Acronym: GeoMOP

Description

GeoMOP investigates Early Bronze Age (Third Millennium BCE) road systems (also called hollow ways) in Khabur Basin, Upper Mesopotamia. At this space-time, the movement praxis embedded within agricultural and pastoral economies, as well as the socio-political life, significantly contributed to the formation of hollow ways. In pursuit of this phenomenon, GeoMOP constructs a detailed typology of hollow ways based on estimates of the volume of ancient traffic. Thus, the study surpasses the current archaeological knowledge on locations and dimensions of hollow ways –the container– and builds an analytical model for the movement –the action–. In return, movement praxis provides details of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) political economy, including land ownership, urban-rural relationships, and nodes of economic complexity.