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The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000–2000 B.C. 1st Edition, Kindle Edition
With a unique combination of material culture analysis written data, Nissan traces the emergence of the earliest isolated settlements, the growth of a network of towns, the emergence of city states, and finally the appearance of territorial states. From his synthesis of the prehistoric and literate periods comes a unified picture of the development of Mesopotamian economy, society, and culture. Lavishly illustrated, The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000-2000 B.C. is an authoritative work by one of the most insightful observers of the evolution and character of Mesopotamian civilization.
- ISBN-13978-0226586564
- Edition1st
- PublisherThe University of Chicago Press
- Publication dateMarch 4, 2011
- LanguageEnglish
- File size24.9 MB
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About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Early History of the Ancient Near East 9000–2000 B. C.
By Hans J. Nissen, Elizabeth Lutzeier, Kenneth J. NorthcottThe University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 1988 The University of ChicagoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-58656-4
Contents
List of Figures,Preface to English Edition,
Preface to German Edition,
1. Sources and Problems,
2. The Time of Settlement (ca. 9000–6000 B.C.),
3. From Isolated Settlement to Town (ca. 6000–3200 B.C.),
4. The Period of Early High Civilization (ca. 3200–2800 B.C.),
5. The Period of the Rival City-States (ca. 2800–2350 B.C.),
6. The Period of the First Territorial States (ca. 2350–2000 B.C),
7. Prospects,
Bibliography,
Index,
CHAPTER 1
Sources and Problems
The historian of the early periods of the ancient Near East faces many problems. The geographical terms "the Near East" and "Asia Minor" provide only a rough indication of the area whose early cultural development is to be traced. It is perhaps better to define the region as an area distinguished from the outside world by a multiplicity of internal ties, or as a fluctuating sphere of interactions.
This densely woven network of developments was seldom limited to what we commonly refer to as the Near East. Parts of the area, such as Palestine and Syria, at times had close contact with Egypt, which was very important for development on both sides. And we do not count Egypt as belonging to the Near East in the narrowest sense of the term. Similarly, parts of what is now Turkey were for most of their history oriented more toward the West and the Aegean, and the Iranian plateau kept up a rather more regular exchange with its neighbors to the East than with the other parts of the Near East. This situation is underlined by recent attempts to treat most of present-day Iran, Afghanistan, and the western part of present-day Pakistan as a single area, connected in many different ways and fairly autonomous in its significance for the development of early civilizations.
However, any account that included both internal entanglements and connections with the outside world would not only go far beyond the confines of the present discussion, but would also make too many demands upon the information provided by our sources. Though we know of contacts outside the narrow, limited area of the Near East, or must at least postulate such cases, it is only rarely that a comprehensive picture emerges. Even more rarely are we able to follow such contacts over any significant period of time.
We shall see in what follows that the demand for a balanced presentation taking equal account of all the contributions to cultural development cannot be satisfied even for the actual Near Eastern area. The available material is distributed far too unevenly over the region and over different periods of time. There is also the fact that the epoch we are dealing with embraces preliterate, paraliterate, and literate periods. Again and again, we run the risk of overestimating the importance of regions or periods about which we quite fortuitously possess a great deal of information, and of underestimating that of other regions or periods of which we — equally fortuitously — know little or nothing. Thus, for example, early interest in the ancient history of Mesopotamia (Abraham's biblical homeland being "Ur of the Chaldees"), especially after the written tradition had become known, produced an imbalance in the information about this region: for far too long, it allowed Mesopotamia, and more especially the southern part of Babylonia, to appear to be the natural center of the ancient Near East. One aim of this work is to distribute the emphasis more evenly and, wherever possible, to define the parts played respectively by all the regions of the Near East in building up its ancient civilization.
However, it is not the intention of the present work to propagate the other extreme — frequently defended in recent years — that maintains that all developments in every region were equally important, as though they all played an equal part in the development of Near Eastern civilization, whose great achievement must be seen as the creation and further development of universally valid forms of political organization that had an influence far beyond the chronological and geographical boundaries of the ancient Near East.
