The paper reexamines the historical and prehistorical relationships between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, suggesting that long-distance trade initiated from the Indus is pivotal to understanding their interactions. Utilizing recent archaeological findings and chronological studies, it discusses the significant impact of environmental changes on these relations and the cultivation of aquatic resources that parallel the genesis of civilization in these regions. Additionally, it critiques past scholarly interpretations, emphasizing the importance of a multifaceted agricultural and aquatic economy in the development of Sumerian civilization.

Throughout the third millennium BC, long-distance trade exchanges between Mesopotamia and the east —the Iranian Plateau, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and Indus valley— were conducted predominantly via maritime routes in the Persian Gulf. A central place in this interregional commercial network was occupied by the territory of Kerman (ancient Marhashi), which, apart from being an exporter of locally produced luxury items (such as the highly decorated chlorite vessels), served as a transshipment area for the lapis lazuli, gold, and tin incoming overland from Afghanistan. The Gulf trade reached its apogee in the Sargonic (= Old Akkadian) period, when, as a consequence of their conquests in Iran and throughout the Gulf region, the Sargonic kings created the first great commercial highway of the Near East, through the linking of a number of subregional trading networks. Starting in Meluhha (Indus Valley), this highway ran along the coast of the Persian Gulf via Makkan (Oman) and Tilmun (Bahrain) to southern Babylonia, continuing then along the Euphrates all the way to the Mediterranean coast. Following the Sargonic collapse (at ca. 2200 BC), for a century or so the Gulf trade came to a virtual standstill. It was subsequently revived by the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2100-2000 BC), though on a more limited scale. The paper will study the changing history of the Gulf trade during the third millennium BC, and identify the causes of its decline in the beginning centuries of the second millennium BC.

Ancient canals, marshes and proximity of the sea heavily characterised the landscape and environment of the ancient State of Lagash in southern Iraq, from the mid-fifth to the second millennium BC: indeed the diachronic changes that can be analysed thanks to geological and archaeological observation and investigation show how this waterscape definitely influenced the shapes of settlement and the organisation of ancient societies from a cultural, economic and biological point of view. Recent excavations at Tell Zurghul in southern Iraq are giving the possibility to test, in the field, the presence of water: ancient cuneiform sources, from the mid-third millennium BC, show the intense programme of the rulers of the State of Lagash in managing water through the construction of canals and the regulation of marshes characterised by marine water due to the proximity of the sea. In this respect, human actions (such as the digging of canals) and natural conditions (such as the reduction in the fifth millennium and the progressive growth in the fourth millennium BC of water level) are recognisable in the field, and they of course explain the morphology of the site in the past and the changes it suffered even in the present: water in fact is doubtless a fundamental resource for suitable conditions of formation and growth of a urban centre, but it also limits the possibility of extending occupation on the entire surface (as, e.g. the exploitation of lands for agricultural purposes).

The fluvial landscape of lower Mesopotamia: an overview of geomorphology and human impact, 2021

To understand the perception of wetlands by ancient Mesopotamians, it is crucial to have an understanding of the natural landscape "between the rivers". This paper provides an overview on the geomorphology of the region and the human-landscape interaction. In the course of time, starting in the early or mid-Holocene, the land “between the rivers” lost its natural character and was transformed into an increasingly cultural landscape with an intensive human impact. When and to what extent natural floodbasin marshes still existed is unknown, but they will have gradually decreased as a consequence of increasing population and expanding agriculture.

The ‘city’ across time, Atti Convegni Lincei 354, M. FRANGIPANE (ed.), Roma 2023 (ISBN: 978-88-218-1243-9)

A geopolitical chiasmus can be observed in the historical trajectories of urban societies across the breadth and length of the Tigris-Euphrates rivers in the fourth millennium BC: the power, reach, and wealth of polities in Upper Mesopotamia contracted as those of their counterparts in the alluvial lowlands of southern Mesopotamia expanded. Transregional transformations of this scale are difficult to comprehend except as long-term consequences of differential rates of regional capital accumulation, almost certainly arising from shifting patterns of long-distance trade. The chiasmus appears to have begun sometime about the transition from the first to the second quarter of the fourth millennium, just as southern Mesopotamian polities first became able to systematically tap into preexisting trade networks allowing access to coveted highland resources by marketing finished woolen textiles transported on the backs of newly domesticated pack animals. As trade flows that earlier had focused on northern centers started to shift southwards, alluvial cities––embedded in a more permissive, productive, and resilient environment than their northern counterparts––grew rapidly, in large part by adopting, improving, and scaling-up many of the organizational innovations that earlier had fueled the rise of their more precocious northern peers.

