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a temporary disturbance. The propensity for disequilibrium is a sort 0 sociocultural rigidity or brittleness. Other aspects of sociocultural systems are more resilient and reflect a primary concern with long-term survival Behavioral qualities that can be associated with resilient sociocultural syv terns are an abilities to deal effectively with contingencies of many sorts Some of this resilience comes from the alliances and relationships that these peoples have with those who surround them, especially peoples with significantly different forms of adaptation from their own. Such sociocultural systems survive because they are able to successfully negotiate within a dynamic historical setting, in a world that is constantly in flux.
The sociocultural system I have described for prehistoric Gujarat includes those on the "farming-pastoralist" continuum as well as the hunter-gatherers. This was a system with great resilience, or survivability, since it is still in evidence today.
A Tale of Two Oikumenai: Variation in the Expansionary Dynamics of < Ubaid and Uruk Mesopotamia*
Gil J. Stein and Rana Ozbal
Abstract
The last few decades of research have documented two major periods of expansion by the earliest complex societies of Mesopotamia—the ' Ubaid ranked polities of the sixth and fifth millennia and the Uruk states of the fourth millennium BC. In both periods, Mesopotamia!} material culture styles were broadly distributed in neighboring regions of Syria, southeast Anatolia, and Iran. In each case, architectural, ceramic, and artifactual commonalities of the ' Ubaid and Uruk horizon styles help define an oikumene or interaction sphere. Although some researchers argue that both periods can be explained as eras of Mesopotamia!! colonial expansion, we argue here that each oikumene had a fundamentally different expansionary dynamic and mode(s) of socioeconomic organization. A contextual analysis comparing different regions shows that the ' Ubaid expansion took place largely through the peaceful spread of an ideology, leading to the formation of numerous new indigenous identities that appropriated and transformed superficial elements of' Ubaid material culture into locally distinct expressions. Volumes of interregional trade were low, and population movements
This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 100th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in 2001. The session, "Theoretical Foundations in the Oust: The Past and Future of Mesopotamian Archaeology" (co-organized by Gil Stein and Guillermo Algaze), was held to honor Robert McC. Adams for his contributions to our understanding of ancient Mesopotamian complex societies in their ecological, social, and economic settings. We would like to thank Geoff Emberling and Susan Pollock for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. All remaining errors are our own.
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were minimal. By contrast, the Uruk expansion was an actual colonial phenomenon, involving the founding of Mesopotamia)! trading enclaves among preexisting local polities and emulation Iry local groups in the so-called peripheral areas. Relations between Uruk colonists and local polities varied front coercive to cooperative, depending on the distance from Mesopotamia and the degree of preexisting indigenous social complexity. Once the basic differences benveen the ' Ubaid and Uruk oikiimenai are recognised, we can develop more accurate models of variation in the political economies of early Mesopotamian complex societies.
Introduction
Among Bob Adams's greatest contributions to the anthropological-archaeological understanding of ancient Mesopotamia have been his emphasis on broad regional syntheses (Adams 1966; 1972b) and his clear focus on the need to explicitly examine the development of complexity in this area as a series of historically grounded social transformations (Adams 1981; 1989; 2004). In that spirit, we offer the following essay as a tribute to a scholar who has inspired us and strongly influenced the orientation of our research.
Early Mesopotamian Horizon Styles/ Interaction Spheres/Oikumenai
The last few decades of research have documented two distinct major periods of expansion by the earliest complex societies of Mesopotamia: the 'Ubaid ranked polities of the sixth and fifth millennia and the Uruk urbanized states of the fourth millennium BC. In both periods, southern Mesopotamian material culture styles spread far beyond their region of origin in the soudi-ern alluvium and were broadly distributed in neighboring regions of north Syria, southeast Anatolia, and western Iran. In both cases, architectural, ceramic, and artifactual commonalities of the 'Ubaid and Uruk horizon styles have been used to identify geographically extensive and long-lived interaction spheres or oikumenai, covering more or less the same territory. .Although some researchers argue dtat both periods can be explained as eras of Mesopotamian colonial expansion (for example, Oates 1993; J. Oates and Oates 2004b), we argue here that each interaction sphere had a fundamentally different expansionary dynamic marked by strikingly different effects on the social identities of the indigenous groups who participated in these networks. In this paper, we show the contrasts between the ' Ubaid and Uruk oikumenai by examining the social contexts in which these two Mesopotamian styles of material culture were selectively used and translated into local cultural schemes.