In the course of history, all the regions of the Near East were more or less involved in this process, but some areas certainly progressed more consistently and energetically than others. This work will show that the role of trailblazer in the most momentus phase of development — from city to regional state — fell to Babylonia. To deny this would be to deny the driving impulse behind, and the special peculiarities of, ancient Near Eastern history. A relatively large amount of space is thus devoted to discussion of what happened in Babylonia.
The more ambitious aim of including areas outside the Near East could not be tackled in this book, but should be kept in mind. Although complete in itself, the following survey should be seen as the preliminary work for a more comprehensive synoptic presentation.
By choosing to discuss both the preliterate and literate periods, the author has complicated things still further. This is a consequence of the concept underlying this work, which highlights historical development, and especially the development and changes in early forms of political organization in the ancient Near East. This development can in no way be said to start with the beginning of writing. It was not even particularly influenced by it.
The Near East is exceptionally suited to the documentation of all stages from the earliest human settlements up to the emergence and evolution of regional states. The invention of writing in Babylonia around 3100 B.C. was only one of many significant innovations in this early period. It is thus impossible to assign it the value given to it, for example, in the concept of a differentiation between "prehistorical" and "historical" phases of human development, depending on whether written sources of information are available or not, as if one could only speak of history when written evidence existed.
Unfortunately, this concept, which was held to be valid for a long time, and led to an overestimation of the importance of written sources, also led to a development under which works like the present one still have to suffer. Because the philological disciplines claimed to be able to make universal pronouncements about the state, the community, the economy, religion, and "daily life" based on written texts, archaeologists hardly ever felt it necessary to deal with any fields apart from those manifestly allotted to them, above all art and architecture. Any archaeology of the "historical" periods was therefore in a position to exclude whole areas of research dealing with ancient civilizations. However, for the branches of archaeology concerned with civilizations without writing and those that existed before writing was invented, it was a totally different story. They naturally had to investigate all aspects of the civilization in question, including, for example, society and the economy.
This different type of approach has, in fact, had some effect on the treatment of the ancient civilizations of the Near East. Although, as noted, the invention of writing did not mark any particularly significant historical turning-point, it subsequently acquired importance owing to the division of academic study of the ancient Near East into two spheres. Thus, for example, we know much more about basic nutrition and the domestic flora and fauna of the early period than we do about those of the "historical" period, because remains of animals and plants have been found and analyzed in excavations of "prehistoric" settlements, which is hardly ever true of excavations of "historical" settlements. In the latter case it was assumed that the relevant information could be recovered from an analysis of the texts, by asking the right questions. This can hardly be expected, however, since a selection process was already in operation in choosing what was considered worthy of being written down, and we have no way of knowing what the criteria of selection were.
Archaeology should therefore make use of the methods valid for research into earlier, preliterate periods even when it is concerned with "historical" periods. A barrier seems to have been reached when, parallel to its responsibilities for the preliterate period, archaeology is also expected to pronounce on the economic, social, and political context of the "historical" period. This seems to belong so clearly to the realm of textual interpretation that any of the, admittedly rough, statements and estimates an archaeologist can make appear superfluous. However, though this is fundamentally true, it does not hold good for the early literate period in Mesopotamia, because here we have only comparatively few historically useful texts at our disposal. In addition, these early texts were obviously not written to inform people in later ages about circumstances at that time. In fact, their usual aim was not to describe things exactly as they happened, but to describe them in such a way as to make them fit in with a specific view, follow a particular trend, or legitimate a certain course. Hence it seems possible, not only that the rougher outlines sketched by archaeological surveys have at times been more objective than the literary evidence, but that in many cases archaeology can contribute information in areas where texts have nothing to add to our knowledge — for example, we need only mention the important issues, discussed later in more detail, of the origins of settlements and settlement systems, the changes that took place in them, and almost all contacts between different settlements that fell short of hostilities. If one disregards economic texts, it was mostly wars and conquests that motivated men to write about relationships between settlements, not the normal relationships whose description would give an account of the actual development of those settlements.
Since they have hardly ever been manipulated, archaeological sources are usually more dependable than literary ones, but they are difficult to use. Hence, even the construction of a firm foundation for all further investigations, dating, or the confirmation of chronological contemporaneity or noncontemporaneity, causes considerable problems, especially when we take into account the role played by chance in the way evidence has been handed down to us.
