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The (pre)history of the area that would later be known as Sumer begins in the seventh millennium BC with the oldest-known traces of human occupation at Tell el-'Oueili.

refs^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

Short outline of Sumer

Available sources

Satellite image of Mesopotamia indicating the areas that have been subjected to some form of archaeological field survey (in blue), from which important information on the (pre)history of Sumer has been derived

Until the emergence of Proto-Cuneiform in the fourth millennium BC, the reconstruction of social and political developments in Mesopotamia is entirely based on other forms of evidence such as glyptics and settlement patterns as reconstructed from archaeological excavations and surveys.

The Sumerian King List is among the best-known literary sources that have been used in the past to reconstruct the (political) history of Sumer.

Geography

Sumer was written as ki-en-gi in Sumerian and šumeru in Akkadian (from which its modern name derives). The available sources do not always allow to clearly outline which geographical region(s) were meant by these terms. During the Ur III period, the whole of Babylonia (southern Mesopotamia) was often described as the land of Sumer and Akkad (as in the Sumerian royal title lugal ki-en-gi ki-uri, or "king of Sumer and Akkad). The border between Sumer in the south and Akkad in the north was at the city of Nippur. Akkadian sources indicate that, among others, the cities of Umma, Lagash, and Adab were part of Sumer. These cities were also mentioned in relation with Sumer in Early Dynastic inscriptions.^[6]

Chronology and periodization

Sumerian periodization
period	date (BC)	notes
Ubaid	6800-4200	named after Tell al-'Ubaid; usually sub-divided in Ubaid 0-5
Uruk		named after Uruk
Jemdet Nasr	3100-2900	named after Jemdet Nasr
Early Dynastic	2900-2350	abbreviated ED; usually sub-divided in ED I-III
Akkadian
Ur III		named after the Third Dynasty of Ur from the Sumerian King List

The "Sumerian question"

ref^[7]

Pre- and protohistory

Ubaid period

Tell el-'Oueili is the oldest known human settlement in Sumer. Its earliest occupation layers are dated to Ubaid 0 (6500-5400 BC).^[8] It has long been thought that southern Mesopotamia was inhospitable before this time. However, modern research indicates that the area's climate may have been more benign from the eleventh millennium BC, so that older traces of human occupation can be expected.^[9]

Occupation layers dating to the Ubaid period have been excavated at a number of sites, including Uruk, Eridu, Ur, and of course the type site of Tell al-'Ubaid itself.

Uruk period

Jemdet Nasr period

Early Dynastic period

Akkadian period

The Great Revolt

Gutian interlude

Ur III period

Later second millennium BC

References

^ Postgate, J. N. (1992). Early Mesopotamia : society and economy at the dawn of history. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-00843-3. OCLC 24468109.
^ Van de Mieroop, Marc (2004). A history of the ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 B.C. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. ISBN 0-631-22552-8. OCLC 50294916.
^ Molina, M. (2013). "Sumer, Geschichte". Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 13 (in German). Berlin [u.a.: de Gruyter. pp. 297–300. ISBN 978-3-11-030715-3. OCLC 1074893563.
^ Crawford, Harriet E. W. (1991). Sumer and the Sumerians. Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-38175-4. OCLC 20826485.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Crawford, Harriet (ed.). The Sumerian World. doi:10.4324/9780203096604.
^ Cooper, J.S. (2013). "Sumer, Sumerian". Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 13 (in German). Berlin [u.a.: de Gruyter. pp. 290–297. ISBN 978-3-11-030715-3. OCLC 1074893563.
^ Soltysiak, Arkadiusz (2006). "Physical anthropology and the "Sumerian problem"" (PDF). Studies in Historical Anthropology. 4: 2004: 145–158.
^ Huot, J.-L. (1985), "Tell el'Oueili. Principaux Résultats de la Quatrième Campagne (1983)", Paléorient (in French), 11 (1): 119–123, doi:10.3406/paleo.1985.4367
^ Altaweel, Mark; Marsh, Anke; Jotheri, Jaafar; Hritz, Carrie; Fleitmann, Dominik; Rost, Stephanie; Lintner, Stephen F.; Gibson, McGuire; Bosomworth, Matthew; Jacobson, Matthew; Garzanti, Eduardo (2019). "New Insights on the Role of Environmental Dynamics Shaping Southern Mesopotamia: From the Pre-Ubaid to the Early Islamic Period" (PDF). Iraq. 81: 23–46. doi:10.1017/irq.2019.2. ISSN 0021-0889. S2CID 200071451.