Jason Ur

CORONA Satellite Photography and Ancient Road Networks: A Northern Mesopotamian Case Study

Middle-eastern archaeologists are winning new information from declassified military photographs taken 25 years ago. This study shows how pictures of north-eastern Syria are revealing the routeways, and by inference the agricultural systems of Mesopotamia in the early Bronze Age.

Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a large scale

The landscapes of the Near East show both the first settlements and the longest trajectories of settlement systems. Mounding is a characteristic property of these settlement sites, resulting from millennia of continuing settlement activity at distinguished places. So far, however, this defining feature of ancient settlements has not received much attention, or even been the subject of systematic evaluation. We propose a remote sensing approach for comprehensively mapping the pattern of human settlement at large scale and establish the largest archaeological record for a landscape in Mesopotamia, mapping about 14,000 settlement sites—spanning eight millennia—at 15-m resolution in a 23,000-km2 area in northeastern Syria. To map both low- and high-mounded places—the latter of which are often referred to as “tells”—we develop a strategy for detecting anthrosols in time series of multispectral satellite images and measure the volume of settlement sites in a digital elevation model. Using this volume as a proxy to continued occupation, we find a dependency of the long-term attractiveness of a site on local water availability, but also a strong relation to the relevance within a basin-wide exchange network that we can infer from our record and third millennium B.C. intersite routes visible on the ground until recent times. We believe it is possible to establish a nearly comprehensive map of human settlements in the fluvial plains of northern Mesopotamia and beyond, and site volume may be a key quantity to uncover long-term trends in human settlement activity from such a record.

Detection of Ancient Settlement Mounds - Archaeological Survey Based on the SRTM Terrain Model

In the present study we demonstrate the value of the SRTM three arcsecond terrain model for a virtual survey of archaeological sites: the detection and mapping of ancient settlement mounds in the Near East. These so-called “tells” are the result of millennia of occupation within the period from 8000‐1000 BC, and form visible landmarks of the world’s first farming and urban communities. The SRTM model provides for the first time an opportunity to scan areas not yet surveyed archaeologically on a supra-regional scale and to pinpoint probable tell sites. In order to map these historic monuments for the purpose of settlement-study and conservation, we develop a machine learning classifier which identifies probable tell sites from the terrain model. In a test, point-like elevations of a characteristic tell shape, standing out for more than 5 to 6 m in the DEM were successfully detected (85/133 tells). False positives (327/(600*1200) pixels) were primarily due to natural elevations, resembling tells in height and size.

Ancient Cities and Landscapes in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey 2012 Season

In 2012, the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) conducted its first season of fieldwork. The projects goal is the complete mapping of the archaeological landscape of Erbil, with an emphasis on the Neo-Assyrian and Hellenistic periods. It will test the hypothesis that the Neo-Assyrian landscape was closely planned. This first report emphasizes the projects field methodology, especially the use of a variety of satellite remote sensing imagery. Our preliminary results suggest that the plain was part of the urbanized world of Mesopotamia, with new cities of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Sasanian era identified.

Early Urban Development in the Near East

It has been thought that the first cities in the Near East were spatially extensive and grew outward from a core nucleated village while maintaining a more or less constant density in terms of persons or households per unit of area. The general applicability outside of the Near East of this southern Mesopotamian.derived model has been questioned recently, and variations from it are increasingly recognized. We can now demonstrate that such variation was present at the beginnings of urbanism in the Near East as well.

Formation and Destruction of Pastoral and Irrigation Landscapes on the Mughan Steppe, North-Western Iran

CORONA satellite photography taken in the 1960s continues to reveal buried ancient landscapes and sequences of landscapes – some of them no longer visible. In this new survey of the Mughan Steppe in north-western Iran, the authors map a ‘signature landscape’ belonging to Sasanian irrigators, and discover that the traces of the nomadic peoples that succeeded them also show up on CORONA – in the form of scoops for animal shelters. The remains of these highly significant pastoralists have been virtually obliterated since the CORONA surveys by a new wave of irrigation farming. Such archaeological evaluation of a landscape has grave implications for the heritage of grassland nomads and the appreciation of their impact on history.

Is poverty in our genes? A critique of Ashraf and Galor, "The 'out of Africa' hypothesis, human genetic diversity, and comparative economic development," American Economic Review (Forthcoming)

We present a critique of a paper written by two economists, Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor, which is forthcoming in the American Economic Review and which was uncritically highlighted in Science magazine. Their paper claims there is a causal effect of genetic diversity on economic success, positing that too much or too little genetic diversity constrains development. In particular, they argue that “the high degree of diversity among African populations and the low degree of diversity among Native American populations have been a detrimental force in the development of these regions.” We demonstrate that their argument is seriously flawed on both factual and methodological grounds. As economists and other social scientists begin exploring newly available genetic data, it is crucial to remember that nonexperts broadcasting bold claims on the basis of weak data and methods can have profoundly detrimental social and political effects.

The Spatial Dimensions of Early Mesopotamian Urbanism: The Tell Brak Suburban Survey, 2003-2006

The 2003–2006 Suburban Survey at Tell Brak investigated the spatial dimensions of the citys urban origins and evolution via intensive systematic surface survey. This report places this research in the broader context of research on Near Eastern urban origins and development, describes the survey and remote sensing methods and summarises the results, which challenge several long-held models for the timing and geographical origins of urbanism in the Near East. Urbanism at Brak coalesced over the course of several centuries in the late fifth and early fourth millennia BC, when it evolved from a series of spatially discrete settlement zones into a 130-hectare city, without the benefit of irrigated agriculture. Other urban phases occurred in the late third millennium (70 hectare) and in the Late Bronze Age (45 hectare), all with different urban morphologies. Braks final settlement occurred in the Abbasid period, when a 14-hectare town grew around the Castellum. In addition to the timing, growth and variability of urban form at the site, the Suburban Survey also documented well preserved off-site ancient landscapes of tracks, field systems and irrigation canals.

Spying on the Past: Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs and Near Eastern Landscapes

Near Eastern archaeology has its origins in the scramble for great objects, as the great imperial powers of the nineteenth century filled their national museums. Since that time, the questions that archaeologists seek to answer have diversified. We are no longer interested only in the lives of kings; we are more concerned with society generally. Our questions now demand a perspective beyond the excavation trench; we have to consider entire landscapes if we want to know about the rise of urbanism, human land use and environmental impacts, and the demographic impacts of states and empires, for example. This broadening of research horizons was behind the growth of archaeological survey as a field method in the later twentieth century.

Pastoral Nomads of the 2nd and 3rd Millennia A.D. on the Upper Tigris River, Turkey: The Hirbemerdon Tepe Survey

Abstract The importance of non-sedentary pastoralist groups in the social and political history of Mesopotamia has long been appreciated from the perspective of ancient texts and ethnohistorical sources, but empirical evidence from archaeology has been lacking. In two field seasons, the Hirbemerdon Tepe Survey (HMTS) in Diyarbakir province, southeastern Turkey, has recovered a variety of sites and landscape features associated with pastoral nomadic occupation during the last two millennia and possibly earlier. In doing so, we targeted non-alluvial areas where feature preservation was likely, and employed pedestrian survey methods more typical of Mediterranean fieldwork. If Mesopotamian archaeology is to investigate the landscapes of pastoral nomads, it must incorporate intensive survey methods and expand coverage beyond alluvial environments.