The difficulties standing in the way of arriving at an absolute chronology — that is, fixing the exact chronological distance between any event and our era — are self-evident in the case of a period about which we have no historical documentation. On the other hand, techniques such as the so-called carbon 14 method have not yet achieved a degree of dependability and accuracy that would allow us to use their results without some reservations. However, in spite of these reservations, a chronological framework based partly on carbon 14 dating, which has been accepted by many researchers as a working hypothesis, has been used here, inasmuch as our historical imagination is incapable of managing without the aid of some reference to dates. In using this chronology I am not making a judgment as to whether the system is right or wrong. It simply makes it easier for those interested in the history of Mesopotamia to communicate, as well as making it easier to use other literature (see fig. 1).
However, as a rule, absolute dates — that is, dates giving the exact length of time up to the present day — will be used as little as possible. Instead, reference will be made to the relative chronologies developed for the individual regions of the ancient Near East. In these chronologies, observations that an event happened before or after another event and of the chronological contemporaneity of different finds and events are combined into groups or systems even if the intervals of time or the distance in time from our own era cannot normally be exactly defined.
These relative chronological systems are based on stratigraphy and typology. The principle of stratigraphy is based on the hypothesis that, where excavations of an undisturbed site are concerned, the very top layers and the things found there are generally more recent than the objects buried beneath them. This is most obviously true for sites where a house has been built on the remains of an older house, but of course it is also true of layers of rubble, whose position one on top of the other shows how the layers were piled up one after the other on the site under consideration. The chronological sequence of the different constructions, or at least the point in time at which the objects under discussion landed upon the site, can be clearly established, both for the houses and for the objects found in them or in the layers of rubble.
Beside this assured method of establishing differences in age, we have to set the typological method, which it is true cannot do without borrowing the results of stratigraphy: still in essence it bases its theories upon different observations. The basic principle underlying typology is that the causes of the changes that take place in everything subject to molding or shaping by man lie in changes in raw materials, technology, functions, taste, or artistic expression.
Series of such changed forms in a given category can be arranged so that their individual members can be closely related in time to neighboring ones, as either precursors or further developments of the latter. In determining the chronological direction of such a group, we are dependent on those cases in which it can be proved without doubt that the form of one link in the chain would be inconceivable without a prototype in the shape of another link or in which one form is a vestige of a previous one. The more nearly perfect form or prototype is then quite obviously older, and hence only the direction of the series derived from these observations can correspond to reality.
One additional, more frequently used, way of fixing the chronological alignment of a typological series is possible when two or more individual links in such a chain are found in some stratigraphic context. The study of objects in terms of stylistic evolution, a method borrowed from art history, can also be counted among the typological methods. This particular method attempts to find clues to a "before" and "after" from the decoration of the objects themselves, and from this it attempts to abstract criteria for the general thrust of development.
Our relative chronological systems are accordingly based, directly or indirectly, on stratigraphical sequences discovered during excavations. This explains why the names of excavation sites are often used as the accepted terms for the periods referred to in such relative chronological systems. Such terms, which do not entail value judgments, have not been used consistently, however, and as one approaches "historical" periods, for which, it is assumed, "historical" terminology should be adopted, they gradually give way to less value-free terminology.
Thus, for example, the periods from which the names of rulers and their dynasties are known to us are called after particular dynasties, although these were not the only dynasties that existed at that time, and possibly were not even the more important. An "Early Dynastic" period was designated as preceding these well-known periods, although there is absolutely no reason to suppose that there were no dynasties prior to it.
Periods that were not clearly understood were promptly defined as transitional periods. In one particular case, in order to name a period, the name of a ruler was used, even though in the meantime it has been shown that he was not even alive during the period named after him.
In addition to this vagueness about names, archaeological contexts only infrequently permit a clear demarcation between one period and the next. Drawing such dividing lines is thus very much a matter of the judgment of the individual scholar, depending on which criteria are used in each individual situation. It is therefore clear that it is not possible to have one universally valid chronological scheme, but only systems that fit specific criteria in given situations and show certain inadequacies in others.
