Conference & Workshop Papers Presented

*“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.” Public lecture at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, 16 March 2015. [web]

*“Landscapes of Early States and Empires in Mesopotamia.”  Lecture given to the Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 16 March 2015.

*“Cultural Heritage in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: What’s at Stake, and What are the Threats?”  Invited lecture at the symposium Cultural Heritage Crisis in the Middle East, University of Arkansas, 6 March 2015.

 “Remote Sensing of Early States and Empires: Semi-Automated Case Studies from the Near East.”  American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, San Jose, February 2015.

*“The Renaissance of Archaeology in Iraq and its Kurdistan Region.”  Plenary lecture at the American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting, San Diego, 19 November 2014.

“Cities, States, and Empires on the Erbil Plain, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.” Paper presented at the American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting, San Diego, 19 November 2014.

 “On Canals, Functions and Options in North Kurdistan.” Paper presented at the Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC2014), Rome, Italy, 17-20 September 2014 (Maurits Ertsen and Jason Ur).

*“Landscapes of Early States and Empires in Mesopotamia.” Lecture to the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 27 October 2014.

“Cities and Landscapes of Assyria: New Research in the Imperial Core.”  Lecture given at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute, Chicago, IL, 23 October 2014.

*“The Birth of Cities in Ancient West Asia.”  Invited lecture at the University of Tsukuba symposium “Ancient West Asian Civilization as the Foundation of All Modern Civilizations,” Tokyo, Japan, 29 June 2014.

 “Results of the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS), Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (9ICAANE), Basel, Switzerland, 9 June 2014 (James Osborne and Jason Ur).

“A Critical Assessment of the Akkadian Empire through the Lens of Archaeology.” Paper presented at The Sargonic Empire: An Interdisciplinary Workshop, Harvard Semitic Museum, Cambridge MA, May 21, 2014.

“LIDAR and the Structure of an Assyrian City: A Case Study from Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.” Paper presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), Austin, Texas, 23-27 April, 2014 (Jason Ur, Bjoern Menze, Matthieu Murdoch).

*“The Settlement History of the Erbil Plain (Dashti Hawler)”  Keynote address at the conference “Ancient Arbela: Pre-Islamic History of Erbil,” organized by the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IFPO), Finnish Institute in the Middle East, and Salahaddin University, Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 8 April 2013.

*“Satellite Remote Sensing of the Earliest Cities in the Near East: CORONA, ASTER, and Intensive Surface Collection.”  Talk at the symposium “Digital Domains: Perspectives in Remote Sensing of Human Landscapes,” Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, March 21, 2014 (Jason Ur and Bjoern Menze).

*“Declassified Spy Satellite Imagery and Ancient Landscapes of the Near East.”  Presentation to the Harvard Club of Sarasota. Florida, March 14, 2014.

“Lost Cities and Landscapes in the Heart of the Assyrian Empire.” Public lecture at the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, Harvard University, February 20, 2014.

*“Landscapes of Early States and Empires in Mesopotamia.” Lecture to the Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, February 3, 2014.

“Central Planning and Urban Emergence in Early Bronze Age Cities of Northern Mesopotamia” Paper read at the British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology (BANEA) Annual Conference, University of Reading, January 10, 2014.

*“Landscape Planning in the Core of the Assyrian Empire. Ca. 900-600 BC.”  Paper presented to the Garden and Landscape Studies Program,  Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, 11 December 2013.

 “Archaeological Landscapes of the Erbil Plain, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.” Paper presented at the Current Research in Anthropology Seminar, Harvard University, December 5, 2013.

“The Landscape of the Assyrian Heartland: New Archaeological Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Lecture delivered to the St. Augustine Archaeological Association, St. Augustine, FL, 25 November 2013.

“Archaeological Landscapes of the Erbil Plain, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Paper presented at the American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting, Baltimore, MD, 20-23 November 2013 (Jason Ur and James Osborne).

*“Resilience and Sustainability in Ancient Mesopotamian States and Empires.”  Paper presented in the conference Resilience and Sustainability: What Are We Learning from the Maya and Other Ancient Cultures, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 8-9 November 2013.

“The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey 2012-2013.”  Paper read at the Conference on Archaeological Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Athens Greece, 1-3 November 2013.

“Satellite Archaeology: Case Studies in the Ancient Near East.”  Lecture given at the Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO), Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 17 September 2013. [web]

“Scale and Intensity in Near Eastern Survey: Case Studies from Syria, Turkey, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Paper presented at the International Mediterranean Survey Workshop, Groningen Institute of Archaeology, Groningen University, Netherlands, 27 April 2013.

