A lecture series

Stanford Continuing Studies Program
Summer 2003 - ARC 106

Building 200-203

July 1 Ur

July 8 ÇatalHöyük

July 15 Rome

July 22 Corinth
>>small version

July 29 Tell el Amarna

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How are we to understand early cities?

Archaeologists and anthropologists have tended to focus on urban origins, ideas of civilization, looking for resons for the emergence of social complexity, finding them in social ranking, the control of resources and the organization of production, trade and exchange.

Here I take a different view and focus on the early city as it may have been perceived, understood, lived. I treat the city as the locale for intensive consumption.

Cities - part of changed ways of thinking and experiencing the world
... to walk down a street
... the implication of new biographical pathways
... of new kinds of past
... embedded in the urban fabric.