I CHAPTER1

From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations

fROM HUNTING AND GATHERING TO CIVILIZATIONS, 2.5 MILLION-1 000 B.C.E.: ORIGINS

The earliest known, fully human species lived in east Africa about 2.5 million

years ago. Gradually humans developed a more erect stance and greater brain capacity. Early humans lived by hunting and gathering. Because

hunting-and-gathering economies require a great deal of space-on average

about 2.5 square miles per person-populations remained small, and peo­ple lived in small groups. Even a modest population increase in a hunting­

and-gathering group required part of the group to migrate in search of new

game. Tens of thousands of years ago, the most advanced of the human species, Homo sapiens sapiens, migrated from Mrica into the Middle East,

then into Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Early humans devel­

oped tools, first using stones, sticks, and other natural objects. Gradually, people learned to fashion tools and weapons from stone, bone, and wood.

Agriculture began at different times in different places, from about

10,000 years ago onward. It developed independently in at least three

regions and perhaps more. The map shows the early centers of food pro­duction and the foods involved. Gradually, agriculture spread widely, though

not universally, from these initial centers.

The development of agriculture was a radical change in humans' way of life. By providing a dependable source of food, it allowed people to live in

larger groups. Later on, toolmaking technology advanced with the discovery

of metalworking, which in tum further increased agricultural production. Increased production freed some members of the society to perform other

kinds of work. This in turn encouraged a further series of organizational

changes we call civilization. Early civilizations arose in five different sites, four of them along the fer­

tile shores of great rivers. At least three and possibly all five of these early civ­

ilizations arose entirely independently of each other. The map of early civilizations makes another point clear: large parts of the world were not

involved in these developments. Early world history focuses on agricultural

civilizations, but it must also pay attention to regions that developed differ­

ent kinds of economies and different organizational structures.

·~

PACIFIC OCBA'N

~ Centen of ClvUIMtlon

PACIFIC OCBAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

INDIAN OCBAN

INDIAN OCBAN

I'ACIFIC OCBAN

\ .· '

)

, . "

)

4 PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Million-1000 B.C.E.: Origins

2.5 million Emergence of Homo sapiens in eastern Africa

.I Ill :tIll I Ill -· 1 million Emergence of 120,000 Emergence of 30,00D-25,000 Pas- 850D-e500 Domestica-Homo erectus, an Homo sapiens sapiens, sage of first people to lion of sheep, pigs, upright, tool-using which displaces other Americas goats, cattle human human species 15,000..12,000 850D-3500 Neolithic 600,000 Wide spread of Domestication of dogs Age; development of human species across farming in Middle East Asia, Europe, Africa; control of fire

Hunting-and-gathering societies offered an intriguing mixture of features. Not surprisingly, material life could be meager. The food supply could be precarious,

which was one reason for frequent movement and migration, as when the supply of

game ran low. On the other hand, average workdays were short, leaving a good bit of time for rest, ritual, and play. Warfare was limited. Hunting bands might con­

front one another, but conflict involved more bluster than bloodshed-more seri­

ous wars developed only when societies become more advanced. Men and women both had important though separate economic tasks, and overall formal inequality

was usually limited. Here too, more complex societies would bring changes that

were not necessarily improvements.

TRIGGERS FOR CHANGE

The key story in the long early phases of human history focuses on adaptation to environments, and particularly the search for adequate food supplies. Humans still

react to their environment, but the process was more visible in earlier periods,

when human ability to control aspects of the environment was less well developed. The early changes in human history-evolutionary development, more advanced

toolmaking, and the extensive migrations-all occurred within the context of a

hunting-and-gathering economy.

About ten thousand years ago, in the Black Sea region, hunting became less productive. With the end of the ice age, climate changes may have reduced big

game animals in the region. Perhaps a human population increase led to excessive

hunting, depleting the supply of animals. Hunting groups sometimes deliberately

kill off too much game, far more than needed, with the unintended consequence of producing a food crisis. Whatever the causes of the shortage, people were forced

to look for new sources of food. Women, as gatherers, had undoubtedly become

aware of the possibility of deliberately planting seeds and harvesting grain. Thus the rise of agriculture was under way.

l

I

PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Million-1 000 B.C.E.: Origins 5

=··· =··· .Ill '''

7000 First town at 5800 Beans domesti- 5000 Domestication of 4000-3000 Develop-Jericho cated in Western maize (corn) ment of writing, bronze

Hemisphere 500G-2000 Yangshao metalworking, wheel,

culture in north China plow in Middle East

350G-1800 Sumerian civilization

310G-1087 Founding and flowering of Egypt-ian civilization

250G-1500 Indus civi-lization in south Asia

Even the advent of new social organizations associated with civilization involved

efforts at greater environmental control. Early civilizations provided social stnlc­

tures that could coordinate projects like irrigation. The early civilizations also

emerged after the invention of new kinds of tools. The wheel and metal hand tools,

initially of bronze, could increase agricultural production and transport. But they

also depended on some new manufacturing skills. Greater specialization and

greater productivity alike encouraged the kind of organization that early civilization

involved. New technology helped shape another new stage in world history.

THE BIG CHANGES

Agriculture offered a very different set of opportunities and problems than hunting­

and-gathering, and these had far-reaching consequences. Agriculture altered family

forms, for example, by encouraging higher birth rates. It reduced migration, for

in most agricultural regions, permanent settlements arose fairly quickly. By creat­

ing a surplus of food in most years, agriculture permitted a portion of the popula­

tion to engage in occupations other than food production. This led to the

development of unprecedented levels of social inequality, including heightened

inequality between men and women. Agriculture altered the environment, some­

times resulting in overcultivation that depleted the soil. Surplus food allowed

humans to live in larger groups, and by doing so it created new vulnerability to

communicable diseases. While agriculture clearly generated a mixture of advan­

tages and disadvantages, its greater food production helps explain why it tended

to spread and why many people were willing to change basic aspects of their lives

to create this economic shift.

As agriculture produced surplus food, the population grew rapidly. In the most

fertile areas, agricultural centers developed the organizational forms associated with

civilization, most notably formal political stnlctures and cities. Not all did so: state­less, loosely organized agricultural societies persisted in a few places until relatively

'''

1850 Origins of Shang kingdom in China

1800 Formation of Babylonian Empire in Middle East

170G-1300 Rise of village culture in Mesoamerica

1800 Beginning of Indo-European invasions of India and parts of the Mediterranean and Mid-die East

1800 Spread of civilize-tion to Crete (Minoan)

1250 Moses and Jewish exodus from Egypt (according to Jewish belief)

l

6 PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Million-1000 B.C.E.: Origins

modern times. But more formal political structures-states-plus larger urban cen­

ters-cities-as places to exchange goods and ideas could further the direction of

agricultural economies. It was no accident that the first four centers of civilization

developed along river valleys, with their opportunities for irrigation: civilization

resulted from the prosperity of this kind of agriculture but also responded to its

organizational needs. Civilizations also helped direct many of the surpluses of agri­

cultural economies to upper-class groups-rulers, landlords, and sometimes priests. As with agriculture, though to a lesser extent, the arrival of civilizations had wider

consequences. Most early civilizations, for example, developed monumental build­

ings-often associated with religion-and more formal art and culture were stan­dard features of this final great innovation in early human history.

CONTINUITY

While the development of agriculture brought enormous changes, it is important to remember that important continuities persisted as well. Changes took place very

slowly. It took thousands of years for humans to develop New Stone Age technolo­

gies such as fashioning tools rather than simply picking up suitably shaped objects. The slow pace of change had two causes. First, inventing fundamental new

devices took time. In some cases, it never occurred at all: impressive agricultural

societies flourished without ever developing the wheel or metal tools. In addition,

many people remained attached to old ways. Because the food supply was so pre­carious, taking the risk of innovation probably seemed dangerous. This was one rea­

son that agriculture, though it did fan out from its initial centers, took so long to

spread widely. People cherished the habits long associated with migration. Many men valued the challenge of hunting. Some groups held out against agriculture,

even when they knew of it.

Change could produce efforts to preserve older values in new ways. In hunting­

and-gathering societies, men and women both had key productive roles; the roles

were very different but they generated some mutual respect. With agriculture, men

took on functions that probably seemed rather feminine, because they were linked to food gathering. They had far less time to hunt or to enjoy the masculine rituals asso­

ciated with hunting. So men looked for ways within agriculture to emphasize man­

hood. One common response was to claim new levels of superiority over women. This was a key change in gender relations, but it can also be seen as a kind of compensa­

tion. To this extent, men could feel that not all traditions were being lost.

Once established, agriculture generated its own impulses toward continuity. Many peasant farmers clung fervently to traditional techniques and village struc­

tures, regarding further change with great suspicion. Thus, a tension between

change and continuity was built into early human experience.

IMPACT ON DAILY LIFE: CHILDREN

Children are an important part of any human society. Some aspects of children's lives are doubtless natural, part of human experience at any time, in any place. But

the arrival of agriculture had huge implications for children. Hunting-and-gathering

societies depended on a relatively low birth rate, with few children per family. Too

PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Million-1 000 B.C.E.: Origins 7

many children would overwhelm resources; and no family could easily transport

more than one young child during migrations. So hunters and gatherers limited

births, mainly by breast feeding each child for up to four or five years, thus reduc­

ing the chances of new conception. With agriculture, however, more children could be supported, and indeed chil­

dren became a vital part of the family labor force. Infants began to be weaned at

about 18 months on average, a huge change from earlier human patterns. Birth rates shot up-agricultural families usually averaged five to seven children, though

some would die, as infant mortality rates were high. Childhood began to be defmed

in terms of work. Even young children had obligations. And by the time they were

teenagers, their families depended on their labor. This was a dramatic redefinition

of childhood, even as children became more numerous in the population at large.

Civilization, as an organizational form, had less impact on children, but it

added its own changes. Most civilizations developed written language, though only

a minority could afford the time to learn to write. As a result, the vast majority of

children worked, but an elite minority were sent to school. Also, civilizations used

codes of law and other prescriptions to emphasize the duties of children to their families. All agricultural civilizations emphasized the authority of parents over chil­

dren and children's obligation to obey their parents. In this way, civilizations tried

to instill in children a willingness to work for the benefit of their families. Some law codes, as in early Judaism, allowed parents to kill disobedient children. An early

Chinese saying stated simply: "No parent is ever wrong." Children could be loved

and could flourish, but there was a distinctive tone of strict discipline and obedi­

ence in agricultural civilizations that bolstered the necessity of children's labor. Small wonder that some hunting-and-gathering or herding groups, when they

encountered civilizations, were shocked at how rigorously children were handled.

Many American Indians were appalled by the harsh physical discipline European immigrants dealt out to their children. Here was an example of agriculture's pro­

found impact on daily life.

Chapter 1 describes the development of agriculture and the ways in which it changed the lives of early humans. It then describes how farming led, in fertile river

valleys, to the development of civilization. It also notes the limits of these develop­

ments-the many regions that continued living by hunting and gathering as well as

the different trajectory that was followed by societies whose people lived by herding animals rather than by farming.

CHAPTER

1

Human Life in the Era of Hunters and Gatherers

Human Life Before Agriculture

The Neolithic Revolution

Civilization

VISUALIZING THE PAST:

Mesopotamia in Maps

DOCUMENT: Hammurabi's Law Code

The Heritage of the River Valley Civilizations

IN DEPTH: The Idea of Civilization in World Historical Perspective

The First Civilizations

GLOBAL CONNECTIONS:

The Early Civilizations and the World

From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations

0 ne day in 10,000 B.C.E., a solitary figure walked by the edge of the

Pecos River in the American Southwest. He may have been out

hunting or traveling between settlements, but he stopped there to

gather up some dead grass and driftwood into a pile. He used his sharpened

spear to cut a dead twig from an overhanging cottonwood tree and took a

long, dried yucca leaf from his leather belt. He knelt down and held the twig

upright on the centerline of the leaf. Then, as he had done many times

before, he twirled the stick between his hands until the friction between twig

and leaf produced a gleam, or glowing ember, which he quickly transferred to

the grass and wood he had gathered. He tended the flame until it grew into a

fire that provided not only some warmth, but a means of cooking a meal.

