Archaeologists find new origin of ancient cities

Excavations at a 6,000-year-old archaeological mound in northeastern Syria called Tell Brak are providing an alternative explanation for how the first cities may have grown.

Archaeologists have thought that many cities began in a single small area and grew outward, but evidence at Tell Brak indicates it was originally a ring of small villages that grew inward as it became a city -- the opposite of the conventional viewpoint.

The finds provide new insight into political development in the region.

"Urbanism does not appear to have originated with a single, powerful ruler or political entity," said archaeologist Jason Ur of Harvard University, who led the research reported Friday in the journal Science. "Instead, it was the organic outgrowth of many groups coming together."

The city, whose name is unknown, was located in the ancient empire of Mesopotamia, which encompassed what is now southern Iraq and northern Syria. The nearby city of Uruk in southern Iraq was thought to have been the oldest city in the world, but discoveries at Tell Brak suggest it may have developed contemporaneously with Uruk.

Legend holds that the great leader Gilgamesh built the city of Uruk, and that story has long served as a model for the development of early cities.

Studying potsherds, bones and other artifacts at Tell Brak, Ur and his colleagues concluded that sometime about 4200 B.C. to 3900 B.C., habitation consisted of six distinct clusters, each with an area of five to 10 acres, scattered around what is now the central mound.

Over the next several hundred years, the population grew more dense and expanded inward until, by 3400 B.C., Tell Brak was a full-fledged urban center spreading over an area of about 325 acres.

The finds, the researchers wrote, suggest that the study of early urban areas "must accommodate multiple models for the origins of cities."