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ex oriente
ex oriente
ex oriente e.V. is a scientific society founded in 1994 by
researchers of the Institutes of Near Eastern Archaeology and Ancient
Oriental Studies at the Free University of Berlin. We are an independent
organization encouraging interdisciplinary and transnational
cooperation on the study of environmental history, ancient technologies,
and the means of production and subsistence in the Near and Middle
East.
In contrast to traditional research interests of the
discipline in Germany, we focus on the lifeway of the people in early
societies. The natural environment of the Near East provided conditions
that allowed for substantial advances in human cultural development,
including:
- sedentarization
- domestication of plants and animals
- irrigation and pastoralism
- urbanization
- emergence of states.
This trajectory was characterized by a continuing
emergence of new technologies and subsistence economies. This often
involved the adoption of adaptive strategies to compensate for excessive
exploitation of natural resources that changed or destroyed
environmental conditions. The early examples of enduring human impacts
on their surroundings have clear modern analogies in terms of
environmental and developmental politics. Thus, the aim of ex oriente is
also to make a clear connection between prehistoric and early
historical times with present-day environmental and social developments.
Research on prehistoric territorial behavior and environmental
destruction, conditions under which stratified societies and early
patterns of conflict arose, can offer insights into modern developmental
problems.
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