When he subsequently rejoined others of his kind, he may have talked about

his journey and how he lost his yucca leaf fire-starter at that campsite by the

river. Of course we have no evidence of his conversation, just the yucca leaf he

left behind, found by an archeologist more than 9000 years later.

Our Neolithic (New Stone Age) traveler sends us a number of messages

about early world history. Most obviously, he was a tool user who not only

picked up natural objects but deliberately crafted them to hunt for and pre­

pare his food. As such, he differed from all other animals (a few other kinds

of animals are tool users, but none make their tools). He also knew how to use

fire, a major human discovery that had occurred many thousands of years

before. The use of fire for cooking allowed early humans to eat a wider vari­

ety of foods, particularly animal protein.

This traveler was in what we now call America, far from eastern Mrica,

where human beings first evolved. Just decades ago, it was believed that the

first humans migrated from northeast Asia into what is now Alaska only 12,000

years ago. Vastly improved archeological techniques have recently revealed

that the crossing was made at least as early as 25,000 B.C.E. and that the

migrants spread out quickly, probably traveling both overland and by boat

along the Pacific coast, from Alaska to Chile.

Finally, we know our mend could talk. Human beings had developed what

some call the "speech gene" about 70,000 years earlier, vastly improving the

species' capacity to communicate beyond the sounds and gestures common to

F1GURE 1.1 ~ aeaJI'IIII a Will ltD 8helter !he flnrt ~from wind, a Nealthlc warn&n ~Fin• a dried yucca .talk -aaJnet a mucfMIIIad tlr!HtarblrtD ~heat that will kindle a than the dried plant mld8ltlln hu p**l un•lhe ~tac:k.

a number of animal groups. Neollihic human& were

what we 110melima call "primilive,~ but they had already experienced a number of fundamental change~, and in

some plac.e$ they were poised to introduce more.

Human Life In the Era of Hunters and Gatherers • Hunting and gathering economb domi!Wed

human hiltory until 9000 B..C.L These ecoDomie.l helped propel migration <M:r moet of the Iandi on earth.

The human species has accomplished a great deal in a relatively short period of time. There are !ignifi­cant diaagreement8 over how long an easentially

human species, as distinct from other primates, has emted. However, a figure of 2 or 2.5 million yean aec:m~~ acceptable. Thia iJ approximately 1/4000 of the time the earth has existed. That Is, if one t:hln:b of the whole hilltory of the eanh to date as a !+hour day. the human species began at about 5 minutes before mid­night. Human beingl have emted for leu than 5 per­cent of the time mammal& of any son have lived. Yet In this brief span of time-by earth·hiltory standards­humankind has spread to every landmaas (with the exception of the polar regioDJJ) and, for better or worse, has taken control of the dectinies of countless other species.

To be sure, human beings have some drawbacb as a apecie~, compared to other exiJting models. They are unurually aggretllive againrt their own kind: While acme of the great ape~, notably chimpanzees, engage in periodic wan, theae comlict8 can hardly riwl human

9

10 PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Million-1000 B.C.E.: Origins

2.5 million Emergence of more humanlike species, initially in eastern Africa

25,000 Migration of people from Siberia to tip of South America

1 0,000-8000 Development of farming in the Middle East

8000 First potter's wheel

4000 Yangshao culture in China

2500 Emergence of Harappan (Indus) civilization

2000 Kotosh culture in Peru

9000 Domestication of sheep, pigs, goats, cattle

5500 Catal Hiiyiik at its peak

4000-3000 Age of innovation in the Middle East: introduction of writing, bronze metalwork, wheel, plow

2000 Conver­sion to agricul­ture in northern Europe, south­ern Africa

750,000 Further develop­ment of human species into Homoerectus

14,000 End of great ice age

12,000 Fashioning of stone tools; end of Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age

8000 Transition of agriculture; introduction of silk weaving in China

5000 Domestication of maize (corn) in Mesoamerica

1500 Emergence of Shang kingdom in China; writing develops

800,000 Wide spread of human species across Asia, Europe, Africa; development of fire use

240,000-100,000 Appar­ent completion of basic human evolution; migra­tions from Africa begin; Homo sapiens sapiens displaces other human species

violence. Human babies are dependent for a long period, which requires some special child-care arrangements and often has limited the activities of many adult women. Certain ailments, such as back problems resulting from an upright stature, also bur­den the species. And, insofar as we know, the human species is alone in its awareness of the inevitability of death-a knowledge that imparts some unique fears and tensions.

Distinctive features of the human species account for considerable achievement as well. Like other pri­mates, but unlike most other mammals, people can manipulate objects fairly readily because of the grip pro­vided by an opposable thumb on each hand. Compared to other primates, human beings have a relatively high and regular sexual drive, which aids reproduction. Being omnivores, they are not dependent exclusively on plants or animals for food, which helps explain why they can live in so many different climates and settings. The unusual variety of their facial expressions aids commu­nication and enhances social life. The distinctive human brain and a facility for elaborate speech are even more important: much of human history depends on the knowledge, inventions, and social contracts that result­ed from these assets. Features of this sort explain why many human cultures, including the Western culture that many Americans share, promote a firm separation

3500-1800 Civilization ofSumer; cuneiform alphabet

3100 Rise of Egyptian civilization

1500 First ironworik in the Middle East

1200 Jews settle near the Mediterranean; first monotheistic religion

1122 Western Zhou kings

between human and animal, seeing in our own species a power and rationality, and possibly a spark of the divine, that "lower" creatures lack.

Human Life Before Agriculture • Human societies spread widely geographically.

• Tool use gradually improved in the hunter­gatherer economy.

Although the rise of humankind has been impres­sively rapid, its early stages can also be viewed as painfully long and slow. Most of the 2 million plus years during which our species has existed are described by the term Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age. Throughout this long time span, which runs until about 14,000 years ago, human beings learned only simple tool use, mainly through employing suitably shaped rocks and sticks for hunting and warfare. Fire was tamed about 750,000 years ago. The nature of the species also gradually changed during the Paleolithic, with emphasis on more erect stature and growing brain capacity. Archeological evidence also indicates some increases in average size. A less apelike species, whose larger brain and erect stance allowed better tool

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Pluhllltory to the E'a~y Civilization& 11

use, emerged between 500,000 and '150,000 yean ago; it iB called, appropriate­ly enough, Ht1tM ~. Sev­eral apecie11 of H- mctw developed and !pread in Africa, then to Aeia and Europe, reaching a popula­tion size of perhaps l.!S ~ lion 100,000 yean ago.

Late Paleolithic Development. Considerable evidence mg­gests that mo:re advanced types of humans kined off or displaced many competitora over time, which explaim why there i8 only one buic human type throughout the world today, rather than a number of rather similar human apecle&, as among monkeys and apes. There waa a1ao a certain amount of intermarriage. The newest human breed, R- ,..,_

ROUIE tJI In r.a.c:.ux. F..,_, ln1940. fOur bop flalppened upon al019hl~- Ill led wtth UIOUIIIICII ol QOmpleX and ~I Slon1 ,..!M11n1111111 like Ullll 0111. Moet of 1tle PQ!ntlnga ... of ani mala, eome ofWI11Cfl were Ullnc:t ~ 1t1e time they were painted. No - llnOW1I for sure WilY 8'lcne AQe ar!SitS painted INM prct~ne, bUt they Nm8ln a powllftll reminder or ure IIOPfliltice.tion of IIO-C4lled primitive peopleo&.

MJ/If-. of which aU humans in the 'WOrld today are de!ICelldanU, originated about 240,000 yean ago, aho in Africa. The tucceea of thiB subllpecies meiUl.ll that there have been no n:ugor changes in the basic human physique or brain size !ince its advent.

Even after the appearance of H1»110 S6pilms sapiens, human life faced important con.etraint&. People who

hunted food and gathered nuu and berries collld not !upport large numbers or elaborate soci.e1ies. Most hunting groupe wt:re amall, and they had to roam widely for food. Two

Tool~~~ people required at le:ut one square mile for surrival. Population growth waa !low, partly

because women brea.rt..f'ed infanlll for several years to llmit their own fertility. On the other hand, people did not have to work very hard-hunting took about I!C'Vel1

hours every three days on average. Women, who gath­ered fruits and vegetables, worked harder, but there was significant equality between the sexes based on common economic contribution.s.

Paleolithic people gradually improved their tool we, beginning with the crude shaping of stone and wooden implements. Speech developed with HMM-. tw 100,000 yean ago, allowing more group coopera­tion and the ttllrUimieaion of technital bowledge. By the later Paleolithic period, people had developed rit­uals to lessen the fear of death and creatt:d cave paint-

iDgJ to expre.!oS a sense of nature's beauty and power (Figure 1.2). Godde~~aes often played a prominent role in the religiow pantheon. Thua, the human species came to develop cul~ia, Sf'lems ofbeliefthat helped explain the e:nvirollment and aet up rulet for various kind& of soda! behavior. The development of speech provided rich language and symbols for the tJ:anmlission of culture and ill growing 1ophiatication. At the same time, different groups of humans, in dif­ferent locations, developed quile varied belief systems and COrreiponding languages.

The greatest achievement of Paleolithic people wa5

the sheer spread of the human specie& over much of the earth's surface. The species origina~ in eaatern A&ica; most of the eartie.~~t types of human remains come from thiB region, in the pxaent-day countries of 1'an.z:ania, Kenya, and Uganda. But gradual migration, doubtless ";WH~ caWJed by the need to find scarce food, lfleadi- Populll:llons lypuahed the human reach to other areas. Key dlJlcoverles, notably fire and the uae of animal skins for clothing-both of which enabled people to live in cold­er climatea-facilitated the spread of Paleolithic group3. The first people moved out of Africa about 750,000 years ago. Human remains (Peking man, Java man) dating from 600,000 and 850,000 years ago have been found in China and eoutheut Alia, respectively.

12 PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Million-1000 B.C.E.: Origins

, . ..r PACIFIC OCEAN \ AUSTRALIA

~~------------~~----------------------~--'!~~ E3 l'ruc,.-<la)' >horehn"' \:) ¢

MAP 1.1 The Spread of Human Populations, c.10,000 B.C.E.

Humans inhabited Britain 250,000 years ago. They first crossed to Australia 60,000 years ago, followed by another group 20,000 years later; these combined to form the continent's aboriginal population. Dates of the migration from Asia to the Americas are under debate. Most scholars now believe that humans crossed what was then a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska about 30,000 years ago, with several subsequent migra­tion waves until warmer climates and rising ocean lev­els eliminated the land bridge by 8000 B.C.E. * Many of the new arrivals quickly spread out, reaching the tip of the South American continent possibly within a mere thousand years. Settlers from China reached Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia 4500 to 3500 years ago.

In addition, soon after this time-roughly 14,000 years ago-the last great ice age ended, which did won­ders for living conditions over much of the Northern Hemisphere. Human development began to acceler­ate. In the Mesolithic (Middle Stone) Age, a span of several thousand years, from about 12,000 to 8000 B.C.E., human ability to fashion stone tools and other

*In Christian societies, historical dating divides between years "before the birth of Christ" (B.C.) and after (A.D., anno Domini, or "year of our Lord"). This system came into wide acceptance in Europe in the 18th century, as formal historical consciousness increased (although ironically, 1 A.D. is a few years late for Jesus' actual birth). China, Islam, Judaism, and many other societies use different dating systems, referring to their own history. This text, like many recent world history materials, uses the Christian chronology (one has to choose some system) but changes the terms to B.C.E.

("before the common era") and c.E. ("of the common era") as ages­ture to less Christian-centric labeling.