The 1 Ubaid (ca. 5800-4200 BC)
In the arid alluvial zone of southern Mesopotamia, the ' Ubaid assemblage first developed in the early sixth millennium BC and lasted until about 4200 BC. Best known from the sites of Eridu (Safar, Mustafa, and Lloyd 1981) and more recently Oueili (Huot 1983; 1987; 1996b), the ' Ubaid material cultural assemblage (Figure 92) includes brown-painted and reduction-fired (often greenish) ware ceramics made on a slow wheel, large baked clay "nails" or "mullers," clay sickles, and highly distinctive cone-head clay figurines (Perkins 1949: 73-90; Redman 1978: 247-250). 'Ubaid houses have a characteristic tripartite form with a T-shaped or cruciform central room (Aurenche 1981: 201; Forest 1983). The 'Ubaid period sees the earliest appearance in southern Mesopotamia of clearly ritual public architecture in the form of standardized rectangular temples oriented to the cardinal points and constructed with niched facades, buttresses, altars, and offering tables (Roaf 1984; Safar, Mustafa, and Lloyd 1981: 86-114; but compare Forest 1987 for an alternative interpretation of temples).
In sociopolitical terms, several lines of evidence suggest that 'Ubaid Mesopotamia was organized as a series of small-scale ranked societies that we can characterize as chicfdoms, grounded in corporate (Blanton et al. 1996) or communal modes of leadership (Akkermans 1989; G. Stein 1994b). Broad horizontal clearances at the central Mesopotamian ' Ubaid site of Abada sug-I gest a pattern of community organization with freestanding houses showing
a great deal of variation in economic status, as inferred from both house sizes and artifact inventories Qasim 1985: 202-203; 1989).
In the early to mid-fifth millennium BC, the distributions of southern "Ubaid pottery, architectural styles, and other artifact classes spread widely beyond the southern alluvium, forming a horizon style that extended across an astonishing distance of 1800 kilometers, from Cilicia on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, across southeast and south-central Anatolia, north Syria, and the Iraqi Jazira, into southwest Iran, and down the western shore of the Persian Gulf into what is now Saudi Arabia (Oates 1983; J. Oates and Oates 2004b; Yoffee 1993b) (see Figure 93). 'Ubaid styles can be found together across this broad area at sites along the Persian Gulf (Frifelt 1989; Oates 1983: 255-256, e.g., H3; Carter et al. 1999; Carter and Crawford 2001; 2002; Masry 1974; Roaf 1976), as well as at numerous northern sites in Iraq, Syria, and southeast Anatolia including Tepe Gawra (Tobler 1950), Hama (Fugman 1958: 14-22; Thuesen 1988: 90-93;), and Degirmentepe (Esin 1989; 1998; Esin and Harmankaya 1986; 1987; 1988).
The stylistic similarities in ' Ubaid pottery as well as the floor plans of public and private buildings excavated at ' Ubaid sites in the southern .Mesopotamian heartland, and in die northern sites led early researchers to view the 'Ubaid as two slightly varied renditions of a homogeneous culture complex
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Figure 92. Examples of' Ubaid material culture. (A): After Roaf 1989: figs. 4. 10; (B): after Jasim 1985: fig. 58b, f, g.
(Oates 1960; J. Oates and Oates 2004b: 180; Perkins 1949; Roaf 1990: 51-56). In addition, the spread of ' Ubaid assemblages was perceived as originating from a single identifiable south Mesopotamian source to the northern peripheries and replacing the preceding local Halaf culture (Mallowan and Rose 1935: 14; Mellaart 1982: 7; Redman 1978: 251-253). This perception led some researchers to suggest that northern ' Ubaid sites were in fact southern Mesopotamian colonies, established for the asymmetrical exchange of raw materials and most probably inhabited by an immigrant southern population who maintained close ties with the parent societies of lowland Mesopotamia (Esin 1985b: 257; 1989; Oates 1993:409-410; J. Oates and Oates 2004a: 184; 2004b: 95-99; Yakar 1985: 336; but compare Thuesen 2000).
Figure 93. Map showing the location of sites mentioned in the text.
Traditional archaeological models of colonization assume that artifacts or architectural types define a cultural entity that is more or less identical wherever it occurs (for example, Mellaart 1975). The "colonial" material assemblage has been viewed as a series of discrete items without regard for variability in the interrelationships or the social context of their form, practice, and meaning.
