There and back again: local institutions, an Uruk expansion and the rejection of centralisation in the Sirwan/Upper Diyala region | Antiquity | Cambridge Core
doi.org
There and back again: local institutions, an Uruk expansion and the rejection of centralisation in the Sirwan/Upper Diyala region

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/16000164

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.

  • reallykindasorta@slrpnk.netOP
    3·
    17 days ago

    Additional snippet: “Overall, we seem to be seeing a dispersal of populations, some of which were previously concentrated at larger Late Chalcolithic sites, who are voting with their feet by abandoning Late Chalcolithic settlements and forming new communities that show no signs of regional-level integration or centralisation.”