideas from Iron Age to Early Medieval Britain and Europe were leveraged by those who discussed the topic of Brexit in over 1.4 million messages published in dedicated Facebook pages. Through a combination of data-intensive and qualitative investigations of textual data, we identify the ‘heritages’ invoked in support of pro- or anti-Brexit sentiments. We show how these heritages are centred around myths of origins, resistance and collapse that incorporate tensions and binary divisions. We highlight the strong influence of past expert practices in shaping such deeply entrenched dualistic thinking and reflect over the longue durée agency of heritage expertise. This is the first systematic study of public perceptions and experience of the past in contemporary society undertaken through digital heritage research fuelled by big data. The article is thus foundational, contributing significantly to theory in cultural heritage studies. It is also the first published work to analyse the role of heritage in the construction of political identities in relation to Brexit, via extensive social research

Social Influence and Decision-Making: Evaluating Agent Networks in Village Responses to Change in Freshwater

This paper presents a model, using concepts from artificial neural networks, that explains how small rural communities make decisions that affect access to potable freshwater. Field observations indicate that social relationships as well as individual goals and perceptions of decision makers have a strong influence on decisions that are made by community councils. Our work identifies three types of agents, which we designate as alpha, beta, and gamma agents. We address how gamma agents affect decisions made by community councils in passing resolutions that benefit a village\'s collective access to clean freshwater. The model, which we call the Agent Types Model (ATM), demonstrates the effects of social interactions, corporate influence, and agent-specific factors that determine choices for agents. Data from two different villages in rural Alaska and several parameter sensitivity tests are applied to the model. Results demonstrate that minimizing the social significance and agent-specific factors affecting gamma agents\' negative compliance increases the likelihood that communities adopt measures promoting potable freshwater access. The significance of this work demonstrates which types of communities are potentially more socially vulnerable or resilient to social-ecological change affecting water supplies.Agent-Based Modeling, Artificial Neural Network, Social Network, Social Influence, Resilience, Freshwater

Automated Archaeological Feature Detection Using Deep Learning on Optical UAV Imagery: Preliminary Results

This communication article provides a call for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) users in archaeology to make imagery data more publicly available while developing a new application to facilitate the use of a common deep learning algorithm (mask region-based convolutional neural network; Mask R-CNN) for instance segmentation. The intent is to provide specialists with a GUI-based tool that can apply annotation used for training for neural network models, enable training and development of segmentation models, and allow classification of imagery data to facilitate auto-discovery of features. The tool is generic and can be used for a variety of settings, although the tool was tested using datasets from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Iran, Iraq, and Jordan. Current outputs suggest that trained data are able to help identify ruined structures, that is, structures such as burials, exposed building ruins, and other surface features that are in some degraded state. Additionally, qanat(s), or ancient underground channels having surface access holes, and mounded sites, which have distinctive hill-shaped features, are also identified. Other classes are also possible, and the tool helps users make their own training-based approach and feature identification classes. To improve accuracy, we strongly urge greater publication of UAV imagery data by projects using open journal publications and public repositories. This is something done in other fields with UAV data and is now needed in heritage and archaeology. Our tool is provided as part of the outputs give

A Chalcolithic Kiln in the Bora Plain

This chapter outlines the results of the excavation of a Chalcolithic kiln found in the Bora Plain (UTM 38N 512258 E; 3999222 N), underneath the Iron Age structures of the Dinka Settlement Complex in operation DLT3 (Fig. A3). The fieldwork was made possible by a Rust Family Foun- dation Archaeology Grant awarded to Andrea Squitieri and Mark Altaweel (UCL) and took place between 19 April and 5 May 2019