This volume presents the proceedings of an international workshop entitled The Archaeology of the
Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont in the Second Millennium BC, which was held from 21 to 22 January 2010
within the framework of the Topoi Excellence Cluster at the Freie Universität Berlin. One of the main
goals in organizing this workshop was to privilege discussions in which scholars could exchange
and confront results of recent archaeological research in the upper Mesopotamian piedmont regions.
When the outcomes of the discussion were summarized, the question of political space(s) arose as a
central topic for almost all of the papers collected here. This introductory piece therefore has the twofold aim of describing the background of archaeological research in the upper Mesopotamian piedmont and providing a starting point for further discussion of the creation of political space(s) in this
area and beyond