Publisher's Synopsis
Many of the debates that have until recently driven research into Mesopotamia's proto-urban phase (5th- 4th millennia BCE) have now been reassessed thanks to new fieldwork in Iraqi Kurdistan and new data into the relationships between the north and south of the Alluvium. These debates were re-examined in the light of this new material during a workshop held at the ICAANE in 2018 in Munich, leading to unprecedented perspectives on the patterns of early urbanization, social mobility, and the organization of Late Chalcolithic communities. This volume engages with one key question from different angles: how can we reconcile detailed analysis of the multifaceted local variations of proto-urbanism with the supra-regional, and more widespread nature of this same phenomenon across Mesopotamia?