However, more recent developments in the comparative archaeology of culture contact processes (Cusick 1998; Lightfoot, Martinez, and Schiff 1998; Lyons and Papadopoulos 2002; G. Stein, ed. 2005) suggest that the appropriation and use of material culture is complex, selective, and contextually dependent. In the case of the spread of' Ubaid material culture, when one examines the social contexts of artifact use, the resultant picture shows great regional variation in the forms of contact and their material correlates. At the actual boundary between lower and upper Mesopotamia in the Syrian steppe, we may well have limited evidence suggestive of migration at the site of Mash-naqa (Thuesen 2000) and possibly other sites in the Khabur (Hole 1997: 43). It is also possible that southern migrants were present at Brak as well, since this site functioned in later periods as a "gateway community"—what we
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might call the northernmost outpost of southern Mesopotamia (Gates 190,7. 193; J. Oates and Oates 2004b: 95). However, a contextual approach suggest5 that in most other cases, ' Ubaid material culture spread to the north peace fully through some combination of trade and the local appropriation of 'Ubaid social identity and ceremonial ideology rather than actual colonization. It is becoming clear that the so-called Northern ' Ubaid sites show far more sociocultural, ritual, ideological, and stylistic continuities with the preexisting Halafian culture than was previously recognized (Breniquet 1989-334-336; Davidson and Watkins 1981: 9; Nissen 2001: 167-170; Thuesen 1992: 14). In fact, some north Mesopotamian idiosyncrasies that are rare or even unknown in the alluvium are found in both the pre- and post-' Ubaid of the north. This includes, for example, the widespread use of seals and sea lings (Akkermans and Duistermaat 1997; Breniquet 1989: 335; Esin 1994b; Perkins 1949: 87; Tobler 1950), smaller nuclear family-sized houses (Bernbeek 1995; but see Nissen 2001: 170), and the persistence of tholoi in ' Ubaid levels (Breniquet 1991: 25; Edens and Yener 2000: 200-201; Tobler 1950; Wilkinson, Monahan, and Tucker 1996; and possibly Nishiaki et al. 2001: 58-59).
Our analysis focuses on two key sites, Tepe Gawra in northern Iraq and De|irmentepe in southeast Anatolia, to illustrate that:
• 'Ubaid styles of material culture spread gradually and were selectively appropriated by northern communities; and
• those elements of' Ubaid architecture and other classes of material culture that spread to the north were transformed and used in everyday practice in ways that were fundamentally different from superficially similar sites with ' Ubaid material culture in southern Mesopotamia.
The site of Tepe Gawra in northern Iraq provides one of the best data-sets with which to understand the nature of the 'Ubaid oikmnene (G. Stein 1991). Gawra is a small, 2.5-hectare mound whose long stratigraphic sequence documents the transition from Halaf to 'Ubaid (Tobler 1950). Stratum XX is the Halaf occupation. In the succeeding Strata XTX to XII, 'Ubaid material increases in frequency, while Halaf artifacts become progressively scarcer, and eventually disappear.
To understand the significance of both the selection of elements of the southern Mesopotamian ' Ubaid assemblage and the rate of their acceptance, it is useful to separate the public from the personal components of cultural identity (Bentley 1987; see, for example, VViessner 1983 for a comparable discussion of archaeological style). The perception of self in relation to the larger community can he viewed as a form of public identity, conveyed through highly visible social domains (Wiessner 1985: 161-162; Wobst 1977) as reflected in ceramics, architecture, ritual paraphernalia, or badges of rank and accessible to many people at an intermediate social distance. Personal identity, on the other hand.
HALAF ASSEMBLAGE:
Halaf pottery
Tholoi
Painted female figurines
Unsrooved ornamental studs with 2-4 holes
Tinged pendants
Back-looped stamp seals
UBAID ASSEMBLAGE: Ubaid pottery "Mullers" {clay nafls) Tripartite house Stone mace heads Niched facade temples Incense burners
A Talľ of Two Oikumbvai
GAWRA STRATIGRAPHIC SEQUENCE
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XX	XIX	XVI li	XVII	XVI	XV	XIV	XIII	XII
	—							
								
								
								
								
								
								
								
								
								
Patterns of Change in Material Culture at Tepe Gawra (N. Mesopotamia) in the Fifth Millennium BC
Figure 94. Patterns of change from Halaf to ' Ubaid material culture at Tepe Gawra (northern Iraq) from Stratum XX to XII.
refers to the definition of the self in the more circumscribed or domestic domain and is conveyed through small items of personal adornment often found in contexts involving minimal social distance.
