Empires are analyzed more often than villages, in the same way that temples are analyzed more carefully than houses, both because they are more impressive and because they are usually better preserved. This means that what we know about rural settlements is substantially less than in other areas of archaeology, but not that rural settlements are therefore less significant. Because of the relationships between rural and urban development, our understanding of rural settlements in the Neo-Assyrian Empire can contribute to our view of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as a whole. For the purposes of this essay – which discusses rural settlements rather than the Empire – the Neo-Assyrian Empire is an area within which rural settlements took place and a system within which rural settlements functioned. 'Rural settlement' as a process (the verb) and 'rural settlement' as a place (the noun) are related as cause and consequence (settlement creates settlements) but are approached archaeologically differently (landscape versus land archaeology). site). Currently, evidence of Neo-Assyrian rural settlements is dominated by surveys rather than excavations. While this allows us to draw conclusions about the functioning of the Empire as a whole, it is difficult to answer questions about daily life within the settlements: who worked in the fields? What were the relationships between men and women? These questions remain largely unanswered. This essay will begin by placing the Neo-Assyrian Empire in a broader context and then briefly discuss the role of various types of site-based evidence for rural settlement. Three case studies on the broader landscape follow (Figure 1), which will best support the topic of this essay. The first, the Tell Beydar area, s......middle of paper......logical landscapes: current issues. Philadelphia: UPenn Museum of Archaeology.Wilkinson, T.J., 2003. Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.Wilkinson, T.J., 1998. Water and human settlement in the Balikh Valley, Syria: Investigations 1992 to 1995. In Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 63 - 87. Wilkinson, T.J., 1993. Landscape studies in Upper Mesopotamia. Available at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/ar/92-93/jazira.html [Accessed 7 April 2011].Winter, I., 2009. Ornament and the “Rhetoric of Abundance” in Assyria . In On Art in the Ancient Near East: First Millennium BC Leiden: BRILL.Yener, AK & Wilkinson, TJ, 2007. Archaeological survey in the Amuq Valley: Annual report 1995-1996. Available at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/ar/95-96/amuq.html [Accessed April 10, 2011].