Assisting You to Learn

On the Dawn of Agriculture and Animal Domestication

• New Light on the Dawn: a new perspective on the Neolithic Revolution: The Rhind Lectures presented by Emeritus Professor Trevor Watkins FSA FSA Scot, University of Edinburgh Friday 3rd April to Sunday 5th April 2009 (excellent source)
• E. Weiss, W. Wetterstrom, D. Nadel, and O. Bar-Yosef, "The broad spectrum revisited: Evidence from plant remains,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America(PNAS), 2004 101: 9551-9555.
• George Willcox Website (important information and open access publications; excellent resource)
• Ofer Bar-Yosef, “The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture,” Evolutionary Anthropology 6 (1998), 159-77. (Important article)
• A. Belfer-Cohen, “ The Natufian Graveyard in Hayonim Cave,” Paléorient 14/2 (1988) through Persée
• Melinda A. Zeder, “Domestication and early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact ” PNAS vol. 105 (2008), no. 33, 11597–11604.
• Melinda A. Zeder, “The domestication of animals ” Journal of Anthropological Research 68/2 (2012). (For Melinda A. Zeder's site, click here)
• Andrew Sherratt, Origins of Farming (ArchAtlas - maps and explanations )
• On biological changes see Abscission and the Dawn of Agriculture in Plant Physiology Online
• Gregory K. Dow, Nancy Olewiler, and Clyde G. Reed, “The Transition to Agriculture: Climate Reversals, Population Density, and Technical Change,”
• Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel, “When the World’s Population Took Off: The Springboard of the Neolithic Demographic Transition,” Science 29 July 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6042 pp. 560-561 DOI: 10.1126/science.1208880

On Early Trade

• The Growth of Trade Routes (ArchAtlas)
• The Obsidian Trade (ArchAtlas)

Ubaid

• Robert A. Carter and Graham Philip (ed.) Beyond Ubaid (SAOC, 63; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2010)
• Gil J. Stein and Rana Özbal,  “A tale of Two Oikumenai: Variation in the Expansionary Dynamics of ‘Ubaid and Uruk Mesopotamia”. Pp 356-370 in: Elizabeth C. Stone, ed. Settlement and Society: Ecology, Urbanism, Trade and Technology in Mesopotamia and Beyond (Robert McC. Adams Festschrift). Los Angeles, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.
• Rana Özbal, A Comparative Look at the Halaf and Ubaid Period and The Emergence of Ubaid Styles at Tell Kurdu: A Local Perspective

Uruk Expansion & the Emergence of Early Cities in the Southern Mesopotamian Alluvium During the Fourth Millennium

• SAR Advanced Seminar (Algaze, D’Altroy, Frangipane, Nissen, Pittman, Pollock, Rothman, Schwartz, Stein, and Wright) - Mesopotamia in the Era of State Formation
  

• Catherine P. Foster, “Household Archaeology and the Uruk Phenomenon: A Case Study from Kenan Tepe, Turkey” (PhD diss.; University of California, Berkeley, 2009)
• Catherine P. Foster, "The Uruk Phenomenon: A View from the Household," in New Perspectives on Household Archaeology. Edited by B.J. Parker and C.P. Foster. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2012
• Sevil Baltali, “Culture Contact, Cultural Integration and Difference: A Case from Northern Mesopotamia,” Stanford Journal of Archaeology 5 (2007), 1-17.
• C. Edens and G. J. Stein, “Hacinebi and the Uruk Expansion: Additional Comments,” Paléorient  25/1 (1999) pp. 167-171.
• Geoff Emberling, "Ethnic Identity in the Earliest Mesopotamian States? The Uruk Expansion at Tell Brak, Northeastern Syria."
• Guillermo Algaze (2005, “The Sumerian Takeoff”, Structure and Dynamics, eJournal of Anthropological and Related Sciences: Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 2.
• Alexander H. Joffe, REVIEW of Guillermo Algaze. The Uruk World System: the Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization by Alexander H. Joffe, JWSR 1 (1995) review 4. - Currently experiencing problems in the site (malware)
• Jerrold S. Cooper, "Sumer, Summerian," RLA 13 (2012)

