Introduction
During the early periods in Mesopotamia, cities, as exemplified by Ubaid and Uruk settlements, were characterized by sporadic village settlements and primal forms of agricultural or sedentary activities. These villages are set up around alluvial regions wherein rich river soil is very suitable for agriculture. Mesopotamians planted wheat and other produce in these fertile areas for consumption and trade.
Archeological artifacts as evidenced by mounds that were formed during this period indicate varied groups of people utilizing the different resources that are available to them. Through these raw materials, food and crafts were produced in artisan communities. Pollock (1999) argues that cities were born to serve as a trading place among these villages producing unique goods of their own. This means, he adds, that cities can also be seen as the siphoning force that depletes the raw materials or resources of a particular region since cities served as a marketplace among villages in the outskirts of the city. Agricultural produce and crafts require raw materials from the environment where villagers live which were traded in a city where people do not inherently possess natural resources thus the siphoning effect.
Nonetheless, the accumulation of settlers in the alluvial lowlands was not seen to be primarily the trend since the process can be more aptly described as dynamic. There were fluctuations in the size and density of people living in an area. People are moving in and out, for reasons that may have served them wherein not just environmental factors are to be considered but economic, political, and regional factors as well.
Mesopotamian Ubaid and Uruk periods
In other words, cities in Mesopotamian Ubaid and Uruk periods were originally formed to accommodate an exchange of goods but then gradually evolved into more complex activities such as the preservation of power and practice of religion as evidenced by city walls and the construction of temples. Food crops are not the sole source of livelihood for people since herding, trading, and other lines of work were widely practiced in the said period. Due to this, concurrent multifarious activities constitute the interaction among villages which are mainly dictated by the nature and availability of environmental resources. These characteristics of the environment, in turn, dictated the manner of city-state emergence and structure in Ubaid and Uruk. The more varied and richer a particular environment is, the faster and the larger the city-state that will emerge. This follows the logic that the city is brought into the scene due to the need of people to trade for other products which they cannot produce.
Crop growing groups cannot live with their products by themselves but would need milk or meat the way craftsmen would need bread and shelter. If pasture areas, alluvial fertile soils, and raw materials can be found in a particular region, different types of settlers would occupy this region and pursue their interests. The structure of the city-state, again, would be highly dependent on these groups of people. Diversity is the key to a more stable and prosperous city-state wherein every individual serves a particular purpose or position. Should there be a dearth of a particular resource, then workers that benefit from this resource would not be able to proliferate and can lead to a gap in the cycle of goods in the city-state which may lead to instability. A city-state, as Robert Adams (Mieroop 1996) defines it, is a society with a hierarchical organization based on political and territorial order instead of familial or kinship ties. In other words, this autonomy arises from a population possessing social stratification.
According to Mieroop (1996), the emergence of the city-state in Mesopotamia was due to the diversity of the said region. The abundance of natural resources was very apparent in the case of Mesopotamia. There were the rivers, alluvial plains, mountainous areas with forests and pasture lands, steppe, river valleys, and other forms of land. The large variety of sources of livelihood resulted in the myriad of groups of people exploiting these unique niches. Once these groups of people have settled in their particular interests, their industry had no other way but to grow or prosper leading to a surplus of goods and products. Nevertheless, a particular village can never be sufficient on its own. There are other goods or materials that it may need but cannot produce. This the reason why trading became a routine for every civilization. The problem with trading is the needed time and resources of traveling goods from one village to another. The problem of distance was solved by setting up trade areas which eventually gave birth to cities.
In other words, as Mieroop (1996) and Pollock (1999) indicated, Mesopotamian cities emerged from the development of diverse natural resources during the early times. Because of the diversity, groups of people became specialized with their line of work. With this specialization, people became stratified and occupied particular positions in the same manner as priests or their equivalent were held in high regard and exempted from labor. Stratification and the delegation of authority for the efficient management of resources characterized the rise of Mesopotamian city-states.
Social stratification
Although there is social stratification in Mesopotamian city-states, there is a complex interplay in the relationship between the city and the society as evidenced by their socio-political structure. According to Stein (1994), there was a very complex social organization in Ubaid Mesopotamia. The differences in the archeological artifacts composed of dwellings and wares that were used by different groups of people suggest the differences in their position in society. High rises are naturally reserved for the chief or priest. Alongside this privilege, are the tools and wares for daily use. Leaders are not only reserved for particular possessions since soldiers were supposed to own weapons and laborers tools for construction or agriculture.
Aside from the distribution of power, there was also the distribution of wealth or goods. This process transcends political positions since there is some evidence of kinship playing role in the preservation and accumulation of wealth in Mesopotamian cities (Stein 1994). Therefore, apart from the city-state’s social organization, religion, kinship, and other relationships dictate the functions of the sometimes stable and sometimes unstable city-state existence in the Ubaid and Uruk Mesopotamian cities. Whereas the original function of the city which is the production and distribution of goods among its population, the emergence of religious leaders and political authorities gave rise to the changes in the social structure brought about by alternative ways of allocating and managing wealth.
Conclusion
The Ubaid and Uruk are contrasting studies in the emergence of cities in early Mesopotamia. The Ubaid city was formed when people, for an extensive period, settled and developed agriculture in alluvial plains, forests, and steppes began trading and exchanging goods to negate the effect of distance. According to Pollock (1999), the emergence of the city was gradual since this required the production of agriculture or livestock surplus before realizing the use of trade and distance. On the other hand, the formation of Uruk immediately after Ubaid was characterized by the sudden emergence of this city and was attributed by scholars, according to Pollock, to the sudden influx of sheep and goat herders and semi-agricultural villagers in the region. This sudden settlement of various types of people from different parts of the region was evidenced by the rise in the population which cannot be caused by natural growth. These two examples provide models in the development of cities one from a gradual agricultural and economical progress and to another which arose from the sudden settlement of producers and traders from different parts of the region.