[Eis, of.-..d<rohuR>Inb<illj! (lbno.OU09«11S)

[!J Sil o( a.rl)' t'A.nn:m lx:.in~ (Homo ha'mhs, llomo ttettus,l lomo Apicn....:...) ------'

implements improved greatly. People learned to sharpen and shape stone, to make better weapons and cutting edges. Animal bones were used to make nee­dles and other precise tools. From the Mesolithic also date the increased numbers of log rafts and dugouts, which improved fishing, and the manufacture of pots and baskets for food storage. Mesolithic people domes­ticated more animals, such as cows, which again improved food supply. Population growth accelerated, which also resulted in more conflicts and wars. Skele­tons from this period show frequent bone breaks and skull fractures caused by weapons.

In time, better tool use, somewhat more elaborate social organization, and still more population pressure led people in many parts of the world to the final Stone Age-the Neolithic (New Stone) Age (Map 1.1). From Neolithic people, in turn, came several more dramatic developments that changed the nature of human exis­tence-the invention of agriculture, the creation of cities, and other foreshadowings of civilization, which ended the Stone Age altogether throughout much of the world.

The Neolithic Revolution

• The Neolithic revolution centered on the development of agriculture.

Agriculture generated a variety of important changes in human cultures. Human achievements

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Pnlhllltory to the E'a~y Clvlllzatlona 13

during the variO'WJ ages af stone are both fascinating and fundamenml, and some points are hotly debated. Our knowledge af Stone Age IIOcicty is af coune limit· ed, although archeologists have been creative in their interpretations of tool remain.a and other eridence, IJUCh as cave paintinp and burial sites, that Stone Age people produced in various partll of the world. What people accomplished during thiJ long period of pre­history remains essential to human life today; our abil­ity to male and manipulate toola thua depends directly on what our Stone Age ancestors learned about physical matter.

However, it waa the invention of agriculture that moet dearly moved the human apeciea toward more elaborate aocial and culwral patterns of the aort that people today would find recognizable. With agri~ ture, human beings were able to settle in one apot and fucua on particular economic, political, and religious goals and activities. Agriculture also spawned a great inc:reaae in the sheer number of people in the world­from about 6 to 8 million BC1'0ill the earth's surface during early Neolithic time.&, to about 100 million some 3000 years later.

The initial development of agriculture-that ia, the deliberate planting af grain• fur later b.am::st--was

probably triggered by two l'e$ults of the ice age's end. F"ll'St, population increase.&, stem­ming from improved climate, prompted peo­ple to search for new and more reliable

~~,:'"of aourcea of food. Second, the end of the ice age .saw the retreat of certain big game ani­

mala, such as ma!todollll. Human hunters had to tum to pnalier game, auch u deer and wild boar, in many forested areaa. Hunting's overall yield declined. Here waa the buill for new interest in other aources of food. There is evidence that by 9000 B.c.z., in certain parts of the world, people were becoming inc::rcaaingly depend­ent on regular harvests of wild grains, berrie.s, and nuta. Thia undollbtedly set the stage for the deliberate planting of eeeda (probably accidental to begin with) and the improvement of key grain& through the selec­tion of seeds from the beat plan !I.

As fanning evolved, new animals were abo clome5-ticatecl. Particularly in the Middle East and parts of Asia, by 9000 B.C.E. pigs. sheep, goau, and cattle were being raised. Fanners used these animals for meat and Iikins and soon dilcovered dairying u well. These reiiUllll not only contributed to the development of agriculture but al80 seiW:d as the basis for nomadic: herding soc:ietiea.

Far:mingwasinitiallydeveloped in the Middle Eut, In an arc of tenitory running from pte$Cnt-day Turkey to Iraq and Israel This was a very fertile area, more fer­tile in thoae days than at present. Grains sw:h as barley and wild wheat were abundant. At the same time, this

area was not heavily forested, and animals were in short supply, presenting a challenge to hunters. In the Middle East, the development of agriculture mil)' have begun as early as 10,000 a.c.:r.., and It gained ground rapidly after 8000 B.C. E. Gradually during the Neolith­ic centuries, knowledge af agriculture spread to other centen, including parts of India, north Africa, and Europe. Agriculture, including rice culti'v.Uion, soon developed independently in China.. ThU!I, within a few thousand 'f'CIID agriculture had aprcad to the parts of the world that would produce the flnt human dvfll.za· lions (Map 1.2). We will see that agriculture spread. later to much of Africa aou1h af the Medit:emmean ccut, reaching wcat Africa by 2000 B.c.E., al1hough here too there were additional del'elopmenlll with an emphasis on local grairu and al.so root crops such as yams. Agriculture had to be invented separately in the .Americu, baaed on com alltiva!ion, where it waa aleo a lligbtly later d~ ment (about5000 B.c.E.).

Many scholan have termed the development of agriculture a Neolithic revollllion. The term is obvi­ously mialcading in one sense: agriculture wa.s no sud· den tranaformation, even in the Middle East where the new system had its root!!. Learning the new agri· cultural methods was difJicult, and many peoples long combined a bit of agriculture with considerable reliance on the older systems of lnmdDf and gadler-­illa'· A "revolution" that took. over a thousand years, and then eeveral thouaand more to apread to key pop­ulation centen in Asia, Europe, and Africa, i4 hardly dramatic by modern standards.

The concept of revolution is, however, appropri· ate in demonatrat.ing the magnitude of change involved. Early agriculture could l!lpport far more people per square mile than hunting ever could; it also allowed people to settle more permanently in one area. The II}'Btem was nonethelcu not euy. Agriculture required more regular wort:, at least of men, than hunting did. Hunting groups today, such as the pyg· mie. of the Xalahari d.eaert in aouthwest Africa, work. an average o£2.5 hours a day, alternating long, intense hunts with periods of idleness. As much as agriculture waa demanding, it was also rewarding. Agriculture supported larger populations, and with better food supplies and a more settled existence, agricultural peoples could afford to build houses and villages. Domesticated animals provided not only hides but a1Jo wool for more varied clothing.

We know ne:tt to nothing of the debases that must have raged when people were lint confronted with agriculture, but it is not hard to imagine that many would ha-re found the new life too complicated, too dlf· fi.cult, or too unexciting. Most evidence suggeslll that gathering-a.d-hunting peoples resisted agriculture u long u they could. Cndually, of coune, agriculture did

14 PART I • From Humlng arid Gathering 10 Cllllllz:a!lana, 2.6 Mllllo~1000 a.c.e.: Orlglna

......

....

PACIFIC OCEAN

[Q] Core llteas of agriculture

Bi!l Sprood ol'~

gain ground. It& succeu was hard to deny. And as farm· ers cleared new land from fore.sl:!l, they automatically drove out or convened many hun ten. Disease played a role: 1ettled agricultural societie! suffered from more t::ontagious di.&eases be<:au8e of den.eer population t::on· centrations. Hunting-QD«l-gathering people.s lacked remtance and often died when agrit::ulturislll who had de"Yeloped immunity to thc:ae di.&eaac:.s c::ar:ried them Into their areas.

Not all the peoplea of the world came to embrace the slowly spreading wave of agriculture, at lealt not until very recently. Impo11ant amall societies in south· em Africa., Australia, the islands of southeast Asia, and even northern Japan were isolated for so long that news of thi6 economic S)'lltem limply did not reach them. The whl~ldnned hunting tribes of northern Japan di.aappeared only about a hundred years ago. Northern Europeans and 110uthem Africana converted to agriculture earlier, about !000 yean ago, but weD. after the Neolithic revoludon had tranSformed other parl:!l of their continents. Agriculture waa initiated in the Americas u early as 5000 B.C.IL and developed vig· orously in Central America and the northem part of South America. However, most Indian tribea in North America continued a hunting-Qnd.gathering existence, sometimes combined with limited agriculture, until recent c::enturiea. Finally, the peoplea of the 'nl.!lt plain3 of central Asia long resisted a complete conversion to

agriculture, in part becaUIIe of a hanh climate; herd-

ing, rather than grain-growing, became the bask socioeconomic system of this part of the world. From this area would come waves of tough, nomadic invaders whose role in linking major ci'rilizati.ons wa1 a vital force in world hiatory until a few centurie-s ago.

Development possibilitie.s among people who became agriculturislll were more obvious than those among smaller populatiom who resiated or limply did not know of the system. Agriculture set the basi& for more rapid change in human societies.. Greater wealth and larger populations freed some people for other specializatiollll, from whic.h new ideal or teclmiquea might spring. Agriculwre itself depended on control aver nature that could be facilitated by newly d~ oped technique~ and objecm. For example, during the Neolithic period, Wmlog people needed storage ~ ities for grains and seeds, which promoted the dev& opment of basket-making and pottery. The first potter"a wheel c::ame into exiatenc::e around 6000 :B.c.E.,

and this, in tum, encouraged faster and hlgheNJ.Uiility pottery production. Agricultural needs also encour­aged certain kinds of science, aupporting the human inclination to learn more about weather or flooding.

Much of what we think of as human history involves the doing& of agricultural societiet-Societies, that is, in which most people are farmera and in which the production offood ia the central economit:: activi­ty. Nonagricultural group&, like the nonwlic herders in central Asia, made their own mart. but their great·

CHAPTER 1 • FromHumanPrehlstorytotheEarlyCivilizations 15

est influence usually occurred in interactions with agri­cultural peoples. Many societies remain largely agri­cultural today. The huge time span we have thus far considered, including the Neolithic revolution itself, is all technically "prehistorical"-involved with human patterns before the invention of writing allowed the kinds of recordkeeping historians prefer. In fact, since we now know how to use surviving tools and burial sites as records, the prehistoric-historic distinction means less than it once did. The preagricultural-agricultural distinction is more central. Fairly soon after the devel­opment of agriculture-although not, admittedly, right away-significant human change began to occur in decades and centuries, rather than in the sizeable blocks of time, several thousand years or more, that describe preagricultural peoples.

Indeed, one basic change took place fairly soon after the introduction of agriculture, and, again, soci­eties in the Middle East served as its birthplace. The discovery of metal tools dates back to about 4000 B.C.E.

Copper was the first metal with which people learned how to work, although a more resilient metal, bronze, soon entered the picture. In fact, the next basic age of human existence was the Bronze Age. By about 3000 B.C.E., metalworking had become so commonplace in the Middle East that the use of stone tools dissipated, and the long stone ages were over at last-although, of course, an essentially Neolithic technology persist­ed in many parts of the world, even among some agri­cultural peoples.

Metalworking was extremely useful to agricultural or herding societies. Metal hoes and other tools allowed farmers to work the ground more efficiently. Metal weapons were obviously superior to those made from stone and wood. Agricultural peoples had the resources to free up a small number of individuals as toolmakers, who would specialize in this activity and exchange their products with farmers for food. Spe­cialization of this sort did not, however, guarantee rapid rates of invention; indeed, many specialized arti­sans seemed very conservative, eager to preserve meth­ods that had been inherited. But specialization did improve the conditions or climate for discovery, and the invention of metalworking was a key result. Like agriculture, knowledge of metals gradually fanned out to other parts of Asia and to Mrica and Europe.

Gradually, the knowledge of metal tools created further change, for not only farmers but also manufac­turing artisans benefited from better tools. Woodwork­ing, for example, became steadily more elaborate as metal replaced stone, bone, and fire in the cutting and connecting of wood. We are still living in the metal ages today, although we rely primarily on iron-whose working was introduced around 1500 B.C.E. by herding peoples who invaded the Middle East-rather than copper and bronze.

Civilization

• The emergence of civilization occurred in many though not all agricultural societies.

• Early civilizations formed in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus River basin, and China.

Agriculture encouraged the formation of larger as well as more stable human communities than had exist­ed before Neolithic times. A few Mesolithic groups had formed villages, particularly where opportunities for fishing were good, as around some of the lakes in Switzerland. However, most hunting peoples moved in relatively small groups, or tribes, each containing any­where from 40 to 60 individuals, and they could not set­tle in a single spot without the game running out. With agriculture, these constraints changed. To be sure, some agricultural peoples did move around. A system called slash and burn agriculture existed in many parts of the world, including portions of the American South, until about 150 years ago. Here, people would burn off trees in an area, farm intensively for a few years until the soil was depleted, and then move on-often returning to earlier sites every 20-30 years. Herding peoples also moved in tribal bands, with strong kinship ties. The rise of nomadic herding economies was a vital development in Central Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.

