Mark A. Brandes

Abstract: Commodity branding has been characterized as the distinguishing cultural move of late capitalism and is widely viewed as a historically distinctive feature of the modern global economy The brand’s rise to prominence following the Industrial Revolution and the attendant shift of corporate enterprise towards the dissemination of image‐based products have been further cited as contributing to the erosion of older forms of identity such as those based on kinship and class However, comparisons between recent forms of branding and much earlier modes of commodity marking associated with the Urban Revolution of the fourth millennium BC suggest that systems of branding address a paradox common to all economies of scale and are therefore likely to arise (and to have arisen) under a wide range of ideological and institutional conditions, including those of sacred hierarchies and stratified states An examination of the material and cognitive properties of sealing practices and the changing functions of seals in th

Abstract: Comments and Reply] Author(s): Guillermo Algaze, Burchard Brenties, A. Bernard Knapp, Philip L. Kohl, Wade R. Kotter, C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Glenn M. Schwartz, Harvey Weiss, Robert J. Wenke, Rita P. Wright and Allen Zagarell Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 5 (Dec., 1989), pp. 571-608 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743567 . Accessed: 06/10/2014 22:44

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.

Abstract: In 2012, the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) conducted its first season of fieldwork. The project's goal is the complete mapping of the archaeological landscape of Erbil, with an emphasis on the Neo-Assyrian and Hellenistic periods. It will test the hypothesis that the Neo-Assyrian landscape was closely planned. This first report emphasizes the project's field methodology, especially the use of a variety of satellite remote sensing imagery. Our preliminary results suggest that the plain was part of the urbanized world of Mesopotamia, with new cities of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Sasanian era identified.