A small settlement existed at the site of Tell Brak, in the present Upper Khabur area in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria, as early as 6000 BCE, and materials from the Late Neolithic Halaf culture have been found there.

Occupation has continued into the succeeding Ubaid and Uruk periods.

Excavations and surface survey of the site and its surroundings reveal a city that developed from the early fourth millennium BCE contemporaneously with (or even slightly earlier than) better-known cities of southern Mesopotamia, such as Uruk.

The most dramatic discoveries during recent excavations are a series of mass graves dating to circa 3800–3600 BCE, which suggest that the process of urbanization was accompanied by warfare.

A house in Tell Brak dating to around 3700 BCE would have had a long narrow courtyard with a domed oven, large enough for a gathering that would have tightly packed the space.

Skeletal remains show that the city was later a source for donkey-onager mules used for drawing wheeled carts before the introduction of the horse, about 2300 BCE.