The view that it is not one of the least of the aims of a relative chronological system to serve as a general foundation for the understanding of as many interested people as possible led, in the end, to the setting up of a hybrid system that took individual names for particular periods from different systems and put them together in new and different ways. Here, too, the subjectivity involved in the selection process cannot be overlooked. However, in spite of its inconsistencies and vulnerability to criticism, this combined system is generally accepted, and it is therefore used here. It would have been nice to have developed a chronological system of my own that would have been better adapted to the particular direction pursued in this work, the development of forms of political organization as an aspect of historical development. Nonetheless, I resisted this temptation in order to guarantee the comparability of scientific results.
In this book, the role of the natural environment and the changes that took place in it during the initial growth and subsequent development of the early civilizations of the Near East will be emphasized more strongly than usual. In contrast to mere assumptions made about these influences in earlier times, new research has provided enough evidence for us to make direct connections between changes in the environment and the growth of these civilizations without falling into the dangerous proximity of ecological determinism.
(Continues...)Excerpted from The Early History of the Ancient Near East 9000–2000 B. C. by Hans J. Nissen, Elizabeth Lutzeier, Kenneth J. Northcott. Copyright © 1988 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B01EZ8OKQC
- Publisher : The University of Chicago Press; 1st edition (March 4, 2011)
- Publication date : March 4, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 24.9 MB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 324 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,133,630 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #102 in Mesopotamian & Babylonian History
- #121 in History of Egypt
- #517 in Archaeology (Kindle Store)
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About the author
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2018What is the purpose of studying the past, if not to understand how things came to be the way they are. Nissen is describing the development of the first civilization of the world, It is the foundation of the pillars of western civilizations that followed and he makes it understandable how and why it evolved the way it did from the earliest Neolithic villages to the Akkadian Empire.
Yes, it is a difficult read. Read the preface to the English translation at the beginning of the book. It is an abridged translation of the (longer) original German text. I have a B.A. in anthropology and did graduate research and field work in archaeology but still had to read it a few times to really absorb everything Nissen is telling us. But its worth it. I have read and reread the 'Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 1, Part 1 and Volume 1, part 2', which covers the period of Nissen's book in about 1500 pages or so, and never got the understanding of the big picture Nissen provides in 200 pages (and CAH is just as difficult to read, if not worse).
If you have no background in ancient history or anthropology of the Near East a quick and enjoyable introduction is to read the first 100 pages of Michael Roaf's 'Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East'. I suggest you read that first.
While Nissen concentrates on settlement patterns in his analysis, the implications of relatively rapid population growth due to the benefits of the Neolithic Revolution are unavoidable and seem to have been the prime mover of the political, social, economic and communication systems that evolved during this period and are still with us today.
Other reviewers have complained about all the pottery analysis or the lack of mention of ancient Egypt.
To the first, ceramic pottery and stone are the few things that can survive over several thousands of years of exposure to the elements and are, along with baked clay cuneiform tablets, the primary source of information for ancient archaeologists.
To the second, the Egyptians' stone monuments survive very impressively whereas the ziggurats, made of unfired mud bricks in a land nearly devoid of good stone building material dissolved over time into huge mud mounds or washed away entirely by intermittent flooding. Appearances can deceive us. In fact, flood control was one of the prime movers of political integration.
Egypt was still mostly rural while the near east was building great cities. But, given the time span, they were a close second.
To me, Nissen has provided us the holy grail of cultural evolution. It is monumental, arguably the most enlightening book I've read on the evolution of civilization and its definitive components.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2014Hans J. Nissen is a hero. He is the vital missing link which connects the treasures of German archaeology and their excavations at Uruk with the English speaking world. Uruk was the first great city in history and is where writing was invented over 5000 years ago. Sadly thorough most information relating to this fascinating archaeological site is locked away in German libraries and would never have reached a larger world audience if it weren't for Han Nissen. Though this book doesn't focus on Uruk it remains a great primer for those seeking knowledge of the fascinating Sumerian civilization where Uruk reached its height as a mega-city long before Stonehenge existed. We must continue the good work of Hans Nissen and dig deeper into the evidence, for there we will uncover a lost and forgotten world which led to modern civilization as we know it today
- Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2009I expected a little more of this book than what I got. Much of the archeological material leans on pot sherd findings and interpretations, something I am not too familiar with. I would think a people who possibly came from a more enlightened source would leave material that was further advanced in information than pottery shreds. It was very scientific with a few personal observations scattered through the rather brief book that was presented. It does help, even if in a small way, in defining this time line of life of late Atlantans and early Egyptians. I would like to know more about this time era from other sources. Can anyone point me in the proper direction wherein further material will pull my hair out??
- Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2005I bought this book along with two others because of a major gap in my knowledge in the period of Mesopotamia before the 1st Dynasty of Babylon, and because I wanted to have much better understanding of how the earliest civilizations developed from the simple humble settlements. This book provides and excellent and detailed review of the subject. The author, Hans J Nissen, describes the development of the early settlements in ancient Mesopotamia, and the reasons why it was here rather than elsewhere in the ancient Near East that these settlements first became City States, and then into the larger regional and national states of Sargon of Akkad and the 1st Babylonian dynasty of which Hammurabi is the best known ruler.
The reason, according to Nissen, is the dramatic effect of climate change in Mesopotamia during the second half of the third millennium BC, and the need for inter-community cooperation. As the effects became more threatening and pervasive, (along with a change in the course of the Euphrates River) increased competition between cities changed this from a voluntary co-operation to one which was compulsory. Hence the development of organised labour to build canals and other infrastructures in order to maintain the basic amenities for survival, as well as for ensuring the continuation of trade which was particularly important for the acquisition of natural resources which are generally not locally available in Mesopotamia.
There is very little speculative opinion in this book and Nissen is very careful to identify what are the limits of our knowledge, and what we can interpret from the archaeological record. His approach is to identify what has been found, what can be deduced from the findings. He is very firm in explaining what should not be deduced and the reasons why..
The time frame, as the title indicates, is for the period 9000-2000BC, with a focus on the earliest Mesopotamian states, and most specifically Babylonia which was the area most affected by the climate change. This includes a thorough description and analysis of their relationships with their immediate neighbours to the west and north in Syria, Anatolia, and Kurdistan, as well as those with the regions of Elam, and the Zagros Mountains of Iran to the east. Nissen uses the generally accepted chronology, which is no great relevance in view of the general theme of his book.
The book is well structured in six chapters:
1: Sources and Problems
2: The Time of Settlement c 9000-6000BC (Neololithic, Hassuna, Halaf periods)
3: From Isolated Settlement to Town c 6000-3200BC (Ubaid and early Uruk periods)
4: Early High civilization c 3200-2800BC (Late Uruk, Jamdet Nasr, Early Dynastic I periods)
5: Rival City States c 2800-2350BC (Historical - Early Dynastic 2, 3 periods)
6: First Territorial States c 2350-2000BC (Akkad & immediate post-Akkad period)
There are some 70 charts, diagrams, illustrations, photographs, and maps which are of great help to the understanding, and a 7 page bibliography organized on a chapter by chapter basis.
I have to admit that at times I found the book extremely difficult to read . I am not sure whether it was due to the translation from the German, or because of the particular emphasis in the book on the need to be careful about what can be deduced from the evidence. There were numerous instances where I found it necessary to read a particularly long sentence several times to ensure that I had properly understood what was being said. Apart from that slight difficulty I found this book to be extremely informative and balanced in its treatment of the subject.
In summary, the best part of the book for me are the first four chapters, primarily because it explained the development of the technical innovations in writing, pottery, buildings, and other artefacts which occurred during this early period. Although the book didn't explicitly say so, it seems that the earliest governments were originally created by the wealthy and powerful primarily to protect themselves against the loss of their wealth. Some things never seem to change.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2016It is hard to read. And it is not the one I really wanted.
Top reviews from other countries
- Djilly L.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2021
3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating material but hard to digest as a book
Having read many books about Mesopotamia and the Babylonian/Assyrian empires, I was attracted to this book because it addresses the period from a stunning 9000 (!!) to 2000 BC when most other areas in the world where still firmly in their stone age. Moreover the German author Mr. Nissen supposedly had access to the vast German archaeological museum depots ‘collected’ at the start fo the previous century. The book gives and overview of how life and societies progressed from the earliest formation of settled status to the first city states.
