article
An open gate: cities of the fourth millennium BC (Tell Brak 1997)
Cambridge archaeological journal • 7 (2) • Published In 1997 • Pages: 287-307
By: Oates, David, Oates, Joan.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Based on the authors' field work at Tell Brak in 1997, limited as it was in scope, yet it has significantly widened our perspective on early urbanism. Although future evidence may well sustain the belief that we must look to south Mesopotamia for the world's first cities, an increasing body of evidence from North Mesopotamia points to an apparently earlier, and seemingly independent, urban development in that region represented for example, by Tell Brak. Fourth millennium evidence from sites like Hamoukar, to the east of Brak …and Tell al Hawa…sustain a general picture of prosperous settlements of growing complexity on the northern plain early in the fourth millennium BC (p. 296).
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Ceramic technology
- Masonry
- Chronologies and culture sequences
- Cultural stratigraphy
- Dwellings
- traditionCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Late Chalcolithic Mesopotamia
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Middle East
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Middle East
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Archaeologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle; 2006
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1997
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 6000-5100 BP (4000-3100 BC)
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Tell Brak, Khabur Region, Syria
- NotesAdditional notes
- David Oates and Joan Oates
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 91658653
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Middle East--Civilization--To 622