Tel Abu Hureyra, a settlement by the Euphrates River in Syria, was excavated in 1972-73 by an international team of archaeologists that included the authors of the book and scientists from English, American, and Australian universities. The excavation uncovered two successive villages: in the first village (c. 11,500-10,000 BP), inhabitants foraged vegetation and hunted local wildlife, the Persian gazelle, in particular. In the second village (c. 9700-7000 BP), inhabitants employed a more sophisticated method of food production, the cultivation of grain crops and the pasturing of sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Documented first hand in this book, these findings capture the transition in human history from the hunting-and-gathering to the farming way of life.

Tell Abu Hureyra, a settlement by the Euphrates River in Syria, was excavated in 1972-73 by an international team of archaeologists that included the authors of the book and scientists from English, American, and Australian universities. The excavation uncovered two successive villages: in the first village (c. 11,500-10,000 BP), inhabitants foraged vegetation and hunted local wildlife, the Persian gazelle, in particular. In the second village (c. 9700-7000 BP), inhabitants employed a more sophisticated method of food production, the cultivation of grain crops and the pasturing of sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Documented first hand in the book, these findings capture the transition in human history from the hunting-and-gathering to the farming way of life.

A major study of Mari, which appears to have been the most important city in northern Mesopotamia from its foundation at about 2950 BC to 1760 BC, based on the archaeological evidence.

Leading scholars demonstrate the importance of archaeobotanical evidence in the understanding of the spread of agriculture in southwest Asia and Europe.

A novel of the American immigrant experience featuring three generations of Armenian women. The grandmother clings to the past, the daughter rejects it, and all the time they battle for the soul of the granddaughter.

Pre-state ceremonial monuments, rich mortuary arrangements, forts, walled settlements and temples: all these occur in a narrow stretch of the Euphrates River valley prior to the rise of Carchemish, one of the major capital cities of the Ancient Near East. This well-illustrated book examines recently discovered evidence from the hinterlands of archaeologically inaccessible Carchemish in its regional context. Amongst the 18 contributors Tony Wilkinson characterizes the neighbouring regions of Carchemish, Guy Bunnens elaborates on a site hierarchy within the valley and Gioacchino Falsone appraises unpublished records from excavations at Carchemish itself. These material culture studies are important for those interested in the emergence of complex societies that do not conform to the Mesopotamian paradigm.

V. 13: Late old Babylonian documents and letters, by Jacob. J. Finkelstein.

This book investigates the founding and building of cities in the ancient Near East. The creation of new cities was imagined as an ideological project or a divine intervention in the political narratives and mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, often masking the complex processes behind the social production of urban space. During the Early Iron Age (c.1200–850 BCE), Assyrian and Syro-Hittite rulers developed a highly performative official discourse that revolved around constructing cities, cultivating landscapes, building watercourses, erecting monuments and initiating public festivals. This volume combs through archaeological, epigraphic, visual, architectural and environmental evidence to tell the story of a region from the perspective of its spatial practices, landscape history and architectural technologies. It argues that the cultural processes of the making of urban spaces shape collective memory and identity as well as sites of political performance and state spectacle.