Introducing Early Civilizations

1. Introducing Early Civilizations

2. Early Civilizations • After agriculture, the next step in setting our framework for world history is the emergence of civilization as a form of human organization. • This is where history is usually seen as starting (especially in the Western tradition). • The first human civilization developed in Mesopotamia around 3,500 BCE. • Four or five other early, pioneering civilizations can also be identified over the next 2,000 years.

3. Early Civilizations • These civilizations, all of them agricultural, generated a number of key innovations that have not had to be reinvented since. • Can you think of any? • Civilizations did not, however, spread uniformly.

4. Early Civilizations • So what is/what makes a civilization? • To many historians, civilization (from the Latinword civilis which means “of the citizens”) implies increased human organization and more defined cultural expressions: (most importantly) writing, formal architecture, urban planning, formal laws, trade, and the use of some sort of currency.

5. Early Civilizations • The early civilization period of world history runs roughly from 3,500-1,000 BCE (often referred to as the Bronze Age) and from 1100-500 BCE (the early Iron Age). • Civilization first emerged in the Middle East about 5,000 years after the advent of agriculture. • Before that time, agriculture had permitted the development of some isolated cities, usually with populations of about 10,000 people (but usually a lot less).

6. Early Civilizations • It is important to realize that agriculture did not quickly nor inevitably lead to civilization. • Some agricultural societies (for example, in West Africa) reached the modern period without forming what we call a civilization.

7. Early Civilizations • The emergence of civilization in the Middle East was preceded by other technological developments in addition to the maturing of agriculture (like the plow and wheel).

8. Early Civilizations • Between 4,500-4,000 BCE, people in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (that is Mesopotamia—so named by the Greeks as “the land between the rivers”) were beginning to use bronze for tools, weapons, and adornment.

9. Early Civilizations • Bronze Age tools, weapons, and jewelry.

10. Early Civilizations • The use of bronze improved military and production capacities, but it also required long-distance trade and travel. • Bronze—the amalgam of copper and tin—forced early peoples to travel great distances because tin deposits were very remote. • So to create bronze, early peoples were forced to travel and trade over long-distances (this created an important feature marking early civilizations).

11. Early Civilizations • Locations of known tin deposits during the Bronze Age.

12. Early Civilizations • A procession of civilizations developed first in Mesopotamia, and some of these expanded into empires in the Middle East. • Civilization then emerged in Egypt along the Nile around 3500-3000 BCE. • A third civilization, discovered recently, developed along the coast of Peru (called Norte Chico) between 3,000-1,800 BCE

13. Early Civilizations • The Indus Valley (or Harappan) civilization originated around 2,600 BCE in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent along the Indus River(present day Pakistan). • A fifth center of civilization developed in northern China along the Yellow (or Huang He) River around 2,200 BCE.

14. Early Civilizations • A sixth center of civilization emerged in Central America, the Olmec. • All of these civilizations except the Olmec clustered along river valleys or coastal areas which was no accident. • River valleys and coastal areas provided the most abundant opportunities for agriculture and an agricultural surplus.

15. Early Civilizations • To take the maximum advantage of river systems, early civilizations had to develop irrigation systems. • This led to a high degree of coordination and probably some property definition which probably encouraged early governments to formalize their rules and regulations. • Rivers/coasts also increased trade opportunities.

16. Early Civilizations • But civilization, like agriculture, involved a mixture of advantages and disadvantages. • We must remember that for several thousand years, civilization didn’t spread to most parts of the inhabited world. • We must also be careful when drawing the line between civilization and barbarian. It tends to be the “civilized” people who look down on others (which created elitism).

17. Early Civilizations • Civilizations, by writing rules and law, formalized the inequality between men and women and the wealthy and poor. • Civilizations developed a more extensive social structure for men and women…both between the upper classes (associated with politics, military leadership, and religion), and the lower classes (associated with rural production, military conscription, and sometimes slavery).

