2007/08/30 by Jason Ur, Philip Karsgaard, Joan Oates · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Ancient Near East History #Ancient Egypt and Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1138728
openalex publication_date 2007/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It has been thought that the first cities in the Near East were spatially extensive and grew outward from a core nucleated village while maintaining a more or less constant density in terms of persons or households per unit of area. The general applicability outside of the Near East of this southern Mesopotamian.derived model has been questioned recently, and variations from it are increasingly recognized. We can now demonstrate that such variation was present at the beginnings of urbanism in the Near East as well.