The maJor agricultural regions, however, involved more permanent settlements. There were advantages to staying put: houses could be built to last, wells built to bring up water, and other "expensive" improve­ments afforded because they would serve many gener­ations. In the Middle East, China, and parts of Mrica and India, a key incentive to stability was the need for irrigation devices to channel river water to the fields. This same need helps explain why agriculture generat­ed communities and not a series of isolated farms. Small groups simply could not regulate a river's flow or build and maintain irrigation ditches and sluices. Irri­gation and defense encouraged villages-groupings of several hundred people-as the characteristic pattern of residence in almost all agricultural societies from Neolithic days until our own century. Neolithic settle­ments spread widely in agricultural societies. New ones continued to be founded as agriculture spread to regions such as northern Europe, as late as 1500 B.C.E.

(Figure 1.3). One Neolithic village, <;:atal Hiiyiik in southern

Turkey, has been elaborately studied by archeologists. It was founded about 7000 B.C.E. and was unusually large, covering about 32 acres. Houses were made of mud bricks set in timber frameworks, crowded togeth­er, with few windows. People seem to have spent a good bit of time on their rooftops in order to experience daylight and make social contacts-many broken

18 PART I • From Humlng arid Gathering 10 Cllllllz:a!lana, 2.6 Mllllo~1000 a.c.e.: Orlglna

ROUIE t.:t Skin Bnla.lac:«t8d In

ttt• omwy "'1/ld' orr 1M c:OMt or Sc:olllnf, IIIII uc:elllnt111o8J'11)18 or a late Neolithic Mtllell*lt. It datea fl!lm 1!100 B.C.E. HCIUSM inCluded epeclai~~~Dnea- for grain, wdel;, and o1hM~ MCIIItwaa ~on c:llyot_,. hMIIIMI that- 'Mitlla.tlld throullft a hoi• In the roo! cw bUilt Into 1M wall. Men dependable and wried food SUC~Piilla and IIIU~ howM gr-.tly enfBiced the -=urlty Mid camfart ortha s-1*' WhO I Mid In th­Mtllna118. Better conditions apul!'ed h__. blrltl ratea aid IOW8nld martllllty nltea,mleMt In tfmae wflan cnlp ylalcH were high.

bone.& attett to frequent m:lh. Some howe.a were lavishly deoorated, mainly with hunting scenes. ReligiOU!I images, both of powerful

1111 Ntdlil~ male hunters and "mother goddeuet" dewt­VIIIQt ed to agricultural fertility, were common, and some people in the village aeem to have had special religioUII responaibiliti.ea. The village produced almost all the goods it consumed. Some ttade was conducted with hunting people~ who lived in the hi1h I!Urround· ing the vilLage, but apparently it was initiated more to keep the peace than to produce economic gain (F'Ig· ure 1.4). By 5500 B.C.E., important p:rod1U:tion activi­ties developed in the village, including th<* of skllled toolmakers and jewelers. With time also came linb with other communities. Large villages like Catal HUyiilr. ruled cm:r smaller communitiee. 1'hia meant that some familiee began to specialize in politics, and military forces were organized. Some villages became small cities, ruled by kings who were typically given divine status.

By SOOO B.c.z., (Jatal HUyiik had become part of a cm!ixation. Although many of the charat:teristia of cN­ilization had es:isted by 6000 or !5000 B..C.l!. in this Mid­dle Eastern region, the origins of civilization, strictly •peaking, approximately date to only 5500 a.c.x. The first civilization aro.se in the Middle Ea&t along the ba.nb of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.. Another cen­ter of civilization 1tarted soon thereafter in northeast Africa (Egypt), and a third by around 2500 s.c.E. along the banks of the Indus River in northwestern India. The!e three early centers of civ:iliza!i.on had some interaction. The fourth and fifth early civilizalion cen­ters, a bit later and con.slderably more separate, arose in China and Central America.

Unlike an agriculmraiiOciety, which can be rather preci.aely defined, c:iYilUr:ldion i3 a more I!Ubjective con­struct. Some scholars prefer to define civilizations only :u societie! with enough economic surplUII to form ~ siom of labor and a .social hierarchy invol'ring signifi­cant ineq_uallties. This 1.& a very inclusive definition, and

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Pluhllltory to the E'a~y Civilization& 17

under it m0.11t agricultural societies and even some groups like North .American mdiam who combined fiuming with hunling would be drawn in. Others, how­ever, press the concepts of clvillzaUon further, arguing, for example, that a chief difference between civiliza­tiollS and other societies (whether huuling or agricul­tuial) involva the emergence of formal political organizations, or states, as opposed to dependence on family or tribal tie11. Most civilizations produce political unim capable of ruling large n:gi.ons, and some char­acteristically produce huge 'kingdoms or empire$.

The word ~ itself comes from the Latin term for cily. and in truth most ci'VilizaUom do depend on the emtence of tignificant cities. In agricult:ural civ­ilizationa, most people do not live in cities. But cities are crucial becawe they ama&S wealth and power, they allow the rapid exchange of ideas among relatively large numben of people, thereby encouraging intel­lecwal thought and artistic expre&Sion, and they pro­mote specialization in manufacturing and trade.

MO.IIt civilizatiom developed wriling, slm:ting with the em~ce of ~orm (writing bued on wedge­like charactera) in the Middle East around 3500 B.C. E.

Societies that employ writing can organize more elab­orate political s1Iucturet becaUJe of their ability to send mesaages and keep records. They can tax more e:fliciently and make contraclll and treaties. Societies with writing also generate a mare explicit intellectual climate becawe of their ability to record data and bulld on past. written wisdom. (One of the early writ­ten records from the Middle East is a recipe for mak­ing beer--a science of a sort.) Some experts argue that the very fact of becoming literate changes the way peo­ple thinl:, encour:aging them to consider the 'M>rld as

a place that can be understood by organized human inquiry, or "rationally: and le.u by a h0.11t of spiritual belie&. In all agricult:ural civilimtioDJ-that is, in all human lililtory until le&S than 200 years ago-only a minority of people were literate, and u.rually that was a small minority. Nonethele55, the existence of wriling did make a difference in such societies.

Since c:iv:ilization.a employ writing and are by defini­tion unusually weD organized. it is not surprl!ing that almost all recorded hiatory u about what ha.t happened to civilized societies. We simply lmow the most about such societies, and we often are particularty impn!&lled by what they produce in lhe way of great art or powerful I1llc:rs.. It it also true that civilizationa tend to be mr mare populous than nomadic or hunting-ud-gadlering aoci­eties. Therefore, the histnry of civilizaxion generally cov­ers the hiatnry of most people.

But the history of civilization does not include everybody. No hunting or nomadic peoples could gen­erate a civili.r.ation-they lacked the stability and resources, and. with the exception of a limited number of signa and symbob, they never developed writing, unle&S it came from the outside. Funhermore, some agricultmal peoples did not develop a full ciY:ilization, if our definition of civilimtion goes beyond the Bimple acquisition of economic surplus to formal statt$, cities, and writing. Portion& of west Africa, fully agricultuial and capable of imprelllli.ve art. have long lacked writing, major cilic:s, or more than loose regional government..

People in drilizations, particularly during the long centuries when they were I!UlTOunded by nomadic peo­ple.~, characteristically looked down on any society ladr:ing in civilization. The ancient Greeb coined the word bal'botri41t to describe such cases-indeed, they

PIGURII1..4 Thll a.n!al'a renCIMPICI d~ til&--Mtlfem&nt 8l Qll.tlll HOyOk, In what I• now 80ult1.-nl!Jrtu¥ Movwnent wlttlln UuJ M«<!ement­maNy..-1t1e RlOI'I «nd Wr!'lu:lM ot the 110u-.. a--eaott dwealg hal a IUbltamfii81Creroom for food, !lie Mtlfement-often thetatoet ot -kll by aut81dllns. Aa til a plllntlng ell owe. lh~Jhou-- )Oinecl ~ to PfVII!Cie )l!Utee110n from eueh al:tiK:kll; Whlnth&outaleleenn-­banlcadld, th& complex wu tl'llnilfalmed into • t'lltnA

18 PART I • From Humlng arid Gathering 10 Cllllllz:a!lana, 2.6 Mllllo~1000 a.c.e.: Orlglna

were prone to regard all non-Greeks 3.!1 barbarians. & a re.~ult of labels like this, it ia euy to think of much human hiltory aa divided between civilizaliom and primldve nomad&.

Such a di!linction is incorrect. however, and it doe.s not follow from the real hiltorical meaning of miliza. tion. In the fint place, like agriculture, civili.zalion brings lONeS 3.!1 well 3.!1 gains. All <;:atal Hiiyiik moved toward civi!iz.:uion, distinctions based on IIOcial cl.as and wealth increaaed. CM!izatiOWI often have firmer claaa or ca&te divisiom, including alavery, than do •simpler" soc::l· eties.. They also oft= promote greater separ:uion between the rulers and ruled, monarch& and subject!. Frequently, they are quite warlike, and there ia gn:ater inequality between men and 'M)men than in huntel' gadterer societies.. With civilization, more fiilly patriar­chal !tn.lctunls emerged. In citiCl'.!, male superiority was even clearer than in agriculture, aa men did m011t of the manufacturing and assumed political and religious lead.· enhip, thWI relegating women to aubon:linate roles. "Civilization,• then, iJ not a synonym far "good."

By the same token, nomadic qr hunte:r-gatherer societies may be exception.ally well reguWed and have intere.~ting, important c:ultures.. Many such societies, in met, have more regulations-in part, because they depend on rules tranamitted by word of mouth-than civilized societies. Some of the societies most eager to repr:as anger and aggrelllion in human dealings, such aa Zuni lndiam in the .Americm Southweat, are baaed at least in part on hunting and gathering. Although some hunting-gathering societies treat old people cru­elly, othen display more respect and veneration toward elden than moet civiliza.tiom do. Many nomadic soci· eties may be shocked by the doings of civilized peoples. For example, American Indians were appalled at the im:i.rtence of European settlers on spanking their chil­dren, a behavior they regarded aa vicioWI and unnec· euary. A fa.!lcinating, although probably llll.an!Wel'3ble, question involve11 determining whether or not the civi­lization form haa left more or lc:a good in im wake.

It 16 also Important to note that many nomadic peoples contributed greatly to world history. While many remaining hunting-and-gathering peoples became increaaingly iaolated, except in par1ll of the Americas, nomadic herding economies continued to flourish in many places.. They depended on the dome• tication of animals and on key technological impi'O'o'e­menbl, for c:xample in riding equipment and weaponry. Precisely becawe they traveled widely, nomadic peoplei could play vital roles in world trade and in developing conta.ctJ among more 1etded area.!!.

Nomadic groups in central &Ia would play a particu· larly great role in 'M)fld history, but groups in the Mid· die Ea.!!t and Africa were significant 3.!1 well.

Despite the imporllmce of alter:llalivea, i1 remaim true that the derelopment of cirilization most obvious-

ly continued the procesa of technological change and political organization. Civ:ilizaUOWI also generated the lalpt populatiom and the most elaborate artiltic and intellectual forms.lt is in this context that the term h3.!l real meaning and in which it legitimately commands the attention of molt historiam.

Civilization• abo increaxd human impact on the environment. For example, the first center of copper production in l!.lll'OJie, along the Danube valley, led to such defareltalion that the fuel supply waa deltroyed, and the industry collapsed after about 3000 B.c.:&. The extensive agriculrure needed to support Indus River cities opened the land to erosion and ftooding because of overuse af the soil and removal of trees.

