Far more preferable, and consistent with the evidence, are the views of Nick Kardulias
( 2007 ) and Gil Stein ( 1999 ). Kardulias writes of a “negotiated periphery” in which the
periphery negotiates its own rules for inclusion or exclusion from a core. Stein views
the Uruk Expansion as having nothing to do with colonization, domination, and
asymmetric relations but as independent enclaves in which the “foreigners were an
autonomous diaspora rather than a dominant colonial elite... The Mesopotamian
and Anatolian [and, one might add, Iranian] communities produced, exchanged, and
consumed goods with their own encapsulated social domain” (Stein 2002 : 58 ). What
matters most in these distinctive and distant Mesopotamian foreign enclaves is not the
dominance and exploitation by a Mesopotamian core over a distant neighbor but
the existence of a political, economic and social connectivity; that is, the recognition
of the existence of numerous independent and interdependent cultures in which
Mesopotamia, beginning in the Ubaid period, is but one actor among many that were
in contact with “the other.”
Such contacts had their own rhythm. After 3100 BC, Uruk cultural remains all but
disappear from foreign lands. Was this the result of assimilation? Voluntary abandon-
ment? Or conflict? Each has its advocate but none are persuasive. The demise of the
Uruk Expansion goes unexplained. In northern Mesopotamia, the indigenous com-
munities, introduced to the technology of writing by Uruk immigrants, do not adopt
its technology for another 500 years.
There is another significant migration of foreign peoples into Anatolia, northern
Mesopotamia, and Iran. They may, in fact, be implicated in the withdrawal of the Uruk
peoples from the north. The Kura–Araxes Culture from the Caucasus takes its name
from the Kura and Araxes Rivers in Georgia (Palumbi 2008 ). This pastoral nomadic
culture, with its highly diagnostic burnished red-and-black ceramics, domestic archi-
tecture, characteristic hearths, and superb metallurgical inventory, is contemporary
with the Uruk Culture. The Kura–Araxes Culture can be identified on numerous sites
in northwestern Iran where the settlements of Godin IV, Yanik Tepe, and Geoy Tepe
(see the articles in Lyonnet 2007 ) and the burial tumuli of Se Gardan (Muscarella 1973 )
have been excavated. Its most southern extension reaches northern Palestine where the
pottery is known as Khirbet Kerak (Amiran 1968 ). The nature and impact of the
Kura–Araxes cultures in these regions are the topic of considerable recent research. In
Anatolia, the arrival of the Kura–Araxes at the site of Arslan Tepe coincides with both
its destruction and the disappearance of the Uruk Culture (Sagona and Zemansky
2009 ; Kohl 2005 : 86 – 102 ). Similarly, the abandonment of the Uruk community at
Godin Tepe coincides with the arrival of these Transcaucasian settlers. Can the pastoral
nomadic peoples of the Caucasus be implicated in the disturbances that led to the
abandonment of Uruk influence in the north? Ongoing research in Anatolia and
northern Syria may answer this question.
Finally, with regard to the Uruk Expansion only within one community, and that
an extremely significant one, Susa, in southwestern Iran, can one argue for an Uruk
settlement that profoundly influenced its indigenous inhabitants. The Uruk settlement
in Susa was directly followed by the Proto-Elamite culture. The Proto-Elamites adopt
many of the material attributes of the Uruk Culture and transform them to their own
purpose and style, namely, writing, mathematical constructs, seals, specific ceramic
types, and units of measurement.
–– Iran and its neighbors ––