Hello in the new millenium,
Gerry asked:
>Are there archaeological instances when agriculture and the city existed as
>one?
I'm not sure I understand you correctly, Gerry, but I believe the
'coincidence' of agriculture and 'town-life' (we wouldn't call those 'towns'
towns nowadays, so let's call it a -large- settlement) you're looking for
occurred e.g. in Neolithic Anatolia. You'll probably be amazed about the
beauty of the frescoes and the power of the art from Catal Hoeyuek (now
western Turkey), where houses were built as glued one to the other (much
like modern Mediterranean villages), but didn't have doors (they entered
them from the roofs) and a large percentage of the houses seem to have been
sacral buildings, depicting bull's horns, mighty vultures and hunting
scenes, but there is also a wall filled with the imprints of the (a?) human
hand.
The excavator who published about it was James Mellaart. It's worth having a
look at. Cf. also
http://goethe.ira.uka.de/catal/ where some of the ultra
modern excavation methods are supposed to be seen and a CD can be ordered (I
haven't managed to open that page yet, but as I know the methods from books,
it's certainly worth while trying!)
Best wishes
Sabine