Having started in 3500 B.C.E., civiliz:a.tion dev~ oped in its four initial centen-the Middle l!.alt, Egypt, northwettem India, and northeru China-over the fo~ lowing 2500 years. These area.!! covered only a tiny por· tion of the inhabited parts of the 'M)rld, although they were the moet densely populated. Such early ciriliza. tiOWI, all clustered in key river valleys, were in a way pilot tests of the new form of social organization. Only after about 1000 B.c.:r.. did a more consistent proc:eu of development and spread af c:ivilization begin-and with it came the main threadl afworld hilto:ry. Howev­er, the great civilizations unquestionably built on the achievements of the river valley pioneers, and so some understiiD.ding af this contribution to the list of early human accompliahmen1ll ia e~~~enlial.

Tlgrl..euphrate• Civilization The moet noteworthy achievements of the earliest~ lizations were early versions of organizational and ~ tural forms that moet of WI now take for granted: writing, formal codes of law, city planning and archi­tecture, md inltillltiOWI for trade, including the use of money. Once developed, most of theie building blocks of human organization did not have to be reinvented, although in some ca.'lel they aprnd only slowly to other paJU of the 'M)rld.

It is not SUJFriling then, given its lead in agri~ ture, memlworking, and village 111rUctUre, that the Mid­dle Eut generated the fint eJWDple of human dvillzation. Indeed, the fint dvill.z:ation, founded In the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in a part of the Middle E:ailt long called Ma.opotaaia. forms one of only a few caaes of a civilization developed absolute­ly from scratch-and with no examples from anyplace else to imitate. (Chinese civilization and civilization in Central America also developed independently.) By 4000 B.C.E., the farmers of Mesopotamia were familiar with bronze and copper and had already invented the wheel for tramportation. They had a well-eitabliJhed pottery indwtl}' and interesting anillic forms. Fanning in this area, beca:u~e of the need for irrigation,

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations 19

VISUALIZING THE PAST

Mesopotamia in Maps Throughout their centuries of existence, the Mesopotamian civilizations steadily expanded from their roots in the fertile val­ley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers . Reading the maps can help explain the nature of the civilizations in the region.

Questions What do these maps suggest about the rela­tionship between Mesopotamian civilizations and the topog-

SAHARA Thebes •

l

Mesopotamia and the Middle East

SY RIA. N OI. SERT

• Allid(?)

Babylon • ~ippur •CagMh

Ur• ""'S

ARABIA.

required considerable coordination among communi­ties, and this in tum served as the basis for complex political structures.

By about 3500 B.C.E., a people who had recently invaded this region, the Sumerians, developed a cuneiform alphabet, the first known case of human writing. Their alphabet at first used different pictures to represent various objects but soon shifted to the use of geometric shapes to symbolize spoken sounds. The early Sumerian alphabet may have had as many as 2000 such symbols, but this number was later reduced to

raphy of the Middle East? Does geography suggest reasons for invasion and political instability in this civilization center? Did later empires in the region have the same relationship to river valleys as did the earlier states? What might have caused the change? Why did even the larger empires not spread through the Arabian peninsula? What were the potential contacts between Mesopotamia and other river valley civi­lization centers? Why has the Middle East been so significant in European, Mrican, and Asian history?

PARTHIA

IRANIAN PLATEAU

PERSIA

ARACHOSIA

Arabian Sea

INDIAN OCEAN

about 300. Even so, wnt.mg and reading remained complex skills, which only a few had time to master. Scribes wrote on clay tablets, using styluses shaped quite like the modern ballpoint pen.

Sumerian art developed steadily, as statues and painted frescoes were used to adorn the temples of the gods. Statues of the gods also decorated individual homes. Sumerian science aided a complex agricultural society, as people sought to learn more about the movement of the sun and stars-thus founding the sci­ence of astronomy-and improved their mathematical

20 PART I • From Humlng arid Gathering 10 Cllllllz:a!lona, 2.6 Mllllo~1000 a.c.e.: Orlglna

knawiedge. (Astronomy defined the calendar and pro­vided the astrological foreca.rts widely wed in politia and reJi8ion.) The Sumeria.na employed a ')'litem of numbers based on units oflO, 60, and 360 that we stlD use in calculating circlei and hours. In other words, Sumer:ia:aJ and their Jucceuors in Me1opota:mia creat­ed pattern.8 of o b~~enation and ab.stract thought about nat:ure that a number of cimizationa, including our own, atill rely on, and they abo introduced specific q&­temJ, IJUCb. aa charlll of xwgor con&tdlation&, that have been c:urren.t at leaat among educated people for 5000 years, not only in the Middle Eaat, but by later imita· lion in India and Europe aa well.

Sumc:rian, developed romplc:x. reJ4Poua r:Uualt. Each city had a patron god and ereded impressive shrines to plea~~e and honor this and other deities. Ma.!lliYe towers, called ligundl. formed the first monumental m:hi.tec­ture in this milizalion. Profe111ional. prieltl operated these temples and conducted the rituals within.. Sumeri­an& belil:\'ed in many powerful gocb, for the nature on which their agriculture depended often seemed rwift and unpredictable. Prayera and oft'c:rinp to p~t floodl aa 'Wcll as to protect good health 'M!re a vital pan of Sumel'­ian life. Sumerian ideaa about the divine foroe in natural objectl--in ri:vers, trees, and mountain.t-were common among early agricultural peoples. A religion of this son. which aee.& god& in many aapedll of nat:ure, is known aa polytheism. More specifically, Sumerian religiow notiom, notably their idc:aa about the god&' creation of the earth from water and about the divine punishment of hum.ana through fl.oodl, lau!r influenced the writers of the Old 'Ialam.ent and thll! continue to play a role in Jewillh, OuiJtian, and Mwlim cullun:'& Sumerian reli· gioll.!l ideas, which had a decidedly gloomy cast, also included a belief in an afterlife of puni!hment-QD origi· n.aJ. wn:ion «the concqn of hell.

Sumerian political atructureJ 1tre~~~ed tightly organized d~ ruled by a king who claimed divine authority. The Sumerian state had carefully defined boundaries, unlike the leaa formal te:rritoria of preclvllized villages in the region. Here 1.& a key early example of how civilization and a more formal politi­cal at:ructw:e came together. The government helped regulate religion and enfun:e its duties; it aho provid­ed a court S)'lltem in the interests of jll.!ldce. Kings were originally military leaden during times of war, and the function of defense and war, including leadership of a trained army, remained 'rita! in Sumerian politica. Kings and the noble class, along with the priesthood, controlled conaiderable land, which was worked by lllavet. Thw began a tradition of slavery that would long mark Middle Easrem socletie&. Warfare remained vital to enaure supplies of slaYeS taken aa prisoners dur­ing combat. At the same time, slavery Wll! a variable ttate af c::xiJtence, and many slave• were able to eam money and even buy their freedom.

The Sumerians added to their region's agricultur· al pro!lperity not only by wing wheeled cart11 but alr.o by lc11111ing about fertilizen and by adopting ~ ~ silver as a means of exchange for buying and I -. _j. ~~elling-an early form of money. However, the ~ region wu abo hard to defend and proved a con!Jtant temptation to outside invaden from ~=!'$ Sumerian times to the present. The Sumeri-ana them~~elves feU to a people called the Aklwlians, who continued much of Sumerian culture. Another period of decline was followed by conqu«t by the au.,toa:lall.l. who c:x.tended their own empire and thw helped bring civilization to other pam of the Middle Eaat. It was under Babylonian rule that the :king Bammurabi introduced the most famous early code of law, bo:uting of his purpose: "to promote the welfare of the people, I, Hammurabi, the devout. god-fearing prince, can~~e juatice to prevail in the land by destroy­ing the wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppreas the -weak. • Hammurabi'a code euabli.shed ru!H of procedure for coUJ:U of law and regulated property rights and the dutiH of &.mily members, set· ting harsh punishm.enta for crimea.

For many centuriei during and after the heyday af

Babylon, peace and civilization in the Middle Eut were troubled by the Invasion& of hunting and herding groups. Indo-European peoples pressed in from the north, starting about 2100 l!.c.E. In the Middle Ea.'lt it5elf, invasion& by Semitic peoples from the JOuth were more important, and Semitic peoples and languag« incre.uingly dominated the region. The new arrivals adopted the culture of the conquered peoples aa their own, 10 the key features of the clrilization peniated. But large political units declined in favor of smaller city11tates or regional kingdoms, particularly during the centuries af greaten tu:rmoil, between 1200 and 900 B.C.ll. Thereafter, new invaders, fint the AMyriana and then the Penians, created large new empires in the Middle Eut.

•SDPtlan Civilization A 1econd. center of civilization sprang up in northem Africa. along the Nile River. Egyptian civilization, formed by 3000 B.C.E., benefited from the trade and technological influence of Melopotamia, but it produced a quite differ. ent eociety and culture. Le88 open to in'm.llion, Egypt retained a unified state throughout mon ofilll hiatory. The king, or pharaoh. poe­se!ISed immense power. The Eg)'ptian economy waa more fully government-<lirected than ita Mesopo~ an counterpart, which had a more independent ~ neaa clau. Covemment control may have been neceiiJIII}' beawae of the complexity of coordinating irrigation along the Nile. It nonethele&!l resulted in

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations 21

DOCUMENT

Hammurabi's Law Code Hammurabi, as king of Babylon, united Mesopotamia under his rule from about 1800 to 1750 B.C.E. His law code, the ear­liest such compilation still in existence, was discovered on a stone slab in Iran in 1901 c . E. Not a systematic presentation, it was a collection of exemplary cases designed to set general standards of justice. The code provides vital insights into the nature of social relations and family structure in this ancient civilization. Examples of the Hammurabic code follow:

When Marduk commanded me to give justice to the peo­ple of the land and to let [them] have [good] governance, 1

set forth truth and justice throughout the land [and] pros­pered the people.

At that time: If a man has accused a man and has charged him

with manslaughter and then has not proved [rt against] him, his accuser shall be put to death.

If a man has charged a man wtth sorcery and then has not proved J)t agamtj him, he who Is charged wtth the sor­cery shal go to the holy river; he shall leap into the holy river and, if the holy river overwhelms him, his accuser shal take and keep his house; if the holy river proves that man clear [of the offense] and he comes beck safe, he who has chaged him wtth sorcery shall be put to dleath; he who leapt into the holy river shall take 111d keep the house of his accuser.

If a man has come forward In a case to bear witness to a felony and then has not proved the statement that he has made, if that case [IS] a capital one, that man shall be put to death.

If he has come forward to bear witness to [a claim for] com or money, he shall remain liable tor the penalty for that suit

If a judge has tried a suit, given a decision, caused a sealed tablet to be executed, [and] th8f88fter varies his judgment, they shall convict that judge of vatytng [his] judgment and he shall pay twelvefold the claim in that suit· then they shall remove him from his place on the bench of judges in the assembly, and he shall not [again] sH In judg­ment wtth the judges.

If a free person helps a slave to escape, the free per­son will be put to death.

If a man has committed robbery and Is caught, that man shall be put to death.

If the robber is not caught, the man who has been robbed shall formally declare whatever he has lost before a god, and the city and the mayor In whose territory or dis­trict the robbery has been committed shall replace what­ever he has lost for him.

If [rt is] the life [of the owner that is lost], the city or the mayor shall pay one maneh of silver to his kinsfolk.

If a person owes money and Adad [the river god] has flooded the person's field, the person will not give any grain [tax] or pay any interest in that year.

If a person Is too lazy to make the dike of his field strong and there is a break in the dike and water destroys his own farmland, that person will make good the grain [tax] that Is destroyed.

If a merchant increases interest beyond that set by the king and collects it, that merchant will lose what was lent.

If a trader borrows money from a merchant and then denies the fact, that merchant in the presence of god and witnesses will prove the trader borrowed the money and the trader will pay the merchant three times the amount borrowed.

If the husband of a married lady has accused her but she is not caught lying with another man, she shall take an oeth by the life of a god and return to her house.

If a man takes himself off and there is not the [neces­sary] maintenance In his house, his wife [so long as] her [husband is delayed], shall keep [herself chaste; she shall not] enter [another man's house].

If that woman has not kept herself chaste but enters another man's house, they shall convict that woman and cast her Into the water.

If a son strikes his father, they shall cut off his tore­hand.

