There and back again: local institutions, an Uruk expansion and the rejection of centralisation in the Sirwan/Upper Diyala region

During the fourth millennium BC, public institutions
developed at several large settlements across greater
Mesopotamia. These are widely acknowledged as the
first cities and states, yet surprisingly little is known
about their emergence, functioning and demise.
Here, the authors present new evidence of public institutions
at the site of Shakhi Kora in the lower Sirwan/
upperDiyala river valley of north-east Iraq. A sequence
of four Late Chalcolithic institutional households precedes
population dispersal and the apparent regional
rejection of centralised social forms of organisation
that were not then revisited for almost 1500 years.