The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization
The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization
复制标题
乌鲁克世界体系：早期美索不达米亚文明的扩张动力
作者：
G. Algaze
考古学家和历史学家长期以来一直对古代近东地区早期城市和国家的出现非常感兴趣，特别是在公元前4000年后半期，早期苏美尔文明在美索不达米亚低地的发展。经济安排。在《世界体系》一书中，吉列尔莫·阿尔加兹（Guillermo Algaze）集中讨论了与美索不达米亚文明迅速初步结晶同时发生的前所未有的广泛的对外扩张过程。他认为，如果不考虑周边地区的发展，就无法理解早期苏美尔政体的崛起。Algaze回顾了美索不达米亚低地新生城邦与周边地区社区之间跨文化交流的大量考古证据。他表明，在他们的一开始，更高度一体化的低地中心成功地建立了各种孤立的，遥远的前哨在美索不达米亚低地的边缘地区。这些前哨站位于一个明显不那么复杂的社会的陌生腹地，通常建立在预先存在的区域定居等级的顶端，而且总是位于重要贸易路线上的中心节点。阿尔盖兹认为，这些早期的殖民地前哨站充当了以核心制造业为交换条件获得的令人垂涎的外围资源的收集点，它们反映了一种内在的不对称经济霸权体系，这种体系远远超出了美索不达米亚南部苏美尔政治直接控制的地区。由此，他得出结论，对欠发达周边地区的经济开发是古代近东文明最早发展的组成部分。
Archaeologists and historians have long been keenly interested in the emergence of early cities and states in the ancient Near East, particularly in the growth of early Sumerian civilization in the lowlands of Mesopotamia during the second half of the fourth millennium B.C. Most scholars have focused on the internal transformations attending this process, such as the development of new forms of spatial organization, socio-political relationships, and economic arrangements. In "The Uruk World System," Guillermo Algaze concentrates instead on the unprecedented and wide-ranging process of external expansion that coincided with the rapid initial crystallization of Mesopotamian civilization. He contends that the rise of early Sumerian polities cannot be understood without also taking into account developments in surrounding peripheral areas. Algaze reviews an extensive body of archaeological evidence for cross-cultural exchange between the nascent city-states in the Mesopotamian lowlands and communities in immediately surrounding areas. He shows that at their very inception the more highly integrated lowland centers succeeded in establishing a variety of isolated, far-flung outposts in areas at the periphery of the Mesopotamian lowlands. Embedded in an alien hinterland characterized by demonstrably less complex societies, the outposts were commonly established at the apex of preexisting regional settlement hierarchies and invariably at focal nodes astride important trade routes. Algaze argues that these early colonial out-posts served as collection points for coveted peripheral resources acquired in exchange for core manufactures and that they reflect an inherently asymmetrical systemof economic hegemony that extended far beyond areas under the direct political control of Sumerian polities in southern Mesopotamia. From this he concludes that economic exploitation of less developed peripheral areas was integral to the earliest development of civilization in the ancient Near East.