ÇIVGIN, İzzet Mardin Artuklu Üniversitesi - İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi - Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Turkey

Cultural Contacts and Cross-Cultural Interactions in Mesopotamia during the 6th-5th Millennia BC

19602

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the phenomenon frequently called the “Ubaid expansion” or “Ubaid interaction sphere” in which the material culture of Southern Mesopotamia appears in Upper Mesopotamia and the bordering mountains during the 6th-5th millennium. The paper will also attempt to explain how did the “Ubaid expansion” contribute to the formation of hierarchical societies in Greater Mesopotamia. Indeed, the biggest weakness of the model of expansion (drawn from the subsequent “Uruk expansion”) is that it ignores multiregional character of the Ubaid interaction sphere and describes the culture contact between south and north Mesopotamia as a core-periphery dichotomy. Uruk expansion was probably an actual colonial phenomenon, but it is difficult to use the same argument to explain the “Ubaid expansion”. Several arguments (exchange, colonization, emulation and technology transfer) have been proposed for the widespread dissemination of Ubaid material culture in Upper Mesopotamia. The present paper proposes to outline and discuss these competing arguments in the hope of contributing to the early complex societies literature and to answer how and why the Ubaid expansion emerged.

359

Ubaid Expansion , Complex Societies , Exchange , Technology Transfer , Acculturation , Colonization

Gaziantep University Journal Of Social Sciences

404