Interestingly, the first markers of Halaf identity to disappear at Tepe Gawra and become replaced by their ' Ubaid counterparts are Halaf ceramics and house form, both reflecting community affiliation as an aspect of public identity' (G. Stein 1991). Similarly, larger, highly visible stone mace heads—badges of rank indicative of 'Ubaid public identity (G. Stein 1994b)—also appear at a relatively early date in Level XVIII. However, it is significant that the most persistent and longest lived Halaf artifacts are smaller-sized markers of personal identity—seals, sew-on ornamental studs, and tanged pendants, items that were most visible in face-to-face interaction (G. Stein 1991:7, Figure 94).
In short, the public and domestic aspects of cultural identity at Gawra seem to have changed at different rates. People quickly took on markers of 'Ubaid identity in the public domain, especially in contexts relating to community affiliation and hierarchical social status. However, at the same time,
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the inhabitants of Gawra retained a distinctively Halaf personal identity which they expressed primarily in the private or domestic domain. Ther' need not be any contradiction in having an 'Ubaid public identity while retaining a traditional Halaf conception of self, since these two aspects ofcu] uiral identity were expressed in different social contexts (G. Stein 1991).
Surprisingly, the last items of southern ' Ubaid material culture to be adopted at Gawra were temple architecture and cult artifacts related to religious ideology (G. Stein 1991: 8). One reason may be that the ' Ubaid form of temple-based religion had no precedent in traditional Halaf society (Akker-mans 1993: 298). The Halaf sites of the north do not have formal temples, suggesting that the ritual and the domestic spheres were not seen as conceptually and spatially distinct. The alien nature of this ' Ubaid ritual innovation suggests that the spread of' Ubaid material culture was gradual and selective, rather than the sudden, wholesale replacement to be expected if the traditional colonization model had been correct.
The site of Degirmentepe in southeast Anatolia provides additional evidence that' Ubaid material culture cannot automatically be seen as reflecting colonization (Ozbal 2000). Instead, architectural patterning and the use of space show that ' Ubaid styles were completely transformed in order to fit into preexisting indigenous cultural schemas. Degirmentepe is a small 2.5-hectare mound near Malatya in the upper Euphrates of eastern Turkey. Excavations between 1979 and 1986 exposed a broad area of the site dating to the end of the second half of the fifth millennium BC (Esin 1981a; 1981b; 1983a; 1983b; 1984; 1985; Esin and Harmankaya 1986; 1987; 1988). Degirmentepe Level 7 yielded 'Ubaid pottery and fourteen mud-brick buildings, of which at least eight are typical 'Ubaid-style tripartite houses. While the acnial house plans closely resemble their 'Ubaid counterparts in southern Mesopotamia, the use of space in the Degirmentepe houses, and their relationship to one another, show fundamental differences in both community organization and in the meanings and uses of domestic space (Ozbal 2000).
In southern Mesopotamia, ' Ubaid domestic and ritual spaces were clearly distinct, so that we can easily differentiate temples (Safer, Mustafa, and Lloyd 1981) and domestic residences (Jasim 1985: 1989; Mallowan and Rose 1935: 11-12; Roaf 1989). Although they conform to the same floor plans, temples are more symmetrically planned and have elaborately decorated niches and buttresses, offering tables and altars (Perkins 1949: 87-88; Roaf 1984: 88; Safar, Mustafa, and Lloyd 1981). As stated by Roaf (1984: 88), the similarity in floor plans between 'Ubaid temples and houses is probably no coincidence, as "the temple was the house of God" and ' Ubaid ritual architecture exhibits the earliest beginnings of the historic-period temples.
