Guillermo Algaze'nin Uruk Dünya Sistemine Dair Çalışmalarına Eleştirel Bir Bakış

The 4th millennium BC marks the Uruk Period in the southern Mesopotamian chronology and aligns with the Late Chalcolithic 2 to 5 phases in the northern Mesopotamian context. During the Late Chalcolithic Period, settlements in both Southern and Northern Mesopotamia developed complex socio-economic structures of varying scales and characteristics, often centred around temples or monumental buildings that arose in response to ecological and social demands. Archaeological research in these regions indicates that the system embodied by these structures played a central role in shaping daily life and material culture through activities such as long-distance trade, redistribution and the organisation of labour. Ongoing discussions within the context of Mesopotamia focus on concepts including specialisation, centralisation, urbanisation, cross-cultural interaction and trade or exchange, framed around the diverse characteristics of these settlements. One such discussion emerged with the discovery of Uruk material culture, originally from Southern Mesopotamia, at numerous settlement sites across Northern Mesopotamia and Iran during the 4th millennium BC. Researchers examining the interactions between southern Mesopotamian and local societies have proposed a range of models. This article focuses on the “Uruk World System” developed by Guillermo Algaze. His 1993 work, The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilisation, generated extensive debate and was later widely criticised, especially in light of archaeological findings from various regions of Northern Mesopotamia. Algaze has since revised his model to address these critiques and to integrate new archaeological data uncovered after the original study. Accordingly, this article evaluates Algaze’s work, developed over approximately 40 years, in two categories: early studies and later revisions.