The story of how the first cities rose from southern Mesopotamia has long fascinated scientists and historians. Many explanations point to fertile soil, farming, and trade networks as the engines of ...

A new interdisciplinary study shows that the rise of the first urban civilization was not solely a product of human ingenuity, but a complex response to coastal dynamics and the predictable rhythms of ...

On the bitter plains of modern Iraq there remain large piles of baked bricks covered with much sand. They have sat there in silent witness to a lost religion for 4,000 years. Only in the 19th century ...

A recent study is changing the understanding of how urbanization developed in ancient Mesopotamia. According to the analysis, the emergence of the Sumerian civilization was not only the result of ...