ABSTRACT
Of all the natural factors that impact (or are impacted by) human activity, to fullyunderstand the multi-millennial settlement history of ancient Sumer (and – perhaps more importantly – to understand what of that history is archaeologically visible), it is crucial to understand the dynamic interplay of water and sediments through rivers and marshes, levees and plains, lagoons and estuaries, and, finally, the sea. For without these elements, much of what came to be distinctly “Sumerian” simply would not have been.