“Ancient Cities and Landscapes in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Lecture given at Leiden University, 24 April 2013.

“Water Systems in the Core of the Assyrian Empire.”  Paper presented at the symposium “Between Human Niche Construction and Imperial Power: Long-Term Trends in Ancient Water Systems,” Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands, 22-23 April  2013.

“Cities, Landscapes, and Water in the Core of the Assyrian Empire.”  Lecture given at the Assyrian Landscapes Research Group meeting, University of Udine, Italy, 18 April 2013.

“The Rural Landscape of the Assyrian Heartland: Recent Results from Arbail and Kilizu Provinces.”  Presentation for the Historiography of the Ancient Near East workshop, Harvard University, February 20, 2013.

*“The Emergence of Cities in Mesopotamia.”  Invited lecture at the Department of Anthropology, University of California at San Diego, February 11, 2013.

“On the Grounds of Gaugamela: Imperial Landscapes in the Erbil Plain.”  Paper to be presented at the 114th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Seattle, Washington, January 4, 2013 (Lidewijde de Jong and Jason Ur).

“The Rural Landscape of the Assyrian Heartland: Recent Results from Arbail and Kilizu Provinces.”  Paper presented at the Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire conference, University of Cambridge, December 13, 2012.

“The Tell Baqrta Project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Paper presented at the Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire conference, University of Cambridge, December 15, 2012 (Konstantinos Kopanias, Claudia Beuger, John MacGinnis, Jason Ur).

“Remote Sensing of Sites and Landscapes in the Kurdistan Region, Northern Iraq.”  Presentation at the conference Modern Techniques and Archaeological Sites in Iraq, Iraqi Cultural Center, Washington DC, December 8, 2012.

“New Archaeological Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Lecture presented at the Harvard Club of Boston/Harvard Alumni Association “Saturday of Symposia,” December 1, 2012.

“Archaeological Landscapes in the Core of the Assyrian Empire.”  Paper presented at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 17, 2012.

“Water and Early Civilization in Mesopotamia.”  Presentation at the symposium “Water in Context: Exploring Water in the Middle East through GIS Mapping and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives,” Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies, September 28, 2012.

“New Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”  Presentation at Anthropology Day, Harvard University, September 14, 2012.

“The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey.”  Presentation to the Erbil International Study Group, Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, September 6, 2012.

“Archaeological Survey on the Erbil Plain.”  Lecture given at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage (IICAH), Erbil, Iraq, September 4, 2012.

“The Landscapes of States and Empires in Northern Mesopotamia.”  Presentation at the University of Copenhagen, June 11, 2012.

 “Agency and Emergence in the Formation of Ancient Landscapes.”  Keynote address presented at the 2nd International Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC2012), Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, June 7, 2012.

 “The Comparative Morphology of Neo-Assyrian Cities.”  Paper presented at the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (8ICAANE), Warsaw, Poland, April 30-May 4, 2012.

 “Frogs Orbiting the Pond: Case Studies from the Near East.”  Paper delivered in the session “Frogs Crossing the Pond: New Frontiers in Regional Archaeology” at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Memphis, Tennessee, April 21, 2012 (Jason Ur and Bjoern Menze).

Discussant for the session “Socio-Natural Systems in Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Societies: Archaeological Investigations of Pastoral Landscapes” at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Memphis, Tennessee, April 19, 2012.

“The Engineered Settlement Landscape of the Assyrian Empire.”  Presentation given at Stony Brook University, Department of Anthropology, March 14, 2012.

“The Landscapes of States and Empires in Northern Mesopotamia.”  Presentation delivered at the Old World Archaeology Seminar, Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, February 16, 2012.

“Forms and Stages of Urban Settlement in Early Mesopotamia.”  Paper delivered at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, San Francisco, November 19, 2011.

“Ancient Landscapes in Iraqi Kurdistan.”  Presentation to the Erbil International Study Group, Ankawa, Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, November 6, 2011.

“Ancient Landscapes in Northern Iraq: The Current State of Knowledge and Prospects for the Future.”  Presentation at the Intemational Meeting on Iraqi Archaeology, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, November 1, 2011.

“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.”  Baylor University Institute of Archaeology Distinguished Lecture, March 18, 2011.

“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.”  Nineteenth annual Breasted Lecture to the Rockford (IL) Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, April 22, 2010.

“Landscapes of Movement in the Ancient Near East.”  Keynote lecture at the 7th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, British Museum/University College London, April 12, 2010. [abstract]

“Cities and Landscapes of the Later 3rd Millennium BC in Northern Mesopotamia.”  Presentation at Northeast by Northeast: Workshop on the Archaeology of NE Syria, Yale University, New Haven, CT, March 6, 2010.