However, Degirmentepe lacks the clear functional differentiation between the sacred and the residential of the southern ' Ubaid (Ozbal 2000: 12). Instead,
nearly all the central court areas of the tripartite structures, although clearly domestic, yield ritual evidence as well (Esin 1998; Esin and Harmankaya 1988). •fhjs is suggested by the presence of features such as offering podia, monumental hearths, altar tables, wall paintings, and burials as well as nearby pits containing ash and sacrificial offerings (Esin 1998; Esin and Harmankaya 1988: 92-93, jO4_105; Helwing 2003: 68). The recurrence of a similar repertoire of ritual objects in nearly all the tripartite buildings suggests that rituals were conducted ■ the level of the household and that the sacred structures were jointly used as residential dwelling spaces (Ozbal 2000: 18). Thus, Degirmentepe uses a local Anatolian tradition, found at some Ceramic Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites, of incorporating ritual space within die residential sphere (Naumann 1971: 433— 434; Ozdogan 1999: 230; for example, Alkim 1979: 201; During 2001: 9-11; I>uru 1999: 176-179; Hodder 1999:179; Silistreli 1989: 62; 1991: 96).
Even more striking is the transformation of ' Ubaid style tripartite architecture in this eastern Anatolian context (Ozbal 2000:19). In southern and south-central Mesopotamia, 'Ubaid tripartite houses were freestanding (Jasim 1985; 1989; Lloyd and Safar 1943: 149; Roaf 1989; Safar, Mustafa, and Lloyd 1981; Youkana 1997: fig. 9) (see Figure 95). However, at Degirmentepe, the tripartite houses are contiguous, in an agglutinative pattern of community organization with adjacent houses sharing walls (Figure 96). This reflects a fundamental difference in the cultural construction and meanings of public and private space. Agglutinated settlements are typical of
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Figure 96. Degirmentepe (southeast Turkey):' Ubaid-style house plans in agglutinative settlement layout (after Esin and Harmankaya 1987: fig. 2).
lx)th north Mesopotamian (compare Bernbeck 1995: 14; Sievertsen 2002) and Anatolian traditions (Ozbal 2000: 9) and are exemplified at sites such as Chatal Hoyiik (Mellaart 1975: 101), Asikh Hoyiik (Esin 1991; 1999: fig. 104), Yarim Tepe III (Merpert and Munchaev 1993), and Gawra (Tobler 195QJ* The redefinition of southern 'Ubaid tripartite buildings into this northern syntax at both Gawra and Degirmentepe represents a transformation of both the local and the foreign to create a hybridized identity (Bhaba 1992; Van Dommclen 2002; 2005) rather than an ' Ubaid colonial imposition.
These examples demonstrate not only how 'Ubaid elements actively became part of existing and well established repertoires of culture and meaning (as in the Degirmentepe case) but also show how various aspects of southern elemenLs are selectively adopted at different rates (as in the Gawra case). Overall, this highlights die importance of recognizing the site-specific nature
and the differential appropriation of ' Ubaid characteristics and the unique ways in which they are transformed into local and cultural repertoires.
uruk (ca. 4200-3000 BC)
The fourth-millennium Uruk assemblage represents a second, distinct Mesopotamian horizon style, almost as widely distributed as the ' Ubaid in roughly the same areas of the Near East. During the early to mid-fourth millennium BC, urbanized state societies had emerged over much of the alluvium in southern Mesopotamia and southwestern Iran (Adams 1981; Nissen 2000;
' Pollock 1992; H. T. Wright and Rupley 2001). The elites of these highly stratified polities had developed centralized institutions to mobilize surplus labor and goods from their hinterlands in a meticulously administered politi-
[ cal economy (Algaze 2001b; H. T. Wright 2001a).
The economic sphere of Uruk Mesopotamian state societies quickly expanded to form an extensive interaction network connecting the southern alluvium with the less urbanized polities in the neighboring highlands to the north and east (Algaze 1993a; 1993b; 2001b; Rothman 2001; H. T. Wright 2001a). Several sites in the latter areas have been identified as Uruk trading colonies, apparently established to gain access to trade/communication routes while extracting metals, semiprecious stones, lumber, or other commodities from the resource-rich highland zones, in what many researchers consider the world's earliest known colonial system (Algaze 1993a; Lupton 1996; Stirenhagen 1986). This process by which southern Mesopotamian societies travel to so-called peripheral regions for colonization and intense commercial contact is often called the "Uruk Expansion" (G. Stein 1999a: 91-101). Sites recognized as Uruk "colonies" have been identified across a vast area along key trade routes from Ilassek Hoyiik in the Turkish upper Euphrates, across north Syria and northern Iraq, and into the Zagros Mountains of western Iran (see, for example, Behm-Blanke et al. 1981; 1983; 1984; Boese 1995; Strom-menger 1979; 1980; Stirenhagen 1986: 10-12; van Driel 1977; van Driel and van Driel-Murray 1979; 1983; Weiss and Young 1975; Young 1986). At these sites, the full range of Uruk material culture styles appeared suddenly in the archaeological record in a pattern quite different from that of the earlier 'Ubaid oikumene (Lupton 1996; Stirenhagen 1986) (see Figure 93).
