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The paper tries to apply a developmental and comparative approach to the analysis of the processes bringing to the first hierarchical societies in Upper Mesopotamia by focusing on their Neolithic roots and analysing the structural similarities and differences with the contemporary societies in two other regions of the Near East: South Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia. This comparison is aimed at evidencing, on the one hand, similarities and differences with an area – South Mesopotamia– whose features differed widely in the sixth millennium BCE but with which the Upper Mesopotamian communities were closely related for millennia. On the other hand, the author examines the profound structural differences with Central Anatolian communities, where the subsistence strategies, environmental contexts, and the resulting economic, social, and political organization seem to have differed substantially from the Mesopotamian ones. Whereas the comparison with Central Anatolian developments therefore essentially focused attention on structural features and differences, the analysis of the relationship with Southern Mesopotamia also considered the nature and effects of the intensive "contacts" that linked together the two Mesopotamian regions and were relevant to the developments of both societies.

This book investigates the economic organization of ancient societies from a comparative perspective. By pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, including contributions by archaeologists, historians of antiquity, economic historians as well as historians of economic thought, it studies various aspects of ancient economies, such as the material living conditions including production technologies, etc.; economic institutions such as markets and coinage; as well as the economic thinking of the time. In the process, it also explores the comparability of economic thought, economic institutions and economic systems in ancient history. Focusing on the Ancient Near East as well as the Mediterranean, including Greece and Rome, this comparative perspective makes it possible to identify historical permanencies, but also diverse forms of social and political organization and cultural systems. These institutions are then evaluated in terms of their capacity to solve economic problems, such as the efficient use of resources or political stability. The first part of the book introduces readers to the methodological context of the comparative approach, including an evaluation of the related historiographical tradition. Subsequent parts discuss a range of development models, elements of economic thinking in ancient societies, the role of trade and globalization, and the use of monetary and financial instruments, as well as political aspects

SUMMARY The continuous enlargement of the excavations at Arslantepe, in the Malatya province of Eastern Turkey, together with the beginning of systematic surveys in the region and new studies on the modes of occupation of the first centuries on the III millennium BC, give us the unique opportunity to reconsider the occupation proper of Arslantepe and the organisation of the surrounding territory. Around 3000 BC we assist to a general social and political crisis in the site and in the Malatya plain, started with the collapse of the proto-state system of Mesopotamian influence and the establishment, at the beginning of the III millennium, of a different economic and political organisation of the territory, with a much stronger mobile character than in the past. The society of the second half of the IV millennium BC was based on an essentially rural population, sparsely distributed in the plain, which all converged to the central site of Arslantepe and was probably involved in a complex mechanism of local exchange, managed and regulated by the Arslantepe palace. On top of the ruins of the palace, settle, at the beginning of Early Bronze Age I, groups with very distinct architectural traditions, life modes and material culture. The ceramic material consisted mainly of hand made burnished vessels, with the characteristic bi-chrome red-black surfaces, which presents clear technological and stylistic analogies with the red-black productions of the palatial period, but new shapes. These ceramics are the expression of an extremely unitary style and taste, which strongly recalls similar Transcaucasian productions of the Kura-Araks type, and most of all those from Georgia and North-Eastern Anatolia, thus indicating an evident cultural interaction with those communities, or maybe even the physical presence of those groups in the Upper Euphrates valley and in the Malatya plain at the beginning of the III millennium BC. Next to this though, the ceramic production also evidences a continuity of traditions already consolidated in the region and a material culture of the first centuries of the III millennium with a strong local character. The Kura-Araks model which makes its appearance in the Malatya plain, could thus be one derived by the pastoral groups, who locally re-elaborated and modified it.

At Arslantepe towards the end of the 4th millennium BC, after the destruction of the palatial complex of period VIA, the following period VIB1 witnesses the flimsy architectural remains of wattle and daub huts associated with a ceramic culture clearly recalling the contemporary Kura-Araxes traditions of Eastern Anatolia and of the Southern Caucasus. The combination of architectural and zooarchaeological data suggests that period VIB1 represented the occupation by one or more specialised pastoral communities. Recent excavations at Arslantepe have brought to light an imposing mud-brick building (Building 36) dating to period VIB1. Building 36 rested on top of a large courtyard and of a monumental hall dating to the period VIA of the palace complex, thus highlighting a strong sense of continuity in terms of monumental architecture between periods VIA and VIB1. It was destroyed by a violent fire, burying a huge amount of materials in situ (83 ceramic vessels, metals and stone tools). A detailed reconstruction of the material assemblages and a thorough analysis of the functions of the building will constitute the main focus of this paper. This will ultimately shed light on the functions and political significance of this special building in the VIB1 settlement in the frame of ceremonial feastings that may have represented the new strategies enacted by the new Kura-Araxes oriented elites that emerged in the Malatya region, following the collapse of the Uruk-related centralised system.

Uniparentally-inherited markers on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the non-recombining regions of the Y chromosome (NRY), have been used for the past 30 years to investigate the history of humans from a maternal and paternal perspective. Researchers have preferred mtDNA due to its abundance in the cells, and comparatively high substitution rate. Conversely, the NRY is less susceptible to back mutations and saturation, and is potentially more informative than mtDNA owing to its longer sequence length. However, due to comparatively poor NRY coverage via shotgun sequencing, and the relatively low and biased representation of Y-chromosome variants on capture assays such as the 1240 k, ancient DNA studies often fail to utilize the unique perspective that the NRY can yield. Here we introduce a new DNA enrichment assay, coined YMCA (Y-mappable capture assay), that targets the "mappable" regions of the NRY. We show that compared to low-coverage shotgun sequencing and 1240 k capture, YMCA significantly improves the mean coverage and number of sites covered on the NRY, increasing the number of Y-haplogroup informative SNPs, and allowing for the identification of previously undiscovered variants. To illustrate the power of YMCA, we show that the analysis of ancient Y-chromosome lineages can help to resolve Y-chromosomal haplogroups. As a case study, we focus on H2, a haplogroup associated with a critical event in European human history: the Neolithic transition. By disentangling the evolutionary history of this haplogroup, we further elucidate the two separate paths by which early farmers expanded from Anatolia and the Near East to western Europe. ; Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This study was funded by the Max Planck Society, the French (ANR) and German (DFG) Research Foundations under the INTERACT project (ANR-17-FRAL-0010, DFG-HA-5407/4-1, 2018-2021) to M.R. and W.H., the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant agreement no. 771234-PALEoRIDER to W.H., the award Praemium Academiae of the Czech Academy of Sciences to M.E. and the project RVO 67985912 of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague to M.S. ; Peer reviewed