If a man has put out the eye of a free man, they shell put out his eye.

If he breaks the bone of a [free] man, they shall break his bona.

If he puts out the eye of a villain or breaks the bone of a villain, he shall pay one maneh of silver.

If he puts out the eye of a [free] man's slave or breaks the bona of a [free] man's slave, he shall pay half his price.

If a man knocks out the tooth of a flree] man equal [In rank] to hlm[self], they shall knock out his tooth.

If he knocks out the tooth of a villain, he shall pay one-third maneh of silver.

If a man strikes the cheek of a [free] man who is supe­rior Pn rank] to hlm[self], he shall be beaten wtth 60 stripes wtth a whip of ox-hide in the assembly.

If the man strikes the cheek of a free man equal to him[self in rank], he shall pay one maneh of silver.

If a villain strikes the cheek of a villain, he shall pay ten shekels of silver.

If the slave of a [free] man strikes the cheek of a free man, they shall cut off his ear.

Questions What can you tell from the Hammureblc code about the social and family structure of Mesopotamia? What is the relationship between law and trade? Why did agricultur­al civilizations such as Babylon insist on harsh punishments for crimes? What religious and magical beliefs does the doc­ument suggest? Using specific examples, show how inter­preting this document for significant historical meaning differs from simply reading it.

22 PART I • From Humlng arid Gathering 10 Cllllllz:a!lona, 2.6 Mllllo~1000 a.c.e.: Orlglna

godlike swus for the pharaoh!, who built splendid tombs for themaelve=.-the pyrliiiiWII-from 2'100 B.C.E.

onward. During periods of weak rule and oct~~~~ional Invasions, Egyptian society suffered a dedlne, but revivals kept the framework of Egyptian ciY:ilization inmct until after 1000 B.c.!.. (.Map 1.5). At key points, Egyptian influence spread up the Nile to the am~. now known as the Sudan, with an impact on the later derel· opment of African culture. The kingdom of KD.Ih inte:racted with Egypt and invaded it at some point.

Neither Egyptian sclence nor the Egyptian alpha· bet was as elaborate as its Mesopotamian equal,

although mathema!ia was more advanced in thi, civilization. Egyptian art was exceptional­ly 1ively; cheerful and colorful pictures deco­rated not only the tombs-where the belief in

:n'~ an afterlife made people want to be aur­Atudft rounded by objecta of beauty-but also palace.& and furnishings. Egyptian an:hitecmral forms were also quite inlluential, not only in Egypt but in other parts of the Mediternmean as weD. Egyptian mathematia produced the idea of a day divided into 24 hours, and here too Egypt influenced the derelop­mentoflater Mediterranean cult~.~re.t (Figure 1.5).

Indian and Chin ... Rhfar YallaJ' Chflllzallons Ri'l'el' valley civilizations developed in 11No other center!!. A proaperous w:ban civili2alion emerged along the

llldu Rm::r by 2500 B.C.E., rupporling sc:vera1 large citiea, including Harappe. and Mohmjo Daro, whose holl.!let even had running water. Indus River peoples had trading contacb with

CM~n Mesopotamia, but they dc:veloped their own _, 1111111 dislinctire alphabet and artistic forms. Inliltra·

lions by Indo-Europeans, however, plua n.atw:lll calamilial, raulted in ruch daitruclion that it ma:i.a it hard to speak with confidence about either the nawre of this culllll.'e or il:!l subsequent influence on India. Harappan writing, for example, hu yet to be deci­phered. It remains txue that civilization never had to be fully reinvented in India. The Indo-European mlgranta combined their n!ligioWI and political ideas with those that had tii.bln root in the early ciliea.. In recent timet, Indian&' pride: in their early cMiized hlatory has become an important pan of their national identity.

CM!ization along the ~ (Ydlow Bhv) in China deldoped in collliderable i5olalion, although

some overland trading contact with India and the Middle Ea.u did develop. Huanghe civiliza.. lion 'Wa! the subject. of much later Chinese leg· end, which p:raiJed the godlike 'kin8s of early

AllelentOI_, dvlllza&lon, &tarting with the mythic anCCI!tor of the Chinese, P'an K:u.. The Chinese had an unu.rually

1./ITt.N DIISIII't

"'""" ...... ..

!!,I

l ..... r ...

BTBIOI'lltll IIIDII£AIIDI

IMP 1.1 Emit. Kllltl, aid Alwm, s-1'18 ~Alt. EGYPt~ klnctdCftll fartller up the Nl~ aid deepw Inti)

Africa roae in il'l'll)ortane&.

elaboJate concept of their remote: origin&, and they began early to ft':Ulrd a part.fact, part-fiction history of their early kings. What is clear is the following: First. an organized state e:xisted !hat carefully regulated irrigation In the fertile but flood-prone river 'r.lllc:y. Second, by about !000 B.C.L the Chinese had produced an

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations 23

FIGURE 1.8 This elaborately decorated vessel from the Shang era, with its whimsical elephant figure, shows the sophisticated artistic expression achieved very early In Chinese history. It also demonstrates a high level of metalworking ability, which carried over Into Shang weapons and tools. Although the design of these ritual vessels often was abstract, mythical creatures such as dragons and sacred birds were deftly cast in bronzes thet remain some of the great treasures of Chinese art.

FIGURE 1.& This detail from Egyptian tomb art shows a husband and wife harvesting grain. As dictated by patriarchal values, the husband takes the lead in the work and the wife follows, but in Egypt, unlike Mesopotamia, men and women were depicted working together.

advanced technology and developed an elaborate intel­lectual life. They had learned how to ride horses and were skilled in pottery; they used bronze well and by 1000 B.C.E. had introduced iron, which they soon learned to work with coal. Their writing progressed from scratches of lines on bone to the invention of ideographic symbols. Science, particularly astronomy, arose early. Chinese art emphasized delicate designs, and the Chinese claim an early interest in music (Figure 1.6).

Because of limits on building materials in the region, the Chinese did not construct many massive monuments, choosing to live in simple hous-es built of mud. By about 1500 B.C.E., a line of kings called the Shang ruled over the Huanghe valley, and these rulers did con­struct some impressive tombs and palaces. Invasions disrupted the Shang dynasty and

The Shang Kingdom

caused a temporary decline in civilization. However, there was less of a break between the river valley socie­ty and the later, fuller development of civilization in China than occurred in other centers.

The Heritage of the River Valley Civilizations

• Most river valley civilizations declined after about 1200 B.C.E.

• A number of small centers emerged in the Middle East that introduced further innova­tions, including the religion ofjudaism.

Many accomplishments of the river valley civiliza­tions had a lasting impact. Monuments such as the

24 PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Milllon-1000 a.c.E.: Origins

IN DEPTH

The Idea of Civilization in World Historical Perspective The belief that there are fundamental differences between civilized and "barbaric" or "savage" peoples is very ancient and widespread. For thousands of yean the Chinese set themselves off from cattle- and sheep-herding peoples of the vast plains to the north and west of China proper, whom they saw as barbarians. To the Chinese, being civilized was cultur­al, not biological or racial. If barbarians learned the Chinese language and adopted Chinese ways-from the clothes they wore to the food they ate-they were regarded as civilized.

The word civilization is derived from the Latin word civilis, meaning "of the

A similar pattern of demarcation and cultural absorption was found among the American Indi­an peoples of present-day Mexico. Those who settled

citizens." in the valleys of the moun-tainous interior, where they

built great civilizations, lived in fear of invasions by peoples they regarded as barbarous and called Cbicbimec:s, meaning "sons of the dog." The latter were nomadic hunters and gath­erers who periodically moved down from the desert regions of north Mexico into the fertile central valleys in search of game and settlements to pillage. The Aztecs were simply the last, and perhaps the most fierce, of a long line of Chichimec peoples who entered the valleys and conquered the urban­based empires that had developed there. But after the con­querors settled down, they adopted many of the religious beliefs and institutional patterns and much of the material culture of defeated peoples.

The word civilization is derived from the Latin word civilis, meaning "of the citizens." The term was coined by the Romans. They used it to distinguish between themselves as citizens of a cosmopolitan, urban-based civilization and the

Egyptian pyramids have long been regarded as one of the wonders of the world. Other achievements, although more prosaic, are fundamental to world his­tory even today: the invention of the wheel, the taming of the horse, the creation of usable alphabets and writ­ing implements, the production of key mathematical concepts such as square roots, the development of well-organized monarchies and bureaucracies, and the invention of functional calendars and other divisions of time. These basic achievements, along with the awe that the early civilizations continue to inspire, are vital legacies to the whole of human history. Almost all the major alphabets in the world today are derived from the writing forms pioneered in the river valleys, apart

"inferior" peoples who lived in the forests and deserts on the fringes of their Mediterranean empire. Centuries earlier, the Greeks, who had contributed much to the rise of Roman civ­ilization, made a similar distinction between themselves and outsiders. Because the languages of the non-Greek peoples to the north of the Greek heartlands sounded like senseless babble to the Greeks, they lumped all the outsiders together as barlJarians, which meant "those who cannot speak Greek." As in the case of the Chinese and Aztecs, the boundaries between civilized and barbarian for the Greeks and Romans were cultural, not biological.

Until the 17th and 18th centuries C.E., the priority given to cultural attributes (e.g., language, dress, manners) as the means by which civilized peoples set themselves off from bar­baric ones was rarely challenged. But in those centuries, a major change occurred among thinkers in western Europe. Efforts were made not only to define the differences between civilized and barbarian but to identify a series of stages in human development that ranged from the lowest savagery to the highest civilization. Depending on the writer in question, candidates for civilization ranged from Greece and Rome to (not surprisingly) Europe of the 17th and 18th centuries. Most of the other peoples of the globe, whose "discovery" since the 15th century had prompted the elfurts to classify them in the first place, were ranked in increasingly complex hierarchies. Nomadic cattle- and sheep-herding peoples, such as the Mongols of central Asia, usually were classified as barbarians. In the 19th century, racial differences were added to the hierarchy, with white people seen as having evolved the most advanced civilizations.

The second major shift in Western ideas about civiliza­tion began at the end of the 18th century but did not really take hold until a century later. In keeping with a growing emphasis in European thinking and social interaction on racial or biological differences, modes of human social organization and cultural expression were increasingly linked to what were alleged to be the innate capacities of

from the even more durable concept of writing itself. Almost all later civilizations, then, built on the massive foundations first constructed in the river valleys.

Despite these accomplishments, most of the river valley civilizations were in decline by 1000 B.C.E. The civilizations had flourished for as many as 2500 years, although of course with periodic disruptions and revivals. But, particularly in India, the new waves of invasion did produce something of a break in the his­tory of civilization, a dividing line between the river val­ley pioneers and later cultures.

This break raises one final question: besides the vital achievements--the fascinating monuments and the indispensable advances in technology, science, and

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations 25

each human race. Although no one could agree on what a race was or how many races there were, most European writ­ers argued that some races were more inventive, moral, courageous, and artistic-thus more capable of building civ­ilizations-than others. Of course, white (or Caucasian) Europeans were considered by white European authors to be the most capable of all. The hierarchy from savage to civi­lized took on a color dimension, with white at the top, where the civilized peoples clustered, to yellow, red, brown, and black in descending order.

Some authors sought to reserve all the attainments of civilization for whites, or peoples of European stock. As the evolutionary theories of thinkers such as Charles Darwin came into vogue in the late 1800s, race and level of cultural development were seen in the perspective of thousands of years of human change and adaptation rather than as being fixed in time. Nevertheless, this new perspective had little effect on the rankings of different human groups. Civilized whites were simply seen as having evolved much further than backward and barbaric peoples.

