Cities generate challenges as well as confer advantages on their inhabitants. Recent excavations and surveys in northern Mesopotamia have revealed extensive settlements with diverse populations, institutions, extended hinterlands, and mass production by the early fourth millennium BC, comparable to well-known evidence for cities in their traditional homeland of southern Iraq. However, early northern Mesopotamian cities incorporated low-density zones and flexible uses of space not yet identified in southern Mesopotamia. Evidence for violent conflict in northern Mesopotamian cities also raises questions about urban sustainability; cities succeeded despite new sources of social stress.

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美索不达米亚北部的早期都市主义

城市既带来挑战，也给居民带来优势。最近在美索不达米亚北部进行的发掘和调查显示，到公元前四千年初期，大量定居点的居民，机构，内陆扩展和大规模生产，这与伊拉克南部传统故乡的城市众所周知的证据相当。但是，早期的美索不达米亚北部城市合并了低密度区，并灵活利用了美索不达米亚南部尚未发现的空间。美索不达米亚北部城市发生暴力冲突的证据也引发了人们对城市可持续性的质疑。尽管有新的社会压力来源，城市还是成功了。