Writing

• Peter Damerow, “The Origins of Writing as a Problem of Historical Epistemology”, Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2006:1
• Seth L. Sanders (ed.) Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures (OIS 2; Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; 2006)
• Jerrold S. Cooper, Response to Margins of Writing
• Jerrold S. Cooper, “Babylonian Beginnings: The Origin of the Cuneiform Writing System in Comparative Perspective.”
• Jerrold S. Cooper, “Right Writing: Talking about Sumerian Orthography and Texts.”(ASJ 22 2005)
• Jerrold S. Cooper, “Sumerian and Semitic Writing” (RAI 42 1999).
• Origins of Early Writing Systems - Conference at Peking University, Beijing; October 5 to 7, 2007

• Susan Pollock (ed.), Between Feasts and Daily Meals. Toward an Archaeology of Commensal Spaces . e Topoi 2 - Journal for Ancient Studies (2012)

Early Dynastic

• Giacomo Benati, Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna "Re-modeling Political Economy in Early 3rd Millennium BC Mesopotamia: Patterns of Socio-Economic Organization in Archaic Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar, Iraq)," Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2015:2.

Contributions to the Study of the Collapse of the Akkadian Empire

• H. Weiss, M.-A Courty, W. Wetterstrom, F. Guichard, L Senior, R. Meadow, A. Curnow, “The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilizations,” Science 261 (20 August 1993) pp. 995-1004. NOTE: This link is for University of Alberta students.
• Corrections and Clarifications to the previous article NOTE: This link is for University of Alberta students

Calendars and Politics in Ur III

• Magnus Widell, "The Calendar of Neo-Sumerian Ur and Its Political Significance, Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2004:2

Urkesh

• Urkesh - Digital Library (Giorgio Buccellati, ed.)

Women and Gender in the Ancient Near East

• Marten Stol, Women in the Ancient Near East (translated by Helen Richardson-Hewitt & Mervyn Richardson; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016) [Download EPUB format, on left; or by individual pdf chapters, on right]
• Women and Property in Ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian Societies (entire conference volume)
• REFEMA, The Economic Role of Women in Ancient Mesopotamia
• Saana Teppo, Women and their Agency in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (MA Thesis, University of Helsinki, 2005)
• Andriette Ferreira, The legal rights of the women of ancient Egypt (PhD diss., University of South Africa, 2004)
• Frauke Weiershäuser, Die königlichen Frauen der III. Dynastie von Ur (Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2010)
• Anastasia A. Banschikova, "Woman in Ancient Egypt: Evolution of Personal and Social Positions
• Sara Lahtinen, "The nadītum as Businesswoman: The Economic Role of the nadītum in Old Babylonian Sippar," Assyriology C-D paper, Sara Lahtinen Supervisor: Olof Pedersén, Univ. of Uppsala.

• Jerrold S. Cooper, "Sex and the Temple"
• Jerrold S. Cooper, "Virginity in Ancient Mesopotamia."
• Jerrold S. Cooper, "Prostitution."
• Jerrold S. Cooper, "Free Love in Babylonia?"
• Jerrold S. Cooper, "Gendered Sexuality in Sumerian Love Poetry"

Economy, Production and Materials

• Textiles Studies: Sources and Methods (Margarita Gleba, Kubaba 2, 2011).
• Financing Civilization Chapter I (William N. Goetzmann; Yale Univ. School of Management)
• The Ancient Economies Site (Prof. Morris Silver)
• Review of P.R.S. Moorey, Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries (reviewed by Tamara Stech)

Afterlife (Sumerian Culture)

• Niek Veldhuis, "Entering the Netherworld", Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin 2003:6