18. Early Civilizations • Most civilizations extended the capacity for warfare well beyond the hunter/gatherer and agricultural societies. • Pressures from the outside increased the importance of military activity (which was often a disadvantage for ordinary people since they often had to leave their farms). • An ancient Hittite warrior 16th century BCE.

19. Early Civilizations • But how did they get started? (the question archeologists, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists have been asking for years) • Some scholars emphasized the need to organize large-scale irrigation projects as a stimulus for the earliest civilizations, but archeologists have found the most complex water control projects developed long after civilizations had already been established.

20. Early Civilizations • Others theorize that powerful states developed to protect the privileges of favored groups (Marx’s Conflict Theory). • A recent theory (Anthropologist Robert Carneiro) proposed that a growing density of population, producing more congested and competitive societies, created the incentives for innovations (like better irrigation, the plow, etc that could produce more food) because opportunities for territorial expansion were not readily available.

21. Early Civilizations • Since rich agricultural land was limited by geography (oceans, mountains, deserts), areas with dense populations generated intense competition among rival groups, which led to repeated warfare. • A strong and highly organized state was a definite advantage in such a competition. • Losers often couldn’t flee to new lands so they were absorbed into the winner’s society as a lower class.

22. Early Civilizations • Successful leaders of the winning side emerged as an elite with an enlarged base of land, a class of subordinated workers, and a powerful state at their disposal—in short, a civilization.

23. Early Civilizations • Ritual sacrifice, often of people, usually accompanied the growth of civilization, and the new rulers normally served as high priests or were seen as divine beings, their right to rule legitimated by association with the sacred. • Statue of the King of Lagash (Sumer).

24. Mesopotamia

25. Mesopotamia • The inevitable pressures of rising population, coupled with technological improvements led to an important change (documented c. 4500 BCE); this change was a shift of populations into the river valleys, particularly into lower Mesopotamia. • The movement was brought on by several breakthroughs, including the creation of improved tools (mostly made of wood but some were metal) and plows and the domestication of oxen. By 3500 BCE, plows were pulled by two to eight oxen.

26. Sumer • Populations moved into lower Iraq (Sumer) and began to clear the dense undergrowth of the delta areas which were very fertile. • This period, known as the al-Ubaid Period (c. 4500-3500 BCE), was marked by larger settlements, more intensive agriculture, and increasing populations of people which will, after about 1000 years, lead to the development of the first cities (c. 3500 BCE).

27. The first specific civilization to emerge was Sumeria (lower Mesopotamia-Iraq). A Sumerian warrior (engraved on a shell) c. 2500 BCE with bronze sickle-sword, helmet, and battle-axe. Sumer

28. Sumer • Sumeria would be followed over the next several thousand years by a succession of states, including Babylonia and the states of the Hittites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and others. • The attractions of civilization drew migrants and invaders to the region, particularly from Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula.

29. Sumer • Sumeria, the prototype of early civilization, offered a number of features that agricultural societies without civilization lacked.

30. Sumer • Sumer was the first to offer features of human organization not present in agricultural economies… • Formal political apparatus with leadership • Certain degree of structure • Monumental architecture • Civilizations are usually defined as stated societies rather than stateless societies.

31. Sumer • Civilizations, beginning with Sumeria, have writing, which enables recordkeeping, is associated with bureaucracies, allows long-distance communication and the expansion of trade, and affects the generation and preservation of knowledge.

32. Sumer • Economic development, trade, and temple taxes drove the need to invent writing. • Sumer had a writing system in place sometime between 3100- 2900 BCE. • Writing was done with a stylus in wet clay. As a result, the shape of the characters tended to be in the form of a wedge. When Sumerian writing was first discovered in the 19th century, it was called cuneiform, which means “wedge-shaped.”

33. Sumer • The Sumerians were the first to create an alphabet (that we know of):

34. Sumer • Collective learning began to accelerate as the knowledge created by a whole society was recorded and preserved. • In Sumeria (and Mesopotamia) literacy led to the rapid expansion of knowledge, especially in astronomy (calendars) and mathematics (surveying).

