CONCLUSION

Few investigations have been conducted that enable us to generalize about the overall layout of the largely residential lower cities in mid-late third-millennium settlements in northern Mesopotamia. Titris Hoyuk represents an unprecedented and ideal case study for comprehending the nature of domestic life and the socio-spatial configurations of the extensive urban living quarters as a whole. The excavated and surveyed areas in the lower town at Titris show habitation areas indicative of residents of uniform status leading a moderately prosperous lifestyle. These houses commonly exhibit similar house plan and size, as well as standardized architectural features and household material remains. The spread of these relatively large houses created crowded neighborhoods, and such homogeneous living areas were pervasive in this ancient city. Besides public structures and elite residences most likely clustered on the high mound, functionally different areas - such as the one in front of the eastern gateway - were interspersed sporadically across the settlement. Such public or elite districts were located at specific loci, segregated from and surrounded by the more common habitation quarters. The long, straight streets not only served as communal space for daily interactions among neighbors, but also facilitated easy access between the different habitation quarters. The regular face-to-face interactions were commonly seen in the open plaza aT the gate, while the flow of people and goods into and out of the city may also have been monitored in this important public area.

Residence inside the defensive wall may have been quite attractive to many because the 'suburb' populations in the immediate

Vicinity abandoned their houses and moved inside the fortification wall at the time of the centralized reconstruction of the settlement around 2300 BC. The ancient inhabitants may have felt it necessary to live within the limits of the city, or coercive measures may even have been applied to them by the ruling cadre. Nevertheless, the relatively comfortable standard of living guaranteed for the majority of the common residents at this northern Mesopotamian city, as well as economic opportunities in public spaces anD the protection afforded by the fortification wall, all point to the general desiraBility of living in the urban residential neighborhoods.