THEMATIC ISSUE: RETHINKING URBANIZATION AND ITS LIVING LANDSCAPES FROM THE INSPIRING PERSPECTIVE OF A GREAT “MAESTRO” Edited by Marcella Frangipane and Linda Manzanilla INTRODUCTION. THE MANY DIMENSIONS OF THE “CITY” IN EARLY SOCIETIES Marcella Frangipane THE ORIGINS OF CIVIC LIFE – A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE David Wengrow MESOPOTAMIA AND NEIGHBOURING REGIONS SIXTY YEARS AFTER CITY INVINCIBLE, SURVEYS AND THE URBAN REVOLUTION IN QUESTION Pascal Butterlin THE CITY OF URUK AND ITS HINTERLAND Hans ...

Basing themselves in large part on the pioneering work of Robert McCormick Adams, Ancient Near Eastern scholars interested in the origins of urbanism in Mesopotamia have long noticed significant differences in the first urban societies that appeared in Upper and Lower Mesopotamia during the fourth and third millennia BC. Two such differences are crucial: (1) after initial divergences, on average, individual cities in the alluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia were larger than those that emerged ...