Morphodynamic foundations of Ancient Sumer

[Imperial Dave]

Morphodynamic Foundations of Sumer | PLOS One https://share.google/4FrpfUalNbolKSNwn

One or 2 on here may be interested in this in depth article on the rise of Sumer

[Jon Freitag]

Great find, Dave!  This offers a fascinating study on a number of fronts including geographical, morphodynamic, mythological, and Biblical.  The accompanying maps bring to me a new understanding of alluvial redeposits, delta formation, and the march of agriculture and Sumerian city development down the Tigris-Euphrates River valley as the Persian Gulf receded.

[Imperial Dave]

I know Sumerian stuff has been talked about a few times so thought it was an interesting article

[Sharur]

Yep, having had the chance for a proper read-through of this paper now, it is really interesting, and great to see some work at least continues into a particularly vexed subject - primarily the lines of the Tigris and Euphrates in the earlier 3rd millennium BCE and especially before, along with the mobile coastline at the head of The Gulf. Some of it's a bit hand-wavy vague and hopefully speculative, although the nature of the data, and its often tricky interpretation and time-constraints, makes it hard to avoid some of that. What particularly caught my attention were the reconstructed maps of the Gulf's head for three time intervals late in the piece, for c. 6000, 4000 and 2000 BCE, and the suggestion the Euphrates may have had tidal-pulse effects as far inland as Nippur. Having tried to construct maps of bits of this area - including in Slingshot, hem-hem years ago (!) - it's always good to have fresh data, despite the enormous difficulties involved. Whether this helps explain the Uruk period agricultural "boom" is rather more moot, for all something(s) must have done it!

Also should mention how much of a boon the recent move to Open Access for some of the big-name journals in various fields has been - so I can just download a PDF of this full article without a paywall blocking it, for instance. Less a boon for the authors who now have to pay the journals, of course, but I know some offer grants/other financial help to assist.

[Imperial Dave]

I thought it was just me and seemed to think there is more open access stuff generally these days