Book•
The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches
21 Mar 2003-
TL;DR: The only critical guide to the theory and method of Mesopotamian archaeology from its origins in the nineteenth century up to the present day is as mentioned in this paper, which evaluates the theories, methods, approaches and history of Mesoamerican archaeology.
Abstract: The only critical guide to the theory and method of Mesopotamian archaeology, this innovative volume evaluates the theories, methods, approaches and history of Mesopotamian archaeology from its origins in the nineteenth century up to the present day. Ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), was the original site of many of the major developments in human history, such as farming, the rise of urban literate societies and the first great empires of Akkad, Babylonia and Assyria. Dr. Matthews places the discipline within its historical and social context, and explains how archaeologists conduct their research through excavation, survey and other methods. In four fundamental chapters, he uses illustrated case-studies to show how archaeologists have approached central themes such as: * the shift from hunting to farming * complex societies * empires and imperialism * everyday life. This will be both an ideal introductory work and useful as background reading on a wide range of courses.
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01 Jan 2005TL;DR: Yoffee as discussed by the authors argues that early states were not uniformly constituted bureaucratic and regional entities, but had slaves and soldiers, priests and priestesses, peasants and prostitutes, merchants and craftsmen.
Abstract: In this ground-breaking work, Norman Yoffee shatters the prevailing myths underpinning our understanding of the evolution of early civilisations. He counters the emphasis in traditional scholarship on the rule of 'godly' and despotic male leaders and challenges the conventional view that early states were uniformly constituted bureaucratic and regional entities. Instead, by illuminating the role of slaves and soldiers, priests and priestesses, peasants and prostitutes, merchants and craftsmen, Yoffee depicts an evolutionary process centred on the concerns of everyday life. Drawing on evidence from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica, the author explores the variety of trajectories followed by ancient states, from birth to collapse, and explores the social processes that shape any account of the human past. This book offers a bold new interpretation of social evolutionary theory, and as such it is essential reading for any student or scholar with an interest in the emergence of complex society.
314 citations
TL;DR: Yoffee as mentioned in this paper argues that the focus on the origins of the state has stifled rather than stimulated our understanding of early state development, and stresses the diversity of the early Mesopotamian state.
Abstract: For more than a century, archaeologists have frequently been drawn to understand the human past in broadly evolutionary terms, applying Darwinian thinking to the development of human societies. The unilinear models of human development that often result typically regard the state as the culmination of human progress, the end-point of a journey through intervening stages of bands, tribes and chiefdoms. Neo-evolutionary thinking was especially prevalent from the 1940s onwards, in the work of Julian Steward and others writing on the origins of the state. In the volume reviewed, Norman Yoffee challenges the former dominance of the neo-evolutionary approach, arguing that over the past half century it has stifled rather than stimulated our understanding of early state development.Yoffee contests the idea that states develop through a series of programmatic stages from less complex kinds of society. Instead, he stresses the diversity of the archaic state, drawing heavily on his specialist knowledge (drawn from texts as well as archaeology) of early Mesopotamia. Here we see city-state societies in which heterarchies play a role alongside hierarchies, and in which the varieties of lived experience varied considerably from place to place, even though all may at some level be considered to have been part of a shared Mesopotamian civilization.Yoffee's book is not, however, concerned solely with Mesopotamia; far from it, he draws comparative evidence from Egypt, South and East Asia and Central and South America to demonstrate the diversity and fluidity of the entities he is describing. Few of them conform to models that might be drawn from ethnography, and each state may in many ways be considered unique. Yet in a broader perspective, all states arise through a widespread pattern of change that has taken place in human society since the end of the Pleistocene in which individuals and groups have competed for control of resources.Yoffee concludes that ‘The central myth about the study of the earliest states ... is that there was something that could be called the archaic state, and that all of the earliest states were simply variations on this model’. The methodological alternative is to consider each society (of whatever type) as individual and unique, and constantly in a state of flux. In this review feature we invite a series of archaeologists specializing in the study of early states to address this and other issues raised by this important book. We begin, however, with an opening statement from the author himself.
264 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined trajectories of socio-cultural and environmental change in six key regions in which complex societies emerged during the Middle Holocene: the central Sahara (focusing on the Libyan Fezzan), Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia (Indus-Sarasvati region), northern China and coastal Peru.
237 citations
Cites background from "The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: The..."
...In particular, the courses of the Tigris and Euphrates were more variable than that of the Nile, and shifts in river courses had dramatic impacts on local environments, meaning that caution must be exercised in palaeo-environmental interpretation (Maisels, 1999; Matthews, 2003)....
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...…Mesopotamia is generally viewed as the location in which the first complex, urban, state level societies emerged during the Uruk period in the 6th millennium BP, the result of a long transition from village communities to large integrated estates and finally cities (Hole, 1994; Matthews, 2003)....
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...However, the extent and nature of social stratification and differentiation is a matter of some debate (Stein, 1998; Matthews, 2003)....
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...…expansion; while some scholars view this phenomenon in an imperial context, others question the view of Uruk as an imperial capital (Algaze, 2001; Matthews, 2003) The Uruk period came to an end around 5.2 kyr BP, and was followed by the Jemdet Nasr period, which lasted for no more than two…...
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...…Uruk period came to an end around 5.2 kyr BP, and was followed by the Jemdet Nasr period, which lasted for no more than two centuries and was characterised by regional differentiation and the abandonment of many Uruk settlements outside southern Mesopotamia (Pollock, 1999; Matthews, 2003)....
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24 Oct 2019
TL;DR: Beaujard as mentioned in this paper presents an ambitious and comprehensive global history of the Indian Ocean world, from the earliest state formations to 1500 CE, and shows how Asia and Africa dominated the economic and cultural landscape and the flow of ideas in the pre-modern world, leading to a trans-regional division of labor and an Afro-Eurasian world economy.
Abstract: Europe's place in history is re-assessed in this first comprehensive history of the ancient world, centering on the Indian Ocean and its role in pre-modern globalization. Philippe Beaujard presents an ambitious and comprehensive global history of the Indian Ocean world, from the earliest state formations to 1500 CE. Supported by a wealth of empirical data, full color maps, plates, and figures, he shows how Asia and Africa dominated the economic and cultural landscape and the flow of ideas in the pre-modern world. This led to a trans-regional division of labor and an Afro-Eurasian world economy. Beaujard questions the origins of capitalism and hints at how this world-system may evolve in the future. The result is a reorienting of world history, taking the Indian Ocean, rather than Europe, as the point of departure. Volume II provides in-depth coverage of the period from the seventh century CE to the fifteenth century CE.
130 citations
University of East Anglia1, University of Toronto2, University of Manchester3, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut4, University of Milan5, Sapienza University of Rome6, King's College London7, University of Sassari8, Cornell University9, University of Utah10, Durham University11, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev12, University of Edinburgh13, University of Cologne14
TL;DR: This article explored the possible links between rapid climate change (RCC) and social change in the Near East and surrounding regions (Anatolia, central Syria, southern Israel, Mesopotamia, Cyprus and eastern and central Sahara) during the ‘long’ 4th millennium (∼4500-3000) BC.
110 citations
Cites background from "The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: The..."
...Contemporaneous with the terminal phase of the Uruk intrusion into the north is a rapid increase in settlement density around the principal city of UrukWarka (Nissen, 1998; Matthews, 2003)....
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