Since the 1950s, anthropologists have used an evolutionary model to explain the rise of states, consisting of a stepladder model of bands becoming tribes, chiefdoms, and then states. This, however, has been criticized in the past decade. A chiefdom has been described as an autonomous regional unit under a paramount chief. Another model is world-systems, an attempt to explain the development and function of the European capitalist system on a global scale from the outset of the modern age. This has also been employed as an explanation for archaeological studies of secondary state development, especially when discussing Uruk period Mesopotamia (Wallerstein 1974/80; Algaze 1989, 1993). In a nutshell, world-systems (which do not necessarily encompass the entire globe) develop when various polities start to have high levels of interaction, especially through trade. However, the world-systems theorists argue that by definition there is asymmetry in this relationship, with centralized authorities (that is, the ‘‘core’’) dominating the periphery, the outer edges of the world-system, those polities that are less centralized and weaker than the core. According to Stein, the world-systems theory minimizes the roles of polities in the periphery, and local production and exchange, as well as their complexity (1999: 16). Even if one admits that the world-systems approach works for ‘‘world empires,’’ one cannot easily determine the nature of these archaic empires (Stein 1999: 43).
A number of scholars have argued that in the fourth millennium bce, Uruk in Mesopotamia and nearby areas formed a world-system (Algaze 1989, 1993; Frangia-pani and Palmieri 1987). With our present knowledge, it appears that southern Mesopotamia created the earliest known urbanized state society, even though this region lacked the natural resources of metals, lumber, and semi-precious stones that were available in neighboring regions of the northwest in the Taurus Mountains in Turkey and the east in the Zagros Mountains in Iran. In fact, there appear to be efforts to procure these materials as early as the Ubaid period of the fifth millennium in southern Mesopotamia, with the development of chiefdoms (Stein 1999: 85; Oates 1993). But the extent of interaction seems to be the northern adoption of ceramic and architectural styles, as well as religious ideology, showing a commonality of beliefs. There do not appear to be large trade exports, however. And the nature of the Ubaidian state is not clear.
It is, however, clear that in different periods, southern Mesopotamian states obtained raw materials with different strategies, including trade, gift exchanges, raiding or tribute, and conquest. The nature of the interaction changed with the nature of the political organization in Mesopotamia. Large-scale trade networks do not appear to have begun until the Middle and Late Uruk period (about 3800-3100 bce), which is not only evidenced in southern Mesopotamia at Uruk but in southwest Iran at Susa, northern Mesopotamia, Syria, the Zagros, and southeast Anatolia, modern Turkey. By this period, urbanism, centralized authority, complex settlement hierarchies, social stratification, and administrative bureaucracy were all manifested. The fact that there were a number of urban-centered hierarchies in the south and in Iran suggests to some that there were multiple competing polities, and not a unified state.
Sometime in the early fourth millennium bce, the Uruk polities economically expanded to outlying areas, creating trading colonies to obtain commodities not accessible in the south. This has been considered the first known colonial system. These ‘‘colonial’’ sites, as they are called, exhibit Uruk-type architecture, ceramics, and material evidence of administrative activity. They were strategically located along major trade routes in the Iranian Zagros, on the northern Tigris, and the Habur River headwaters. This has often been called the Uruk Expansion.
While originally thought to be of short duration, it is now clear that this trading enterprise lasted for over six centuries (Pollock 1992). However, over that period the nature of the expansion varied greatly in both numbers of trading posts and areas. For example, on the Syrian Euphrates, where the population was evidently sparse, the Uruk posts were larger and more numerous. It is apparent that the Uruk ceramic repertoire occurs in the outlying regions, and although it is massive in number, it is limited to beveled-rim bowls and other items. In fact, there are only a few sites that have a full repertoire of Uruk ceramics as well as Uruk-type domestic and public architecture, along with cylinder seals, round stamp seals or bullae, tokens, and clay tablets (Surenhagen 1986b: 26). These include Godin Tepe in Iran, Tell Brak and Nineveh in northern Mesopotamia, Habuba Kabira and Jebel Aruda on the Syrian Euphrates, and Hassek Hoyuk in Anatolia, among others. They appear to have been strategically placed. Stein has argued for four different types of settlements: 1. sites with Uruk material remains (colonies), 2. Mesopotamian residential quarters inside a Late Chalcolithic settlement (for example, Godin Tepe and Hassek Hoyuk, and Hacinebi), 3. small Late Chalcolithic settlements located near an Uruk enclave, and 4. local sites, which have only minimal interaction with Uruk enclaves (1999: 96).
The political relationship between the colonies and the south is unclear, and once again it is not certain whether this was a singular political enterprise, or a group of competing polities. In fact, Hacinebi appears to receive its Uruk material culture from Susa, and not Uruk proper, suggesting that Susa may have been an independent polity (Stein 2001: 302). The various colonies exhibited a heterogeneous network of interaction with the outlying polities, and the relationships, according to Stein, were exchange, emulation, and the establishment of Uruk settlements in the territories of those outlying polities (1999: 101).