The southern Mesopotamian Uruk colonies are quite distinctive as intrusive sites, established rapidly in the midst of local Iranian, Syrian, and southeast Anatolian cultures. Three different forms of Uruk material culture occurring together serve to identify the Mesopotamian implanted settlements while distinguishing them from contemporaneous local settlements (G. Stein 1999b). This can be seen best at the site of Habuba Kabira on the Syrian middle Euphrates (Strommenger 1979; 1980). Sites identified as colonies have the
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full repertoire of Uruk ceramics (Siirenhagen 1986: 26-27). These same sites also have distinctive south Mesopotamian Uruk domestic or public/ritual architecture such as the "middle-hall" house and niched facade temples, often decorated with baked clay wall cones (Heinrich 1982; Ôzten 1984; Siirenhagen 1986: 10). Culturally specific aspects of technological style such as brick dimensions and bricklaying patterns exacdy match the practices in the southern homeland (Schwartz 2001: 252). A third distinctive feature of the Uruk colonies is the presence of the full range of south .Mesopotamian administrative technology such as cylinder seals, bullae, tokens, and clay tablets with numerical inscriptions used to monitor the circulation of goods (Ferioli and Fiandra 1983; Pittman 1993; 2001; van Driel 1983) (see Figure 97).
In some rases, the colonies were founded from scratch on uninhabited land (Strommenger 1980; van Driel and van Driel-Murray 1983). However, at the outer reaches of die exchange network in the highland resource zones, Uruk colonies took the form of small trading enclaves within preexisting indigenous settlements such as Godin (Weiss and Young 1975; Young 1986) and Ilacinebi (G. Stein 1999a; 2001; 2002). In these latter settlements, not just the forms of material culture, but also behavioral patterning, food preferences, and technological styles are all aspects of daily practice that identify' south Meso-potamians as an ethnically distinct alien minority. At Godin, the Mesopotami-ans lived within a clearly defined residential quarter (Weiss and Young 1975; Young 1986). At Hacinebi, for example, comparisons of fauna between the Uruk and Anatolian parts of the site show differences between the two groups in food preferences, so that sheep and goats were 49 percent of the local meat consumption, but provided 80 to 90 percent of the Uruk diet. This matches exactly the known food preferences in the south Mesopotamian heartland (G. Stein 1999a: 145-146; Stein and Nicola 1996). At the same time, butchery practices show clear differences between Uruk and local contexts, in both the locations and the widths of cut marks, suggesting that the two groups used different butchering tools (G. Stein 1997; 1999a: fig. 7.14). Chipped stone tools show similar differences in technological style, so that even when Uruk and local specialists made the same tool forms, the proportions of the tools differed significandy. Blade tools from Uruk areas at Hacinebi are significantly narrower than their local counterparts and match closely die dimensions of blades from south Mesopotamian Uruk sites (Edens 1996; 1997; 1998a; 1998b).
These differences within and between sites remind us that we must view fourth-millennium Greater Mesopotamia as a complex mosaic composed of an Uruk heartland, Uruk colonies in the outlying regions, indigenous settlements such as Arslantepe that traded with these colonies while remaining politically and culturally autonomous (Frangipane 2001b; Frangipane and Palmieri 1989), and indigenous settlements such as Gawra that remained outside the system, having only minimal interaction with Uruk southern Mesopotamia
HABUBA/QANNAS/ARUDA
POTTERY
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ACCOUNTING
GLYPTIC
O P
ARCHITECTURE
M. ALLUVIUM/SUSIANA
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Figure 97. Examples of classic Uruk material culture from southern Mesopotamia and from Uruk expansion sites (reproduced with permission from Guillermo Algaze, after Algaze 1993b: fig. 17).
(Rothman 2002a). The colonies themselves differed significantly from one another, depending on such factors as distance from the homeland, the size of the neighboring local population, and the degree of social complexity in the neighboring indigenous polities (G. Stein 1999a; 1999b; 2001; 2002).