“New Research on the Origins of Urbanism in Ancient Mesopotamia.”  Invited presentation at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China, December 11, 2009. [more]

“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.”  Invited lecture to the School of Archaeology, Peking University, Beijing, China, December 9, 2009.

 “Climatic Variation and Social Change in the Near East.”  Keynote address to the Climate and Ancient Societies Conference, University of Copenhagen, October 22, 2009.  [Website]

 “Extensive Settlements as Precursors to the Earliest Mesopotamian Cities.”  Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, April 23, 2009 (session organizer and chair).

“Nomadic Pastoralist Landscapes Along the Upper Tigris.”  Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, April 23, 2009 (Emily Hammer and Jason Ur).

“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.”  Invited lecture to the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, March 23, 2009.

“Fresh Evidence on the Origins of Urbanism in Ancient Mesopotamia.”  Lecture presented at the Harvard Semitic Museum, Cambridge, MA, March 5, 2009.

“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.”  Invited lecture to the Archaeological Institute of America Finger Lakes (Ithaca) Society at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, February 24, 2009.

“Pastoral and Agricultural Landscapes on the Margins of the Upper Tigris River, SE Turkey.”  Paper delivered at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Boston, November 22, 2008.

“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.”  Invited lecture to the Archaeological Institute of America New Brunswick (Canada) Society at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton,  November 14, 2008.

“Spying on Antiquity: Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Near Eastern Archaeology.”  Invited lecture to the Archaeological Institute of America Worcester, MA Society at the Worcester Art Museum,  November 12, 2008.

“New Research on the Origins of Urbanism in Ancient Mesopotamia.”  Lecture at the St. Augustine Archaeological Association, Flagler College, October 30, 2008.

“New Research on the Origins of Urbanism in Ancient Mesopotamia.”  Invited lecture to the Archaeological Institute of America Central Florida Society at the University of Florida, October 29, 2008.

“The Assyrians and their World.”  Lecture given at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in conjunction with the exhibition Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum, October 16, 2008.

“Hirbemerdon Tepe Archaeological Project 2007,” Nicola Laneri and Jason Ur.  Paper presented at the 30th International Symposium of Excavations, Surveys and Archaeometry, Ankara University (Turkey), May 28, 2008.

“Remote Sensing of Ancient Near Eastern Irrigation: Case Studies from Iraq and Iran.”  Invited lecture at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), May 22, 2008.

“CORONA Satellite Photography and the Structure of Ancient Near Eastern Landscapes.”  Invited lecture delivered at the Università degli Studi di Firenze (Italy), May 12, 2008.

“Northern Mesopotamian Cities and their Hinterlands: Tell Brak and Hamoukar in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC.”  Paper presented at the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Sapienza Università di Roma, May 7, 2008.

 “Cyclical Patterns of Landscape Transformation in the Near East.”  Paper read at the 109th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Chicago, Illinois, January 5, 2008.

“CORONA Satellite Photography and the Structure of Ancient Near Eastern Landscapes.”  Paper presented at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin, Texas, April 26, 2007.

“Surveying and Mapping Near Eastern Settlement Mounds from Space,” Bjoern Menze, Simone Mühl, Jason Ur.  Paper presented at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology annual meeting, Berlin, April 4, 2007.

“Classification of Multispectral ASTER Imagery in the Archaeological Survey for Settlement Sites of the Near East,” Bjoern Menze and Jason Ur.  Poster presented at the 10th International Symposium on Physical Measurements and Signatures in Remote Sensing, Davos, Switzerland, March 13, 2007.

“Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes in the Near East: Case Studies using CORONA Satellite Photography.  Presentation at the workshop Mapping Human History From Space: Tells, Routes, and Archaeogeography in the Near East, University of Sheffield, March 3, 2007.

“State-Sponsored Irrigation around Sennacherib’s Nineveh: Interpretations from Royal Inscriptions and Landscape Archaeology.”  Presentation to the Ancient Near Eastern History and Historiography Workshop, Harvard University, February 21, 2007.

“Spying on the Ancient World: Archaeological Applications of Declassified US Intelligence Satellite Photography in the Near East.”  Presentation and poster at the Harvard University Center for Geographic Analysis’ Workshop on Remote Sensing, Cambridge, MA, February 16, 2007. [video] [slides] [poster PDF]

“The Evolution of Settlement at Tell Brak: New Data on Urban Emergence.”  Paper presented  at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., November 16, 2006.  (Co-authored by Philip Karsgaard.)

