Description
Book SynopsisThis volume of essays dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams reflects both the breadth of his research and the select themes upon which he focused his attention. These essays written by his students and disciples focus on issues in Near Eastern archaeology but range as far afield as the Indus Valley and Mesoamerica. They are also concentrate on aspects of early complex society, but some refer back to the late Neolithic and others forward to Islamic times. The key foci of Adams' work are reflected in this collection: ecology, frontiers, urbanism, trade and technology are all explored. Yet in spite of the breadth of the scope of this volume, the various intellectual threads pioneered by Adams serve to tie the volume together. These include the use of multiple lines of evidence to attack problems, the use of a comparative approach - including the use of ethnographic analogy-as a means of understanding the development of early states, the importance of the continuum of settlement between city dwellers, farmers, marsh dwellers and pastoralists, and an overall appreciation of cultural ecology.
Table of ContentsIntroduction (Elizabeth C Stone); Ecology Landscape Archaeology in Mesopotamia: Past, present and future (Nicholas Kouchoukos & Tony Wilkinson); Archaeological Surveys and Mesopotamian History (Hans J Nissen); KLM to Corona: Using satellite photography toward a new understanding of fifth/fourth millennium BC landscapes in the lower Mesopotamian alluvium (Jennifer R Pournelle); Cycles of Settlement in the Khorramabad Valley in Luristan, Iran (Frank Hole); Harappan Geoarchaeology Reconsidered: Holocene Landscapes and Environments of the Indus Plain (Joseph Schuldenrein, Rita Wright, and Mohammed Afzal Khan); Representing Abundance: The Visual Dimension of the Agrarian State (Irene J Winter); Frontiers Resisting Empire: Elam in the First Millennium BC (Elizabeth Carter); The Lattimore Model and Hatti's Kaska Frontier (Paul Zimansky); Urbanism Ancient Agency: Using Models of Intentionality to Understand the Dawn of Despotism (Henry T Wright); City and Countryside in Third Millennium Southern Babylonia (Piotr Steinkeller); The Mesopotamian Urban Experience (Elizabeth C Stone); The Archaeology of Early Administrative Systems in Mesopotamia (Mitchell S Rothman); Islamic Archaeology and the "Land behind Baghdad" (Donald Whitcomb); The Urban Organization of Teotihuacan, Mexico (George L Cowgill); The Harappan Settlement of Gujarat (Gregory L Possehl); Trade A Tale of Two Oikumenai: Variation in the Expansionary Dynamics of 'Ubaid and Uruk Mesopotamia (Gil J Stein and Rana Izbal); The Sumerian Takeoff (Guillermo Algaze); Technology Transformative Impulses in Late Bronze Age Technology:A Case Study from the Amuq Valley, Southern Turkey (K Aslihan Yener); References.