The author use both material culture and written sources to describe the earliest human settlements and how these evolved into a network of towns that then formed the well know Sumerian city states. Other than most books on the the region little attention is given to Uruk.
However the book is written in a rambling style, with some of the arguments not clear, repeated or half-finished. Perhaps it has to do with poor translation. In addition, the first few chapters are dedicated to a review of source material and the challenges they provide. These chapters also explain why Mr Nissen uses an evolutionary approach to social and scientific change (writing, the wheel), arguing that in contrast to most historians there was more of a gradual introduction of such concepts resulting from social and political change. I can see the argument and I think it has helpful elements but having lived through the internet/digital revolution, looking back one can say that change was reasonably wholesome and abrupt. Anyway this makes a start of the book tedious while the rest of the narrative is fairly dry and could have been edited more properly. Nevertheless given my background I still found plenty of fascinating elements in the book if anything because it is one of the rare books available on this period.
Another aspect that attracted me is the inclusion of many illustrations, as I believe that such ‘popular’ history books can massively benefit from attractive illustrations, maps and pictures. Still the book provides only a limited amount of maps and depictions and all are only in black and white.
Djilly L.Fascinating material but hard to digest as a book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2021
The author use both material culture and written sources to describe the earliest human settlements and how these evolved into a network of towns that then formed the well know Sumerian city states. Other than most books on the the region little attention is given to Uruk.
However the book is written in a rambling style, with some of the arguments not clear, repeated or half-finished. Perhaps it has to do with poor translation. In addition, the first few chapters are dedicated to a review of source material and the challenges they provide. These chapters also explain why Mr Nissen uses an evolutionary approach to social and scientific change (writing, the wheel), arguing that in contrast to most historians there was more of a gradual introduction of such concepts resulting from social and political change. I can see the argument and I think it has helpful elements but having lived through the internet/digital revolution, looking back one can say that change was reasonably wholesome and abrupt. Anyway this makes a start of the book tedious while the rest of the narrative is fairly dry and could have been edited more properly. Nevertheless given my background I still found plenty of fascinating elements in the book if anything because it is one of the rare books available on this period.
Another aspect that attracted me is the inclusion of many illustrations, as I believe that such ‘popular’ history books can massively benefit from attractive illustrations, maps and pictures. Still the book provides only a limited amount of maps and depictions and all are only in black and white.
Images in this review
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Aemilius PapinianusReviewed in Germany on May 9, 2013
2.0 out of 5 stars Eine vergebene Chance
Mit diesem Band liegt eine englischsprachige Übersetzung des leider nur noch antiquarisch erhältlichen Werkes Hans-Jörg Nissens zur Frühzeit des Vorderen Orients vor, die es keinesfalls zu ersetzen vermag. Es handelt sich dabei um die mehr oder weniger einzige Gesamtdarstellung der rund 7 Jahrtausende währenden Ur- und Frühgeschichte Vorderasiens. Diese richtet sich bereits sprachlich an einen weiteren Leserkreis als ihre deutschsprachige Vorlage und hätte somit grundsätzlich ein lange bestehendes Desiderat erfüllen können.
Das Werk ist dabei in sieben inhaltliche Kapitel gegliedert, wobei das erste einige Hintergrundüberlegungen zur Quellenlage und zu Forschungsproblemen enthält. Sodann werden die Phasen der Sesshaftwerdung (9.000-6.000 v. Chr.), die Entstehung der ersten Städte (6.000-3.2000 v. Chr.), die Zeit der ersten Hochkulturen (3.200-2.8000 v. Chr.), die Epoche der rivalisierenden Stadtstaaten (2.800-2.350 v. Chr.) sowie schließlich die daraus entstehenden ersten Territorialstaaten (2.350-2.000 v. Chr.) behandelt. Abgerundet wird das Werk durch ein Kapitel mit Ausblicken auf die weitere historische Entwicklung des Alten Orients.
