Trade and power in the fifth and fourth millennia BC: New evidence from northern Mesopotamia

1993/02/01 by Joan Oates · 56 citations
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Ancient Egypt and Archaeology #Ancient Near East History #Ancient history #Archaeology #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Art #Ethnology #Foundation (evidence) #Geography #History #Homeland #Law #Mesopotamia #Period (music) #Political science #Power (physics)

paper · doi:10.1080/00438243.1993.9980216

published in World Archaeology 24(3), 403-422 (Routledge)

openalex publication_date 1993/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

The formation of the earliest known cities was accompanied by the foundation of colonies in Syria and Anatolia, established to secure raw materials lacking in the Mesopotamian homeland. The growth in Sumer of organization(s) capable of constructing and administering such distant colonies both reflected and contributed to increasing levels of social and economic complexity. The paper summarizes new evidence from Tell Brak and Tell Shaikh Hassan, which substantially lengthens the colony period. It also emphasizes the cUbaid roots of this pattern.

Citations

• The Uruk Expansion: Cross-cultural Exchange in Early Mesopotamian Civilization [with Comments and Reply]
• Trade and Politics in Proto-Elamite Iran [and Comments and Reply]
• Excavations at Tell Brak 1990-91

Cited by

• Beyond Linear Time: Temporal Plurality of Annales and the Interpretation of the Late Chalcolithic Period in North Mesopotamia
• Boat remains and maritime trade in the Persian Gulf during the sixth and fifth millennia BC

Related

• Early Mesopotamian urbanism: a new view from the north
• The Early Periods at Susa, Mesopotamian Relations
• There and back again: local institutions, an Uruk expansion and the rejection of centralisation in the Sirwan/Upper Diyala region
• The Spatial Dimensions of Early Mesopotamian Urbanism: The Tell Brak Suburban Survey, 2003–2006
• Excavations at Tell Brak 2006–2007