There and back again: local institutions, an Uruk expansion and the rejection of centralisation in the Sirwan/Upper Diyala region

2024/12/04 by Claudia Glatz, Francesco Del Bravo, Francesca Chelazzi +8 · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Ancient Near East History #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Eurasian Exchange Networks

paper · pdf · doi:10.15184/aqy.2024.189

Abstract

During the fourth millennium BC, public institutions developed at several large settlements across greater Mesopotamia. These are widely acknowledged as the first cities and states, yet surprisingly little is known about their emergence, functioning and demise. Here, the authors present new evidence of public institutions at the site of Shakhi Kora in the lower Sirwan/upper Diyala river valley of north-east Iraq. A sequence of four Late Chalcolithic institutional households precedes population dispersal and the apparent regional rejection of centralised social forms of organisation that were not then revisited for almost 1500 years.

Discussions

• Our paper on Late Chalcolithic Shakhi Kora was just published. A rather amazing site with an intriguing occupation history that suggests the development of local institutional households, an Uruk one, [bsky, 26 points, 0 comments]

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