In dieser Gliederung zeigt sich der moderne Ansatz des Autors, der seine Geschichtsdarstellung nicht nach formalen Kriterien, wie Jahrtausenden oder Epochen der materiellen Kultur, sondern nach gesamtgesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen gliedert. Insofern schließt sich an dieses Werk die hervorragende Darstellung der Geschichte des Alten Orients Marc van de Mieroops an, die demselben Ansatz folgt und die Weiterentwicklung der Gesellschaft bis zu den ersten Imperien in den Blick nimmt. Mit dieser überschneidet sich Nissens Werk inhaltlich jedoch um ein ganzes Jahrtausend. Dies ist auf das besondere Anliegen des Autors zurückzuführen, die scharfe Trennung zwischen vorschriftlichen (prähistorische) und schriftlichen (historischen) Epochen aufzuweichen. Völlig zutreffend zeigt Nissen hier nämlich auf, dass die Entwicklung der Schrift selbst keinen Wendepunkt in der Menschheitsgeschichte darstellt, sondern vielmehr nur ein Element einer weitaus komplexeren Entwicklung ist.
Inhaltlich möchte dieses Werk vor allem Grundzüge einer gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung aufzeigen. Insofern kommt dem Buch also ein stark einführender Charakter zu. Einen Anspruch darauf, den enormen behandelten Zeitraum umfassend darzustellen, erhebt es bewusst nicht. Dementsprechend werden Schwerpunkte auf als besonders wichtig erscheinende Entwicklungen sowie auf kontrovers diskutierte Theorien zu einzelnen Forschungsfragen gelegt. Als Quellen wurden dabei sowohl archäologische Finde und Befunde als auch - soweit verfügbar - Schriftzeugnisse herangezogen.
Dieses Buch schreibt vor allem eine Geschichte der gesellschaftlichen Organisationsformen. Es handelt sich daher weder um ein politisches, noch um eine Sozialgeschichtsbuch. Schon gar nicht kommt der historischen Entwicklung einzelner kultureller Felder eine überragende Rolle zu: Wissenschaft, Religion, Literatur, Sprache etc. Eben deshalb wirken die Ausführungen in diesem Werk bisweilen stark theoretisch. Es richtet sich merklich nicht an einen Laienleser, sondern ist für die Fachwelt und für Studierende der Vorderasiatischen Altertumskunde geschrieben. Einen Eindruck vom Leben damaliger Menschen vermittelt es jedenfalls nicht.
Leider hat dieses Buch einige erhebliche Schwächen. Hier ist an aller erster Stelle die schwache Leistung der Übersetzer zu nennen. Weite Passagen des Werkes sind so schwer verständlich, dass man sie erst nach mehrmaligem Lesen versteht. Dies ist nicht zuletzt auch darauf zurück zu führen, dass die Lektüre des Textes als solchen bereits sehr ermüdend wirkt. Etwas Auflockerung erfährt der Text durch wiederkehrende Grafiken, Karten/Pläne und Fotografien. Diese lassen in ihrer Qualität jedoch sehr zu wünschen übrig - gerade auf Fotografien ist hier bisweilen schlechterdings nichts zu erkennen.
Nachteilhaft ist ferner, dass auch dieses Werk mittlerweile in die Jahre gekommen ist. Gerade in den letzten Jahren haben sich bedeutende Entdeckungen zur Ur-/Frühgeschichte Vorderasiens ergeben, die hier keine Berücksichtigung mehr finden konnten. Damit ist dieses werk zumindest in seinen Details zum Teil leider schlicht veraltet.
Insgesamt ist dieses Werk damit als vergebene Chance einzustufen. Das Desiderat einer gut lesbaren Gesamtdarstellung der prä- und protohistorischen Epochen des Alten Orients hat es nicht erfüllt. Die - thematisch aber eingeschränkteren und anders ausgerichteten - Werke von Akkermanns und Matthews vermag es nicht zu ersetzen. Gleichwohl führt es insbesondere Studierende der Vorderasiatischen Archäologie grundständig in die Prähistorischen Epochen des Alten Orients und die großen Forschungsprobleme um diese ein. Insbesondere liefert es dazu einen eigenen, wichtigen und neuen Beitrag. Dem Studenten ist die Lektüre dieses Buches daher dennoch dringend anzuraten, wobei jedoch die deutschsprachige Ausgabe zu bevorzugen ist.