35. Sumer • The Sumerians were the first to develop science (astronomy) and mathematics to aid their farmers. • Sumerians used a mixed counting system based partly on 10 and partly on 60 (they counted animals by 10 and grain by 60). • The Sumerians were also the first to create a calendar based on astronomical observations and they created astrological charts and forecasts.

36. Sumer • They devised a calendar based on 12 months and divided the 24 hours of the day into 60 minutes with 60 seconds each. • The Sumerians divided the circle into 360 degrees.

37. Sumer • The Sumerians were the first to use the plow.

38. Sumer • Another feature of civilization is the existence of cities and increased dependence on cities. • Cities meant concentrations of people that could facilitate cultural exchange and technological development. • Cities also depended on more elaborate trade than an agricultural society, fostering the development of a merchant class.

39. Sumer • During what is known as the Uruk Period (c.3500-3100 BCE), villages evolved into cities quite rapidly. • The cities of Sumeria were of considerable size compared to previous concentrations of populations. The whole of Sumer, which was about the size of Connecticut, may have had a population of 500,000 or more.

40. Sumer • Around 3000 BCE there was a large influx of people coming from the Arabian Peninsula into Sumer (probably unable to survive the increasingly arid conditions). • By 2500 BCE, 80% of all Sumerians were living in urban centers.

41. Sumer • Archeologists agree that Uruk (today Warka) was probably the world’s first city, and it was the largest city of Sumer during the Uruk Period. • It was home to the legendary king Gilgamesh (the fifth king of Uruk); another well known city of Sumeria was the biblical Ur.

42. Sumer • Built along the banks of the Euphrates River (today the river flows about 15 miles to the west), by 3500 BCE, Uruk covered an area comparable to Athens in the fifth century BCE and half the size of Rome in the first century CE. • The population of Uruk went from 10,000 in 3500 BCE to 20,000 in 3300 BCE to 40-50,000 around 3000 BCE to an estimated 80-100,000 people at the time of Gilgamesh (2750-2500 BCE).

43. Sumer • Uruk contained three areas: the walled city that included temples, palaces, and residences of citizens; an outer area with farms, cattle fields, and gardens; and a commercial area with the stores of foreign merchants. • Urban dwellers did something other than farm; they were scribes, priests, bureaucrats, bakers, cooks, potters, silversmiths, and snake charmers (from the Standard Professions List found in Uruk which listed over 100 different professions going back to 3000 BCE).

44. Sumer • Uruk had walls 20ft high and 6 miles in length surrounding the city and in the city’s center, visible for miles around, was a stepped pyramid (ziggurat) topped with a temple.

45. Sumer • The ziggurat may have been built as a bridge between heaven and earth. • Built on seven levels, the ziggurat represented seven heavens and planes of existence, the seven planets and the seven metals associated with them and their corresponding colors.

46. Sumer • Some archeologists believe ziggurats were not places for public worship…instead they were the dwelling places of the gods. • The gods were believed to have created humans to be their servants, to care for them. • So each city set up its ziggurat to attract its chosen god/goddess to take up residence in the city, so they could be close to mankind, and to protect the city and bring it prosperity.

47. Sumer • As if it was human, the god/goddess was housed, fed, and clothed by a retinue of priests. • Religion created social cohesion and legitimized the ruler’s authority, with local religions eventually giving way to the state religion of the rulers. • As a result the priests were very powerful members of Mesopotamian society.

48. In Uruk, there have been two ceremonial centers excavated: the smaller one known as the White Temple was associated with the sky-god, An, the father of all gods, representing patriarchal authority. Sumer

49. The larger temple, called the Eanna Complex, was associated with An’s daughter Inanna, the divinity of the storehouse, the Queen of Heaven, the goddess of love. This Babylonian lion was the symbol of Inanna/Ishtar. It is estimated that 1,500 laborers worked 10 hours a day for 5 years to build the Eanna Complex. Sumer

50. Sumer • There were at least 20 major city-states in Sumer and a number of lesser towns. Major city-states included Nippur in central Sumer, considered the most sacred city of the land.