The perceived correspondence between race and level of development and the hardening of the boundaries between civilized and "inferior" peoples affected much more than intellectual discourse about the nature and history of human society. These beliefs were used to justify European imperialist expansion, which was seen as a "civilizing mis­sion" aimed at uplifting barbaric and savage peoples across the globe. In the last half of the 19th century, virtually all non-Western peoples came to be dominated by the Euro­peans, who were confident that they, as representatives of the highest civilization ever created, were best equipped to gov­ern lesser breeds of humans.

ln the 20th century, much of the intellectual baggage that once gave credibility to the racially embedded hierar­chies of civilized and savage peoples was discarded. Racist thinking was discredited by 20th-eentury developments, including the revolt of the colonized peoples and the crimes

art-what legacies did the river valley civilizations impart for later ages? The question is particularly impor­tant for the Middle East and Egypt. In India, we must frankly admit much ignorance about possible links between Indus River accomplishments and what came later. In China, there is a definite connection between the first civilization and subsequent forms. Indeed, the new dynasty in China, the Zhou, took over from the Shang about 1000 B.C.E., ruling a loose coalition of regional lords; recorded Chinese history flowed smooth­ly at this point. But what was the legacy of Mesopotamia and Egypt for later civilizations in or near their centers?

Europeans, even North Americans, are some­times prone to claim these cultures as the "origins" of

committed by the Nazis before and during World War II in the name of racial purification. In addition, these ideas have failed because racial supremacists cannot provide convincing proof of innate differences in mental and physical aptitude between various human groups. These trends, as well as research that has resulted in a much more sophisticated understanding of evolution, have led to the abandonment of rigid and self .. erving 19th-eentury ideas about civilization. Yet even though non-European peoples such as the Indians and Chinese are increasingly given credit for their civilized attainments, much ethnocentrism remains in the ways social theorists determine who is civilized and who is not

Perhaps the best way to avoid the tendency to define the term with reference to one's own society is to view civi­lization as one of several human approaches to social organ­ization rather than attempting to identify specific kinds of cultural achievement (e.g., writing, cities, monumental architecture). All peoples, from small bands of hunters and gatherers to farmers and factory workers, live in societies. All societies produce cultures: combinations of the ideas, objects, and patterns of behavior that result from human social interaction. But not all societies and cultures gener­ate the surplus production that permits the levels of spe­cialization, scale, and complexity that distinguish civilizations from other modes of social organization. All peoples are intrinsically capable of building civilizations, but many have lacked the resource base, historical circum­stances, or desire to do so.

Questions Identify a society you consider civilized. What criteria did you use to determine that it was civilized? Can you apply those criteria to other societies? Can you think of societies that might not fit your criteria and yet be civiliza­tions? Do the standards that you and others use reflect your own society's norms and achievements rather than neutral, more universal criteria?

the Western civilization in which we live. These claims should not be taken too literally. It is not altogether clear that either Egypt or Mesopotamia contributed much to later political traditions, although the Roman Empire emulated the concept of a godlike king, as evidenced in the trappings of the office, and the existence of strong city-state governments in the Middle East itself continued to be significant. Ideas about slavery may also have been passed on from these early civilizations. Specific scientific achieve­ments are vital, as the Greeks, for example, carefully studied Egyptian mathematics. Scholars argue, how­ever, over how much of a connection exists between Mesopotamian and Egyptian science and later Greek

26 PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Million-1000 B.C.E.: Origins

thinking, aside from certain techniques of measuring time or charting the stars.

Some historians of philosophy have asserted a basic division between a Mesopotamian and Chinese understanding of nature, which they claim affected later civilizations around the Mediterranean in con­trast to China. Mesopotamians were prone to stress a gap between humankind and nature, whereas Chinese thinking developed along ideas of basic harmony. It is possible, then, that some fundamental thinking helped shape later outlooks, but the continuities here are not easy to assess. Mesopotamian art and Egyptian archi­tecture had a more measurable influence on Greek styles, and through these, in tum, later European and Muslim cultures. The Greeks thus learned much about temple building from the Egyptians, whose culture had influenced island civilizations, such as Crete, which then affected later Greek styles.

There was a final connection between early and later civilizations in the form of regional cultures that sprang up under the influence of Mesopotamia and Egypt, along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean mainly after 1200 B.C.E. Although the great empires from Sumer through Babylon were disrupted and the Egyptian state fmally declined, civilization in the Mid­dle East had spread widely enough to encourage a set of smaller cultures capable of surviving and even flour­ishing after the great empires became weak. These cul­tures produced important innovations that would affect later civilizations in the Middle East and throughout the Mediterranean. They also created a diverse array of regional identities that would continue to mark the Middle East even as other forces, like the Roman Empire or the later religion of Islam, took cen­ter stage. Several of these small cultures proved immensely durable, and in their complexity and capac­ity to survive, they would influence other parts of the world as well.

A people called the Phoenicians, for example, devised a greatly simplified alphabet with 22 letters around 1300 B.C.E.; this alphabet, in tum, became the predecessor of Greek and Latin alphabets. The Phoeni­cians also improved the Egyptian numbering system and, as great traders, set up colony cities in north Africa and on the coasts of Europe. Another regional group, the Lydians, first introduced coined money.

The most influential of the smaller Middle Eastern groups, however, were the Jews, who gave the world the first clearly developed monotheistic religion. We have seen that early religions, both before and after the beginnings of civilization, were polytheistic, claiming that many gods and goddesses worked to control nature and human destiny. The Jews, a Semitic people influenced by Babylonian civilization, settled near the Mediterranean around 1200 B.C.E. The Jewish state was

small and relatively weak, retaining independence only when other parts of the Middle East were in political turmoil. What was distinctive about this culture was its firm belief that a single God, Jehovah, guided the des­tinies of the Jewish people. Priests and prophets defined and emphasized this belief, and their history of God's guidance of the Jews formed the basis for the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish religion and moral code per­sisted even as the Jewish state suffered domination by a series of foreign rulers, from 772 B.C.E. until the Romans seized the state outright in 63 B.C.E. Jewish monotheism has sustained a distinctive Jewish culture to our own day; it would also serve as a key basis for the development of both Christianity and Islam as major world religions.

Because Judaism stressed God's special compact with the chosen Jewish people, there was no premium placed on converting non:Jews. This belief helps explain the durability of the Jewish faith itself; it also kept the Jewish people in a minority position in the Middle East as a whole. However, the elaboration of monotheism had a wide, if not immediate, signifi­cance. In Jewish hands, the concept of God became less humanlike, more abstract. This represented a basic change in not only religion but also humankind's overall outlook. Jehovah had not only a power but also a rationality far different from what the traditional gods of the Middle East or Egypt possessed. These gods were whimsical and capricious; Jehovah was orderly and just, and individuals would know what to expect if they obeyed God's rules. God was also linked to ethical conduct, to proper moral behavior. Religion for the Jews was a way oflife, not merely a set of rituals and cer­emonies. The full impact of this religious transforma­tion on Middle Eastern civilization would be realized only later, when Jewish beliefs were embraced by other, proselytizing faiths. However, the basic concept of monotheistic religion was one of the legacies of the end of the first great civilization period to the new cul­tures that would soon arise.

The First Civilizations • Early civilizations both separated and integrat­

ed key groups of people.

Overall, the river valley civilizations, flourishing for many centuries, created a basic set of tools, intellectu­al concepts such as writing and mathematics, and polit­ical forms that would persist and spread to other parts of Europe, Asia, and Mrica. Invasion and natural calamities in India, and invasion and political decline in Egypt, marked a fairly firm break between the insti-

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations 27

tutions of these river valley civilizations and those that would later develop. Huanghe civilization, in contrast, flowed more fully into the more extensive Chinese civ­ilization that would follow. The Middle East, where civ­ilization had first been born, provided the most complex heritage of all. Here too there was a break between the initial series of riverine empires and the civilizations of Greece and Persia that would later dom­inate the region. However, the development of smaller cultures, such as that of the Jews, provided a bridge between the river valley period and later Middle East­ern society, producing vital new inventions and ideas. The smaller cultures also generated a deeply entrenched network of regional or minority values and institutions that would continue to make the Middle East a complex, vibrant, and sometimes troubled part of the world.

One final result of the first, long period of human civilization is certainly clear: a pattern of division among the world's peoples. The diffusion of Homo sapiens sapiens set the initial stage. Small groups of peo­ple spread to almost every corner of the world but maintained little contact with each other thereafter. Separate languages and cultures developed widely. The rise of agriculture stimulated new links, and the spread of farming and new technologies began to cut into local isolation. Trade soon entered the picture. Although most commerce centered within a region, linking a city to its hinterland, a few routes traveled greater distances. By 1000 B.C.E., Phoenicians traded with Britain for metals (they bought lead to make bronze), while Chinese silk was reaching Egypt. Here we have one of the basic themes of world history: steadily proliferating contacts against a background of often fierce local identity.

The rise of civilization further reduced local autonomy, as kings and priests tried to spread trade contacts and cultural forms and warred to gain new territory. Civilization itself was an integrating force at a larger regional level, although, as we have seen in the Middle East, smaller identities persisted. However, individual civilizations had only sporadic contacts with each other. They, and their leading institutions and cultural forms, developed separately. Thus, four di!;­tinct centers of civilization developed (five, if the emerging Olmec culture in Mexico is included), each with widely varied patterns, from style of writing to beliefs about nature.

The early civilizations shared important features, including cities, trade, and writing, that helped them meet the common basic definition of civilization in the first place. They also frequently developed some mutu­al relationships, although the Huanghe culture in China is one example of a civilization that flourished in relative isolation. Egypt and Mesopotamia, in partie-

ular, had recurrent contacts through trade and war. But the values or belief systems of each civilization, and their manifestation in political and business styles, were not so easily disseminated. Even relatively close neighbors, such as Egypt and Mesopotamia, developed radically different political attitudes, beliefs about death, and artistic styles. Civilization and considerable diversity thus coexisted hand in hand.

GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

The Early Civilizations and the World Mesopotamia and Egypt presented two different approaches to relationships outside the home region. Mesopotamia was flat, with few natural barriers to recurrent invasion from the north. Perhaps for this reason, Mesopotamian leaders thought in terms of expansion. Many conquering emperors expanded their territory, though within the Middle East. Many traders pushed outward, dealing either with merchants to the east or sending expeditions into the Mediter­ranean and beyond, and also to India. The Middle East's role as active agent in wider contact was clearly being established.

Egypt, though not isolated, was more self-con­tained. There was important trade and interaction along the Nile to the south, which brought mutual influences with the peoples of Kush and Ethiopia. Trade and influence also linked Egypt to Mediter­ranean islands like Crete, south of Greece. A few inter­actions, finally, occurred with Mesopotamia. But most Egyptians, including the leaders, thought of Egypt as its own world. There was less need or desire to learn of wider horizons. Correspondingly, ancient Egypt played less of a role as intermediary among regions than did Mesopotamia.

River valley civilization in China had less far­reaching contacts than its counterpart in Mesopotamia. Ultimately, however, contacts with China would shape developments in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Already in the river valley period, the Chinese were advancing new technologies, for example in the manufacture of silk, that would have wide influence on later interregional trade. Chinese irrigation systems became increasingly sophisticated, involving engineering principles that would gain wider scope later on.

Harappan society traded widely with Mesopotamia, but there is little evidence of significant influence. The decline of Harappan civilization also limited the civi­lization's impact on later developments in world histo­ry. Harappan civilization proved much more vulnerable

28 PART I • From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 Milllon-1000 a.c.E.: Origins

to natural disasters and climate change, particularly in contrast to China. Comparison of the early civilizations thus emphasizes quite different patterns of scope and legacy.

Further Readings

World historians have been drawn to Ronald Wright's A Shurt History of Progress (2004), which attempts to show how even the most recent of humanity's struggles can be better understood by examining its origins and early history. Per­haps the fullest account of human prehistory available is Brian Fagan's People of the Earth (1998), which includes an extensive bibliography on prehistoric developments in vir­tually all regions of the world. A considerable literature has developed in recent years on early humans and the critical Neolithic transformations. John Mears's pamphlet on Agricultural Origins in Global Perspective (American Histori­cal Association, 2000) provides a concise and authoritative survey of this process in key regions over much of the globe. For other broad overviews that trace the archeolog­ical and historical discoveries that made it possible for us to understand these critical processes in the shaping of human history, see Robert J. Wenke's Patterns in fuhistory (1984) and C. Wesley Cowan and Patty Jo Watson, eds., The Origins of Agrirultun: An International Perspective (1992) .

