The Fragile Crescent: Settlement Change during the Urban Transition

Whereas Mesopotamia is known as the hearth of development of early cities, the Levant and Northern Syria represent the crucible of the so-called agricultural revolution. In terms of urbanization, the tells and associated polities of the Levant and Northern Syria are normally categorized as an arena of secondary state formation. Here nucleated tell-type settlements developed within broad, fertile plains and ultimately attained a maximum size of 100 to 130 ha (Wilkinson 1994).
In Mesopotamia the seminal surveys of Robert McCormick Adams have provided the crucial framework for understanding the development of the city, but no such large scale surveys exist to provide an understanding of the history of urban development in northern (upper) Mesopotamia or the Levant. It is the objective of the FCP to try to rectify this imbalance.
First, the record of settlement will be described for the period between roughly 3500 and 1200 BC. Systematic, intensive surveys conducted over the last 25 years will provide a base-line series of sample areas across a wide swathe of the rain-fed farming zone from virtually the Tigris to the Mediterranean. Remote sensing will place these sample areas within a geographical context to facilitate a rigorous comparative analysis.
The geographically corrected survey data will be imported into a GIS framework, and cross-checked using satellite imagery such as Corona (Philip et al. 2002; Donoghue et al. 2001) and SRTM 3D terrain models (Sherratt 2004; Hritz and Wilkinson 2006) so that previously unrecognized sites and landscape features such as 'hollow way' roads, canals, and associated geomorphological features can be mapped beyond the often arbitrary limits of survey areas. Finally, the original survey results will be reinterpreted in the light of recent advances in archaeological method and theory.
The sample survey areas will be increased in their utility if they are extended to encompass a wider universe and are contextualized in terms of their economic landscapes (as stated above). Settlement distribution and trends in settlement will be assessed as follows:

First spatial data from the existing sample survey areas (see case for support) will be geographically corrected to enable sites and other landscape features (as mapped in the field) to be incorporated into a Geographical Information System (GIS).

Second, remote sensing will supply confirmation of the identified sites, and will pinpoint previously unrecognized sites and features.

Third, remote sensing will extend and extrapolate the existing ground survey data in appropriate directions to encompass previously omitted sites and landscape zones. This enlarged survey universe will supply more meaningful and statistically valid units of analysis.

Finally, limited ground control will be undertaken to provide greater definition on, for example, areas of wind deflation, alluvial sedimentation, anomalous features such as hollow way routes or previously unrecognized sites and other features. Such ground verification will be confined to key areas within which the PIs are conducting fieldwork or have direct access to field areas.
It is anticipated that the enhanced surveys will pinpoint nuclei of early urbanization, later secondary growth, long-term settlement stability, as well foci of long-term pastoral-nomadic strategies and communication networks. We feel that the current models (including those of Wilkinson) over simplify a much more complex reality, and that by understanding the spatial patterning and chronological subtleties of the settlement record, Upper Mesopotamia and the northern Levant can be interpreted more meaningfully than as simply an area of 'secondary state formation'. By relating such patterns to the historical record of sedentary-pastoral interactions, diplomacy and political allegiances, the FCP will be able to contextualize both historical texts and archaeological records.