For decades, it has been unclear as to how the world's first cities, in southern Mesopotamia, not only arose in a fluvial environment but also how this environment changed. This paper seeks to understand the long-term fluvial history of the region around Uruk, a major early city, in relation to water-human interactions. This paper applies geomorphological, historical and archaeological approaches and reveals that the Uruk region in southern Mesopotamia had been under the influence of freshwater fluvial environment since the early Holocene. It further demonstrates how canals and long-term human activities since the mid Holocene have been superimposed on the natural river channel patterns. Fieldwork has been conducted to ground-truth features identified applying remote sensing techniques. Five sediment cores were analysed to elucidate palaeoenvironmental changes. Radiocarbon ages for organic samples suggest that the oldest sediment layers, at a depth of 12.5 m, are from the Early Holocene, while results from diatom analyses imply that the whole sediment column was deposited in a freshwater environment. Intensive networks of palaeochannels and archaeological sites within the study area have been reconstructed and these networks have been divided into four different time intervals based on changes in channel courses. The first is from the early 4th to the late 1st millennium BCE; the second is from the late 1st millennium BCE to the middle 2nd millennium CE; the third lasted from after the Islamic period until the 1980s; the fourth is from the 1980s until the present. Key results include evidence for freshwater environments and favourable settlement conditions had already formed by the 8th millennium BCE. The favourable settlement environment resulted in stable (long-lived) canals between the 4th millennium BCE and 1st millennium CE. A significant settlement and irrigation expansion occurred in the early 1st millennium CE. Major abandonment ensued in the late 1st millennium CE and lasted until the mid 2nd millennium CE.

2020

The Mesopotamian Plain is a vast almost flat plain which descends in elevation towards southeast until it reaches the sea level along the Gulf shore. The plain covers the central part of Iraq; it i ...

2020

The Mesopotamian Plain is a part of the Mesopotamia Foredeep of the Zagros Foreland Basin and is a part of the Zagros Fold – Thrust Belt. The plain covers the central part of Iraq and extends south ...

Geotectonics

The Mesopotamian Plain is part of the Mesopotamia which extends for vast area bigger than the plain. The plain is almost flat and vast lowland, which has clearly defined physiographic boundaries with the other surrounding physiographic provinces. The plain is a huge accumulation geomorphologic unit, where the fluvial, lacustrine, and the Aeolian landforms prevail; the fluvial units being the abundant among others. However, estuarine and marine forms also are developed, but restricted to the extreme southeastern reaches of the plain. The Mesopotamian Plain is covered totally by Quaternary sediments among which the fluvial origin is the most prevailing and more specifically the flood plain sediments. The flood plain sediments are the Holocene in age, whereas the Pleistocene sediments are restricted to alluvial fan sediments and river terraces. The flood plain sediments cover majority of the Mesopotamian Plain, whereas the alluvial sediments are restricted to the northern-eastern, western and southern peripheral parts only. Different geomorphological features indicate the Neotectonic activity in the plain, such as migrations of rivers due to growing of subsurface anticlines. The extreme southeastern part is covered by the tidal flat and sabkha sediments. Marshes and shallow depressions are also covered by the Holocene sediments which are contaminated by the Aeolian sediments. Mesopotamian Plain is a part of the Mesopotamian Foredeep which is a part of the Zagros Foreland Basin including the Zagros Fold-Thrust Belt. It is large continuously subsiding basin since the Upper Miocene (11.62 Ma). The plain shows no structural features on the surface, except the main fault escarpment representing the part of Abu Jir Active Fault Zone. However, the rolling topography, in the northern parts of the plain indicates subsurface anticlines that are still growing up, such as Balad, Samarra, Tikrit and Baiji anticlines indicating the Neotectonic activity. Moreover, many buried subsurface anticlines are present in different parts of the plain. All of them are growing anticlines and have caused continuous shift to Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their distributaries indicating the Neotectonic activities. The minimum and maximum subsidence amounts in the plain since the Upper Miocene are zero and-2500 m, respectively.

Iraq, 2019

Recent fieldwork and archival sedimentary materials from southern Iraq have revealed new insights into the environment that shaped southern Mesopotamia from the pre-Ubaid (early Holocene) until the early Islamic period. These data have been combined with northern Iraqi speleothem, or stalagmite, data that have revealed relevant palaeoclimate information. The new results are investigated in light of textual sources and satellite remote sensing work. It is evident that areas south of Baghdad, and to the region of Uruk, were already potentially habitable between the eleventh and early eighth millennia B.C., suggesting there were settlements in southern Iraq prior to the Ubaid. Date palms, the earliest recorded for Iraq, are evident before 10,000 B.C., and oak trees are evident south of Baghdad in the early Holocene but disappeared after the mid-sixth millennium B.C. New climate results suggest increased aridity after the end of the fourth millennium B.C. For the third millennium B.C. t...

• Explore
• Papers
• Topics

• Features
• Mentions
• Analytics
• PDF Packages
• Advanced Search
• Search Alerts

• Journals
• Academia.edu Journals
• My submissions
• Reviewer Hub
• Why publish with us
• Testimonials

• Company
• About
• Careers
• Press
• Help Center
• Terms
• Privacy
• Copyright
• Content Policy