Page 129 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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rural areas followed by a spread of cities, towns, and villages along available

waterways (Adams and Nissen 1972). Such a change from preurban to urban
primacy appears to be a fairly well documented and accepted phenomenon (Smith
1976). TTius, it is used here to portray the past events observed on Bahrain. Once
urban primacy, including complex social structure, initially evolved, in the sense of
Adams (1956), the reaction was irreversible. Urban settlement hierarchies tended
to break down for myriad reasons, but the social and organizational structures that
gave rise to urban centers continued, allowing their development in different areas
through time.
For Bahrain, five points of reference can be chosen for explanatory
purposes. These are illustrated in Figure 19. An initial preurban condition (1A, fig.
19) consisted of semidifferentiated villages located at various locations throughout
the islands, but in close association with water resources. TTiis case represents the
earlier TJbaid occupations of the Arabian coast, as well as certain contemporary
settlements in Mesopotamia. The food procurement strategies for these groups
were diffuse and not fully dependent upon agriculture. Villages were subsistence
oriented, and the marketing or exchange networks were based upon kinship
reciprocity. By our second point of reference (IB, fig. 19), an increased
differentiation of villages had taken place. TTie subsistence strategies continued to
be diffuse and in most respects paralleled the preurban village patterns. Certain
major changes took place, including the social differentiation of elites, the
development of village hierarchies into villages and small and large towns, and the
formation of local exchange networks centered in the larger towns. In terms of
Adams's observations in Iraq, this condition best parallels developments during the
Late 'Ubaid period.
On this same developmental trajectory, villages and towns appeared in
clusters and gave rise to a dominant urban center (2A, fig. 19) which displayed a
primate relationship to the smaller centers and villages. Intensified differentiation
into ruling elites and specialized non-food producing classes followed as elites
increased their demand for both surplus and staple foods. Population increased in
the urban center, as a result of immigration from outlying regions or from