The Sumerian Takeoff

Economic geographers correctly note that regional variations in economic activity and population agglomeration are always the result of self-reinforcing processes of resource production, accumulation, exchange, and innovation. This article proposes that essentially similar forces account for the emergence of the world’s earliest cities in the alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Southern Mesopotamia), sometime during the second half of the fourth millennium BC.That emergence of early cities in the southern Mesopotamian alluvium must be understood in terms of the unique ecological conditions that existed across the region during the fourth millennium, and the enduring geographical framework of the area, which allowed for the efficient movement of commodities via water transport and facilitated interaction between diverse social units alongside natural and artificial river channels. These conditions promoted evolving long-term trade patterns that, inadvertently, differentially favored the development of polities in the southern Mesopotamian alluvium over contemporary societies in neighboring regions.More specifically, my contention is that by the final quarter of the fourth millennium the social and economic multiplier effects of trade patterns that had been in place for centuries – if not millennia – had brought about substantial increases in population agglomeration throughout the southern alluvial lowlands. Concurrent with these increases, and partly as a result of them, important socio-economic innovations started to appear in the increasingly urbanized polities of southern Mesopotamia that were unachievable in other areas of the Ancient Near East where urban grids of comparable scale and complexity did not exist at the time. Most salient among these innovations were (1) new forms of labor organization delivering economies of scale in the production of subsistence and industrial commodities to southern societies, and (2) the creation of new forms of record keeping in southern cities that were much more capable of conveying information across time and space than the simpler reckoning systems used by contemporary polities elsewhere. These innovations furnished southern Mesopotamian polities of the fourth millennium with what turned out to be their most important competitive advantage over neighboring societies. More than any other factor, they help explain why complex regionally organized city-states emerged earlier in southern Iraq than elsewhere in the Near East, or the world

The Uruk world system : The Dynamics of expansion of early Mesopotamian civilization.

Chicagoxii, 162 p.; 27 c

The Tigris-Euphrates Archaeological Reconnaissance Project: Final Report of the Cizre Dam and Cizre-Silopi Plain Survey Areas

The Turkish Government is currently implementing a substantial development program for southeastern Anatolia (the Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi) that has already seen the building of a number of dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and their tributaries. Another dam is now being erected just a few kilometers north of the modern town of Cizre. When completed, the dam’s reservoir will rise to the 409.4 m level and flood an area of ca. 21 square kilometers. Additionally, its water will be used to irrigate as much as 121,000 square hectares in the nearby Cizre-Silopi plain area. Spurred by these development plans, a multi-year effort was mounted between 1988 and 1990 to document the range of archaeological and historical sites that could be destroyed or damaged by these plans. What follows is the final report of surveys in the areas affected by the Cizre Dam and its associated irrigation schemes. This report supersedes, and in many cases corrects, earlier preliminary reports of our work in the Cizre-Silopi region. Additionally, parts of it also complement new work conducted by Dr. Gülriz Kozbe (2008) and her team over much of the same area. Fieldwork took place over the course of 6 weeks, spread out between 1988 and 1989, and was made possible by the Department of Monuments and Museums of the Turkish Republic and the Salvage and Investigation of Historical and Archaeological Finds (TEKDAM) of Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara. Research funds were obtained from a variety of private and governmental research foundations in the United States.Anthropolog

Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds

International audienceThis book focuses on the ancient Near East, early imperial China, South-East Asia, and medieval Europe, shedding light on mathematical knowledge and practices documented by sources relating to the administrative and economic activities of officials, merchants and other actors. It compares these to mathematical texts produced in related school contexts or reflecting the pursuit of mathematics for its own sake to reveal the diversity of mathematical practices in each of these geographical areas of the ancient world. Based on case studies from various periods and political, economic and social contexts, it explores how, in each part of the world discussed, it is possible to identify and describe the different cultures of quantification and computation as well as their points of contact. The thirteen chapters draw on a wide variety of texts from ancient Near East, China, South-East Asia and medieval Europe, which are analyzed by researchers from various fields, including mathematics, history, philology, archaeology and economics. The book will appeal to historians of science, economists and institutional historians of the ancient and medieval world, and also to Assyriologists, Indologists, Sinologists and experts on medieval Europe

Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds: An Introduction

International audienceThe chapter outlines a research program on the relationships between mathematics, administrative and economic activities in ancient worlds, and it draws on the various chapters in the book to illustrate the benefits that can be derived from this program. The overall goal is to provide a better understanding of the role mathematical knowledge and practices played in allowing various types of practitioners to carry out managerial and economic activities in the ancient worlds. Moreover, the purpose is to provide a more precise understanding of how, and the extent to which the bodies of knowledge and the practices of mathematics reflected by these administrative and economic sources were linked to those attested by more strictly mathematical sources. To fulfil these aims, we suggest focusing on the practices of quantification and computation attested to in specific administrative and economic activities, and also on the contexts in which they were carried out. After a survey of the sources on which the chapters of the book draw, and some of the social milieus considered, we present the specific activities on which the bookconcentrates. First, we argue that the practice of regulations, laws and norms, as attested to by texts produced in various milieus, highlights the intimate relationship that ties some more strictly mathematical sources and documents of practice (Sect. 1.4). We then deal with various ways in which documents of practice reflect the quantification of spatial entities and, in particular, of work (Sect. 1.5). We also show how more strictly mathematical sources allow us to interpret these practices of quantification. Subsequently, we turn to the quantification of land and other surfaces, and underline the diversity of mathematical practices to which various sources attest to carry out this task (Sect. 1.6). Finally, an examination of the quantification and computation of prices, loans and interest, and the assessment of the values of coins allows us to shed light on the diversity of mathematical cultures embraced by the various actors who engaged in these activities (Sect. 1.7)