“Emergent Landscapes of Movement in Early Bronze Age Northern Mesopotamia.”  Paper contributed to the Penn International Research Conference Landscapes of Movement: Trails, Paths, and Roads in Anthropological Perspective, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, May 29-June 2, 2006.

“State-Sponsored Irrigation Systems in the Assyrian Heartland, 702-681 BC: Reconstructions Using Declassified Intelligence Satellite Imagery and Aerial Photography.”  Poster presented at the Harvard University Center for Geographic Analysis Launch Event, May 5, 2006. [poster PDF]

“Emergent Landscapes of Intensification in Early Bronze Age Northern Mesopotamia.”  Paper presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 29, 2006 (Session co-organizer).

“Satellite Imagery and the Structure of Ancient Landscapes: Case Studies from the Near East.”  Invited paper presented to the Columbia Seminar on the Ancient Near East, Columbia University, April 6, 2006.

“Irrigation Landscapes of Ancient Empires: An Assyrian Case Study.”  Paper presented at the 4th Biennial International Water History Association, Paris, December 3, 2005.

“Landscapes of Irrigation and Pastoralism in Northwestern Iran.”  Paper read at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, November 19, 2005 (co-authored by Karim Alizadeh).

“Irrigation and Pastoralism on the Mughan Steppe, Northwestern Iran.”  Lecture presented at the Harvard University Department of Anthropology Lunch Seminar Series, November 9, 2005.

“Recent Fieldwork on Ancient Landscapes in Syria and Iran.”  Lecture presented at the 2005 East Coast Marching and Chowder Society meeting, Philadelpia, October 29, 2005.

"The Classification of Urban Settlement Systems in Northern Mesopotamia in the Fifth to First Millennia BC."  Paper presented at the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Chicago, July 21, 2005 (Landscape Archaeology Workshop organizer).

"The Evolution of Settlement at Tell Brak, Syria: Preliminary Results of the 2003 Surface Collection." Paper delivered at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, San Antonio, November 20, 2004. (Co-authored with Philip Karsgaard.)

"Urbanism and Landscape in Bronze Age Northern Mesopotamia."  Lecture delivered at Harvard University, Anthropology Department, November 4, 2004 (invited lecture).

"The Social Context of Food Consumption in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia." Paper presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Montreal, Canada, April 3, 2004.

"Urbanism and Social Complexity in Early Bronze Age Northern Mesopotamia."  Paper delivered at the Sixth Biennial Meeting of the Complex Societies Group, UCLA, November 8, 2003 (Invited Presenter).

"A GIS-Based Reassessment of the Waters of Nineveh."  Paper delivered at the 49th Annual Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, London, July 8, 2003.

"Remote Sensing and GIS Applications in the Study of North Mesopotamian Road Networks."  Paper delivered at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 12, 2003.

"The Use of Site Area and Cultivated Territory to Provide Cross Checks on Ancient Population Estimates," T.J. Wilkinson and Jason Ur. Paper delivered at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 10, 2003

"Recent Survey and Landscape Archaeology in the Upper Khabur Basin."  University of Chicago Workshop on Archaeological Survey, January 31, 2003.

"Third Millennium Road Systems in Upper Mesopotamia."  Paper delivered at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Toronto, November 21, 2002.

"Settlement and Landscape in Northern Mesopotamia: The Tell Hamoukar Survey 1999-2001."  Paper delivered at the 3rd International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Université de Paris I, April 17, 2002.

"Remote Sensing and GIS in Archaeological Field Methodology: Applications to Site Survey and Landscape Archaeology in the Upper Khabur Basin."  Remote Sensing and GIS Methods and Applications in Southwest Asia Workshop, University of Chicago, February 23, 2002.

"Urbanization and its Impact on the Landscape of the 3rd Millennium B.C. Upper Khabur Plain, Northeastern Syria."  Paper presented at the American Schools of Oriental Research Annual meeting, Denver, November 16, 2001.

"Settlement and Landscape Reconstruction in the Upper Khabur Basin, Northeast Syria."  Lecture presented for the University of Chicago Committee on Archaeological Studies' Interdisciplinary Archaeology Workshop, February 22, 2001.

"Looking at Ancient Cities from Space: Using Satellite Images to Study Early Urbanism in Northern Mesopotamia."  Lecture presented to the South Suburban Archaeological Society, July 20, 2000.

"Ancient Route Systems and Urbanism in the 3rd Millennium BC Upper Khabur Basin."  Paper delivered at the 2nd International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, University of Copenhagen, May 23, 2000.