I he power of the Uruk states over other parts of the interaction network appears to have declined with increasing distance from the alluvium (G. Stein 1999a; 1999b; 2001; 2002). Thus, for example, a comparison of (a) the city of Uruk itself; (b) large colonies such as Habuba Kabira; and (c) small, distant colonies such as Hacinebi or Godin shows a tremendous degree of variation in
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social and economic organization as one moves outward from the urban core to its periphery. In the south Mesopotamian heartland, cities such as Uruk ;inc] Susa controlled their rural hinterlands, exacting taxes and administering the most basic subsistence activities. In the "near periphery"—the sparsely popu-lated areas of Syria closest to southern Mesopotamia proper—Uruk colonies such as Sheikh Hassan and Habuba Kabira were large, fortified settlements that apparently used coercion to control the local Syrian communities around them (Boese 1995; Strommenger 1979; 1980). In more distant regions, Uruk settlements such as Godin V in highland Iran and Hacinebi in southeast Turkey took the form of small outposts located inside the preexisting towns of local polities. The small numbers and vulnerable position of the south Mesopotamian colonists at sites such as Hacinebi and Godin meant that they could survive only by remaining on good terms with their more powerful indigenous neighbors.
Processes of interaction at any given point in the Uruk trading network were thus structured by a combination of parameters, including distances to the core as well as various environmental, cultural, and economic factors. Nonetheless, "colonies" and even "enclaves," which are less coercive ports of exchange, are archaeologically clearly identifiable through a broad range of material cultural and architectural correlates that are identical to those of another region but are located in spatially discrete occupations surrounded by settlements of local culture.
Conclusions
This comparison of the horizon styles associated with the two earliest Mesopotamian complex societies points to a number of important contrasts between the so-called expansionary dynamics of the 'Ubaid and Uruk periods. It is clear that while the Uruk expansion was a case of actual colonization, the spread of the ' Ubaid into neighboring regions reflects the gradual, peaceful spread of an ideological system that was translated into a variety of different local cultural schemes, forming what are, in effect, new, hybrid social identities in these outlying areas. The ' Ubaid case shows convincingly that even though the external forms of ' Ubaid houses and pottery styles were more or less identical in both the heartland and the highlands, the ways that these items were used and conceptualized in daily local practice reveal profound cultural differences within this oikumene.
At a broader level, this comparison reminds us that a widely distributed horizon style cannot be assumed to reflect an underlying uniformity of cultural, social, or political systems. Significantly, this is true in both the ideological expansion of the ' Ubaid period, and in the elaborate commercial-colonial network of the Uruk urbanized states. It is precisely this variation in Near Eastern complex societies that we need to recognize, model, and explore in the second century of anthropological archaeology between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
The Sumerian Takeoff*
GUILLERMO ALGAZE
Abstract
The emergence of early cities in the alluvial lowlands of southern Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BC must be understood in tenns of both the unique ecological conditions affecting the area at the time, and the enduring geographical framework of the Mesopotamian lowlands which allowed for the efficient movement of commodities via water transport and facilitated interaction between diverse social units. These conditions promoted evolving long-term tiade patterns that, inadvertently, differentially favored the development ofpolities in the southern Mesopotamian alluvium over contemporary societies in neighboring regions.
More specifically, fa the final quarter of the fourth millennium, the social and economic multiplier effects of trade patterns that had been in place for centuries (if not millennia) had brought about substantial increases in population agglomeration throughout the southern alluvia! lowlands. Concurrent with these increases, and partly as a result of than, important socioeconomic innovations started to appear in the increasingly urbanized polities of southern Mesopotamia. These were unachievable in
Earlier drafts of this article were read and criticized by Robert McC. Adams (UCSD), Elise Auerbach (University of Chicago), Alexjoffe, David Jordan (UCSD), Philip Kohl (Wellesley College), Richard Meadows (Harvard), Joyce Marcus (Universit)' of Michigan), Joy McCorriston (Ohio State University), Joel Robbins (UCSD), Morris Silver (CCNY), Piotr Steinkeller (Harvard), and Donald Tuzin (UCSD). Each offered substantive criticism, important editorial comments, and crucial missing references. Their invaluable contributions are acknowledged with gratitude, even though, occasionally, i chose to disregard their advice. f-'or this reason, remaining errors of omission and interpretation arc entirely my own.
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