For a clear discussion of debates on the Neolithic rev­olution and references to major authors and works, see Stephen K . Sanderson, Social Transformations (1995) . Sev­eral of these works are of special relevance, despite their sometimes technical language and details, especially Don­ald 0 . Henry's From Foraging to Agricultun (1989), Douglas Price and James A. Brown, eds., fuhistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity (1986), and Allen W. Johnson and Timothy Earle, The Evolution of Human Soci­eties: From Foraging to Agriculture (1987) . For the origins of agriculture in the often neglected Americas, see Stuart J. Ficdcl, fuhistory of the Americas (1992). M. C. and H. B. Quennell's Everyday Life in the New Stone, Bronu, and Early Iron Ages (1955) is difficult to top for an imaginative reconstruction of life in the Neolithic Age, although some of it is now dated. The most reliable treatment of technology in this era can be found in volume 1 of C. Singer et al., A History of Technology ( 1954). The most readable introduction to the earliest towns is in James Mellaart's Earliest Civilizations of the Near East (1965) and The Neolithic of the Near East (1975).

Two excellent studies can guide additional work on early civilization in Mesopotamia: C. L. Redman's The Rise of Civilization: From Early Farmers to Uroan Society in the Ancient Near East (1988) and N.J. Nissen's The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000-2000 B.C. (1988) . Sec also S. N. Kramer, History Begins at Sumer ( 1981) ; C. B. F. Walker, Cuneifurm (1987) ; and H. W. F. Saggs, Babylonians (1995) . Important studies of Egypt include T. G. H . James, Ancient Egypt· The Land and Its Legacy (1988) ; N.C. Grima!, A Histo­ry of Ancient Egypt ( 1992) ; and Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (1993) . See also Donald Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and

Israel in Ancient Times (1995); and David O'Connor, Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa (1993).

For an excellent study of non-Western science begin­ning with the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, see Dick Teresi, Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science­From the Babylonian.! to the Maya (2002). See also Brian Fagan's lavishly illustrated The Seventy Gnat Inventions of the Ancient World (2004). Two books deal with important spe­cial topics: M. Silver's &anomie Structures of the Ancient Near East (1987) and T. Jacobsen's The 11liasuns of Darlcness: A History of Mesopotamian &ligion (1976) . Two studies of Israel are J. Bright, A History of Israel (1981) , and the first two volumes of W. D. Davies and L. Finkelstein , eds., The Cambridg. History of Judaism (1984, 1987) . For studies of Phoenicia and its role in world history, see N. K Sanders, The Sea Peoples (1985) ; and M. E. Auher, The Phoenicians and the West (1996).

On disruptions in the late Bronze Age, see Trude Dothan and Moshe Dothan, People of the Sea: The Searr;h fur the Philistines (1992) . Martin Bernal's controversial Black Athena (1992) seeks to trace ancient Mrican influences on the classical Western world but also can be employed as a window into the use and misuse of history by both Mrocen­tric and Eurocentric scholars. Travel and travel literature has become a major issue in world history. Lionel Casson's Travel in the Ancient Wurld (1994) is a well-researched and popular study (principally of the Middle East and Mediter­ranean) that ranges from accounts of tourism (including inns and restaurants) to early postal services.

On the Web

A virtual tour of the social life of early humans in the Americas, including weaving and toolmaking can be taken at http://pecosrio.com/. The dramatic findings at Olduvai Gorge made by the Leakey family that revolutionized knowledge about human prehistory and the continuing debate over human origins can be viewed at http://www.talkorigins.org/. An assessment of the relationship between the DNA of modern humans and Neanderthals is offered at http://www.psu.edu/ur/NEWS/ news/Neandertal.html. Views of Chauvet, rich in cave paintings, can be found at http://www.culture.gouv.fr/ culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/. The diaries ofarcheologists working at Qltal Huyiik and recent photographs of the site are among the many features of the official Qltal Huyiik Web page at http://catal.arch.cam.ac.uk/catal/catal.httnl. Daily life at the Neolithic site at Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands in Scotland is explored at http:// www.orknexjar.com/history/skarabrae/skarab2.httn. A virtual walk through an exhibit on human prehistory at http://users.hol.gr/-dilos/prehis/prerm5.httn also includes a discussion of the views of Darwin and others on human evolution, a gallery of art and artifacts, and an artist's reconstruction of Qltal Huyiik. A debate over the origins of human beings can be followed at http://www.bbc.eo.uk/ education/darwin/dehate/index.httn. The Smithsonian Institution has developed a human phylogenetic tree, an eye-opening graphic that depicts the evolutionary relationships, that is set against a timescale of human

CHAPTER 1 • From Human Pnlhi&tory to the Early CiviliZII!iona 28

de9elopmenL II«: hup:/ /www.mnh.si.edlla:od!ro/ humanorigiru/ha/a...cn:e.html.

It iJ pot.l!b'le to make a Wtual mit 10 1he Mesopotamian city of Ur at http:/ I oluclrleago.edu/01/ UB/Ur_home.html azul http:/ /'WWW.mnru.edu/emuaeum/ an:hacologr/sita/middle_eul/ur.htmL A amail but euellent artiat's ~nstrw:tion ofUr can be '9iewed by acrolling down at hup:/ jwww.taisei.cojp/ english/ pmfile/oo!p_ci.tizen.hlml. Even more elabor:a~ reoollltrUCt!ODs and toun of the city ofNippur are o1fered at http:/ /oi.uchl.c:ago.edu/OI!PROJ/NIP/ PUI!9S/NSC/NSC.html and htlp:/ I oi.uchicago.edu/01/ PROJ/NIP /PUB9S/NSC/NSCFIG:thtmL It i.t aJao poillible 10 take vin:ual toun of kq lite a of Egyptian {hup:/ /www.ancien~gypu.o.uk/menu.hlml} and Xruhite civiliza.tiona (hup:/ /www.nubianet.org/about/ about.hiltor,G.h.tml mil hUpc/ ;-the~um.ac.uk/ c:gyptian/bmsacs/is!luel/wehby.html). A head-mming virtual three-dimeruional walk through an Egyptian pyramid it offered at hup:/ ,lwww.pbLorglwgbh/now./ PJ1211lidfexpleft/khufu.html. The ant:imt civilimliona of Pmiacan be~ewedathup:/ /~.edu/OVMUS/ PA,IlRAN/PAAI/PAALhtml, hup:/ /w.emben amn;n1 aD.au/ .-ancientpenia/indcz.html, and hup:/ /www. aywm!inb.oom/ iran.html. The Penian capilal ofPenepolia receiw:s cloee tmUmmtat lmp:/ /WWW'<liuchiCllg"O.trlu/01/MUS/PA/

IRAN/PAAl/PAAI.html and http:/ /www.upllWnb.com/ inm.html.

Ancient mathematical system• are examined at http:/ I www.groupJ.dct.st-ucirew3.ac.uk/-hfltt>ry/ln~/ Babylauimt.hlml and hup:/ fwww"tP'O'IP'.da.st~ -his10ry/Indcxea/l!gyptian.s.htmL The Web offcn an oppor1llnity to "write like a Babylonian" (http:/ I www.upennmwteum.com/cuneifurm.~) and a tutorial in biemglnlhicwriling (hup:/ /WWW.qelid.oo.uk[hiromenu.htm and http:/ /emUJewll.lllllsu.edu/prehlltoty/egypt/ bieroglyphialhierogiJPhica.html}. For a cloter look into one ofhUUWiity"s 6nt reconied literary productiom, the Epi&ofGV(ptrwll, aee http:/ /www.WJU.edu/ooodee/MESO/ Gll.G.HTM, http:/ /www.ancicnttem..org/library/ meeopommian/gilgamelh/, http:/ /gilgamelh.pmc.pV, and hup:/ /ea"M:.e-mmille.edu/euaJ~/hrown.htm.

The Web aJao ofli:n inlight iDto the life mil royal art w the mort lignifil:ant n.dc:n of the anc:ient world, ~ Nlllllle!" (h.l!p:/ /www.C%)'\IIalinb.rom/narmer.h!ml),Akhemlml (h!lp:/ I man.amet.wncc.cdu/ ...gn:mpeV coll!1!ft/wcl/leccure./ O!al:.henaron.hlml and hup:/ /tangha.net/meuengen/ alMn•tm btm},Ndertlll. (hup:/ ~IIClibdlin/ do_we-llan:~htm, http:/ /toUl'Clmlt.uet/featurertoriea/ oetmili.htm, and hup:/ /la!J8ba.oet/~/odertiti.hlm}, and Cyrua the Great (http:/ /ozneLnet/qnut/ and http:/ I www.ir.anclwnber.rom/hilrrory/cyna/qnut.php).

Part I Global Retrospective

fROM HUNTING AND GATHERING TO CIVILIZATIONS, 2. 5 MILLION-1000 B.C.E.: ORIGINS

30

CONTACTS AND THEIR LIMITS

No regular pattern of contacts among the major population centers developed dur­

ing the long early phases of human history. Even at the end of the period of the

river valley civilizations, no such pattern existed. To be sure, separate developments did not prevent many similar features. In broad outline, early civilizations devel­

oped many of the same functions, as they introduced formal governments, writing

systems, and significant cities. Agriculture generated similar tendencies to establish patriarchal family structures, but these similarities occurred spontaneously, the

result of similar needs, not because they learned extensively from one another. And

of course the specifics varied considerably-the system of government and the gen­

der relations in Egypt, for example, differed from those in Mesopotamia. Three kinds of contacts did exist during the early phases of human history.

Their results were significant, though they were somewhat sporadic. First, local or

long-distance trade could bring knowledge of new developments or products. Peo­ple in one region could learn about innovations in the region next door. Local

exchanges of products or symbolic gifts-the latter designed to help keep the

peace-served as conduits. Through this kind of interaction, diffusion occurred. This was the mechanism through which knowledge of agriculture gradually spread

from the areas where it was first developed to neighboring regions, and ultimately

over whole subcontinents. Knowledge of new technologies, like metalwork, spread

the same way. So did knowledge of new foodstuffs: some crops original to southeast Asia, for example, reached Africa by 1000 c.E. and became staples.

This kind of diffusion was the most important contact in early human history. We do not always know the precise processes involved. For example, an Indian

Ocean trade system existed by 1000 C.E., involving timber and perfumes; this led to

a southeast Asian migration to the island of Madagascar. But we know almost noth­

ing about the specifics of the system. It is also true that some trade contacts, like the Phoenician voyages to southern England to get tin, did not seem to produce wider

diffusion of products or technologies.

A second kind of contact resulted from migration and invasion. We have seen that this combination occurred frequently in the Middle East, leading to changes

in language but also the spread of new technologies. The wheel was almost cer­

tainly invented in central Asia, then brought by a migrant group to the Middle

East. Migrations and invasions could be extremely disruptive, as when the Indo-

Europeans moved into India, doing great violence to local populations. But they could also bring new knowledge to immigrants and local populations alike.

A third kind of contact involved direct trade, diplomatic relations, and military

activity between two major early civilization centers. While Mesopotamia and Egypt

developed separately for the most part, there were periods of invasion from one direction or another, some trade, and some cultural exchange. Tablets have been

found, for example, whose text was written in both cuneiform and hieroglyphics,

showing a need for direct translations. Egyptians and Mesopotamians both inter­acted with parts of Greece, including the island of Crete, which was therefore able

to borrow from both societies. Some trade (though no military contact) probably

occurred between Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. Early civilizations in China

and the Americas were more fully isolated. Contacts brought fundamental changes to the people involved, even in these

early periods. Diffusion, particularly, was responsible for basic shifts in economic

and therefore social systems. Most contact was sporadic, however, and did not lead

to elaborate exchanges of religious or scientific ideas or political institutions. Here,

the emphasis on separate patterns of development remains valid. •

31