Week 11: Rise of Civilization:

Overview & SW Asia

I.	Childe's "Urban Revolution"; characteristics:
	A.	Cities w/>5000; heterogeneous
	B.	Efficient food production allowing concentrations 
		of surplus
	C.	Formal political states w/recognized process of 
		descent; legal authority; bureaucracy.
	D.	Class structure, often w/slaves gathered during 
		warfare
	E.	Full-time specialization of labor
	F.	Arithmetic, geometry, astronomy
	G.	Writing
	H.	Long-distance trade
	I.	Bronze metallurgy
	J.	Monumental public works
	K.	Standardized monumental art

II.	Neolithic Background
	A.	Northern Mesopotamia
		1.	Umm Dabaghiyah (contemporary w/Çatal 
			Huyuk) 7000­6000 B.C.: small villages of 
			rectilinear houses; onager hunting; low-fired 
			pottery. Blocks of cell-like rooms: storage?
		2.	Hassuna (as at Yarim Tepe), 6000­5250 B.C.;
			Single large structure containing blocks of cell-
			like rooms; communal storage; economy based 
			almost solely on agriculture & herding. Cold-
			hammered copper ore & beads.

III. Period of Incipient State Formation
	A.	Samarra Culture: contemporary w/late Hassuna 
		and Halaf; 5500­5000 B.C.; Central & Southern 
		Meso. Tell-es Sawaan; buildings are large, town
		defended by ditch & later wall; defended 
		entrances. Elaborate grave goods (ascribed status). 
		Many infant burials positioned beneath a possible 
		shrine. First appearance of flax. Irrigation probably
		practiced for pulses & flax. T-shaped communal 
		grain storage structures; who controlled them?
	B.	Halaf Culture in N. Mesopotamia, 5300­4500 B.C.
		Keyhole-shaped tholoi: storage, burial, or both? 
		Cattle as draft animals, pulling plows; no 
		irrigation. Large settlements from 1­8 ha.; little 
		settlements surround them; big man or chiefdom 
		pattern. Full-time potters?
	C.	Ubaid Period, S. Mesopotamia, 5300­3600 B.C.; 
		after 4500 incorporates N. Meosopotamia. 
			1.	Eridu best-known city; founds Sumerian 
				civilization; first settlement of the land 
				south of Baghdad; apparent continuity of 
				temple devoted to worship of water god, 
				Enki, into Sumerian times. 10 ha; 2,000­
				4,000 people. Male & female clay figurines 
				with reptilian-like heads; domestic houses 
				little known. 
			2.	Language agglutinative
	D.	Uruk period, 3600­3100 B.C.
	E.	Jemdet Nasr Period, proto-literate, 3100­2900 

Syllabus