Description
The 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.
Author: Guillermo Algaze
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 04/04/2014
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.74lbs
Size: 8.97h x 6.11w x 0.57d
ISBN13: 9780226142371
ISBN10: 022614237X
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Archaeology
- History | Ancient | General
- Social Science | Sociology | Urban
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.
Author: Guillermo Algaze
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 04/04/2014
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.74lbs
Size: 8.97h x 6.11w x 0.57d
ISBN13: 9780226142371
ISBN10: 022614237X
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Archaeology
- History | Ancient | General
- Social Science | Sociology | Urban
About the Author
Guilllermo Algaze is professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization, now in its second edition from the University of Chicago Press.