Lasting Alliances and Emerging Competition: Economic Developments in Early Mesopotamia

In this paper, I argue that archaeologists have overlooked variability within the category of ’prestate Mesopotamian societies’ by focusing exclusively on political organization. If economic and not only political criteria were used to evaluate developments in early Mesopotamia, a different perception of prehistory and history would result. Mesopotamian societies in the 6th millennium B.C. can be shown to be politically ’stable’ but economically changing. The analysis of economic processes is based on the structural Marxist concept of ’modes of production.’ Copyright 1995, 1999 Academic Press