There is no concrete evidence that any of the Uruk settlements actually dominated local polities. In fact, it has only been recently that scholars have spent a lot of time studying these peripheral Chalcolithic period settlements. The highland Anatolian areas were composed of smaller-scale, less complex polities, often described as chief-doms. These include Arslan Tepe, which showed minimal evidence of Uruk culture, especially in regard to a centralized bureaucracy, which used both Anatolian and Mesopotamian styles of administrative technology. Thus, there appears to have been selective local borrowing of Mesopotamian elite symbolism, but little evidence of Mesopotamian imports.
So, was there an informal empire, as argued by Algaze, meaning an economic hegemony, not simply administrative control (1989, 1993)? Algaze argues that the settlements could only have survived if there was an exchange of manufactured goods from Mesopotamia for unprocessed materials from outlying areas (1993: 61). He states that the relationship took different forms, depending on local conditions. Susa was completely colonized by the Uruk peoples, while more distant areas established colonial enclaves that functioned as gateway communities that regularized the flow of trade. Algaze still accepts the core assumptions of the world-systems theory, that is, that there was asymmetrical exchange, core dominance, and trade as the prime mover of social development (Algaze 2001b).
But excavations in southeastern Anatolia show that there was no such asymmetry in the technological development of the outlying areas and Uruk Mesopotamia, but instead technological parity. In fact, this parity seems to have occurred before the Uruk Expansion, not because of it. Many areas reflect a very advanced copper metallurgy at an early date, and thus highly processed products were probably sent south, not unfinished raw materials. The enclaves could not have survived without local cooperation (Stein 1999: 117). Stein has studied the Anatolian site of Hacinebi in the Euphrates River Valley over 1000 km or 620 miles from the Mesopotamian core and has found evidence for social complexity at the site before pre-contact phases, including evidence for stamp seals and seal impressions (implying a complex social hierarchy), long-distance exchange, a high level of craft production, and complex mortuary and public architecture. When Hacinebi had contact with the Uruk culture about 3700 BCE, it is clear that there was a small Mesopotamian colonial center inside a larger Anatolian regional center, analogous to the Old Assyrian trade with Anatolia of nearly two millennia later. Evidence similar to this can be found at Tell Brak in Syria, where fragments of a casemate fortification encircling the large Chacolithic period site have been found, as well as in surveys at Tell al-Hawa on the Sinjar plains, and Arslan Tepe. This trading relationship may have lasted for as long as one half of a millennium, at least implying a peaceful coexistence.
There is also no evidence that the Mesopotamians were able to monopolize the exchange system. Stein argues for a ‘‘distance-parity’’ model in this case (1999: 163). In fact, the two areas, core and periphery, maintained autonomous economic systems, and there was no dramatic change showing a rapid increase in local complexity after the Uruk presence was manifested. However, there were no apparent Anatolian trade colonies in Mesopotamia, explained in part by the geographic nature of the evidence. Mesopotamia, lacking in raw materials, needed the relationship, possibly more than Anatolia. One could even argue that it may have even been southern Mesopotamia that was dependent upon their resource-rich neighbors, and not vice versa.
What was the nature of the Uruk state? Steinkeller has recently argued that Uruk was a religious capital during this period and the subsequent Jemdet Nasr period, based upon a small number of Jemdet Nasr period tablets that reputedly show different Sumerian cities sending resources to Uruk as ritual offerings to Inanna, one of the primary deities of Uruk (2002a). He argues that this is probably a continuation of a situation that began in the Uruk period, and is analogous to the b a l a distribution system that served Nippur as the religious core during the Ur III period. Of course, if there was such a centralized state at Uruk, it is not mentioned in any later Mesopotamian textual traditions.
The creation of buffer areas between large urban polities implies rival centers, rather than a single entity, and armed conflict was depicted in Uruk iconography (Algaze 2001b: 55). Thus, Algaze has modified his argument to state that southern Mesopotamia in the Uruk period was characterized by a small number of competitive polities, each surrounded by a hinterland that provided both labor and material resources. Uruk itself was certainly the largest and probably most powerful state. In fact the competition between states likely was the catalyst for economic expansion into other areas. Political fragmentation may have fostered conflict and exchange between the centers. Algaze sees this as analogous to the European states and the New World in the early modern era and to the Greek city-states of the eighth century BCE (1993: 113).
At any rate, the Uruk states differed from the later expansionist empires and tribute-demanding states in that it appears that the local elites played a role in creating a significant trading system, apparently beneficial to both parties to some extent. The problem may be one of semantics; was the relationship symmetrical or asymmetrical? Were the Uruk polities creating ‘‘trading post empires’’? Steinkeller argues that since Sumer did not have such a powerful infrastructure until the late third millennium BCE, it is hard to imagine that it existed at such an early date (1993: 110-11). He argues that it was a commercial enterprise, analogous to the Old Assyrian/Kanish trading mechanism of the Old Babylonian period.
By the late Uruk period there was evidence of a breakdown of the southern economy. City walls were now found at Uruk, as they were at Habuba Kabira and
Godin Tepe, along with settlement pattern changes. Siirenhagen proposed that the outlying areas became hostile and cut off agricultural supplies (1986b). Steinkeller theorizes that since this was a commercial enterprise, movements of new people in the Early Dynastic I period may have ended it, that is, with proto-Akkadians coming in like later Amorites (1993: 116). But this cannot be easily substantiated.
World History
