The Emergence of the First Cities – Southern Mesopotamian Cities

The Emergence of the First Cities – Southern Mesopotamian Cities

The Emergence of the first cities – Southern Mesopotamian Cities
Yao-Ting Wang 997715165 Nov26th
With the civilization progresses, densely populated centers, called “cities”, are inevitable. However, these cities are the consequential products of cultural-developing influence on human society (Cowgill 2004). Cities are generally founded to provide places where people can realize a higher level of complex social and economic activities that are essential for survival. Therefore, people are easily attracted and creating an “urbanization” trend. It is largely believed that the first cities originated in the southern Mesopotamia around the fourth millennium B.C.E. Southern Mesopotamia is an area containing a surplus of food, well-constructed ruling organization, and other suitable conditions for cities to emerge. Therefore, cities of southern Mesopotamia emerged as probably the earliest founded human settlements, and people from the sub-regions of the Mesopotamia plain were gathering toward these prototypical cities.

During the fourth millennium B.C.E, Mesopotamia (Liverani, 2006), especially the southern Mesopotamia, had developed into a more advanced civilization compared to the previous prehistory era. In particular, the famous Sumerian culture occurred at this time. This culture is considered by the scholars as the earliest culture ever existed. One of the most representative aspects of the Sumerian culture is its “city states”. Many cities appeared on the Mesopotamian plain. They were totally independent from each other. Their functions satisfied the needs of Mesopotamians. Therefore, building cities was an inevitable and necessary phenomenon required by the southern Mesopotamians.

Sustainable food is an important issue for survival, and therefore the food productivity is the prerequisite in the formation of cities. The entire Sumerian culture was developed on the fertile alluvial plain surrounded by two of the most culturally significant...

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