Chapter 1 Before Civilization
As with the other great changes in human cultural development, a changing environment probably stimulated the great human experiment of attempting to control food sources rather than simply gathering or hunting them. Scholars dispute the reasons people switched from hunting and gathering to producing their own food. Although some scholars believe that the growing population of the human race forced people into food producing, there is no direct evidence of this. In fact, as we have seen, in areas like central Russia humans often passed up opportunities to become food-producers, even after centuries of relatively settled life in one place. In the Middle East too, many of the Natufian settlements were eventually abandoned, as their inhabitants apparently went back to a nomadic hunting and gathering existence.
On the other hand, as the climate changed after the end of
the last glacial period, when the ice began to retreat north again, and the
herds of animals moved with it, some people in the hills and valleys of the
Middle East did not go back on the road. In addition to hunting, they had become
increasingly content to gather a variety of wild grains that were particularly
abundant in the region, especially in the hills. The warming climate actually
led to an expansion of these grains and the wildlife that exploited them. With
food and water supplies remaining so abundant, many of the Natufian peoples felt
no need to change their lives by returning to a wandering existence. Instead they chose to find ways to
remain in their homes. These people changed the course of human history.
Domestication
of plants. Ironically,
the decision to remain sedentary foragers nearly proved disastrous. During the
early phases of the Interglacial, as the wild grains became rapidly more
abundant, the Natufian foragers became increasingly dependent on them. Between
about 11,000 and 8,000 B.C., however, during a period known as the Younger Dryas,
the warming trend that had begun with the end of the last ice age suddenly
reversed for over a thousand years, and the climate in the eastern Mediterranean
became suddenly colder and drier again. As rain became scarce, and both wild grains and herds of large game animals
began to diminish, between 8,000 and 5,000 B.C. some people adapted to the
rapidly
changing environment by achieving a new
level of technology, domestication, or conscious control of both plants and animals. This was the first step towards taking control of the environment rather than
being subject to it. Domesticating plants led to the development of agriculture,
in which people depended primarily on crops for food. Domestication of animals,
especially grazing animals such as goats, sheep and pigs, led to the development
of pastoralism, in which meat and
milk became the primary food sources.
Domestication of plants was
a gradual process. As women stayed in one spot year after year gathering the
wild grains around their homes, they must have noticed that wherever they
dropped seeds from their harvest new plants would eventually spring up. Soon
they may have realized that this was more likely to happen near water, and so
they began to plant seeds deliberately, in good soil near water. Or perhaps they
began to selectively cultivate the plants that grew up from seeds that had been
discarded in their own trash piles from partially eaten food. At any rate,
apparently they eventually began to plant only the kinds of grain that they liked most, and deliberate
agriculture was under way.
Through trial and error, the wild strains of barley and wheat that had
been gathered by people in the Middle East for centuries were now selectively
bred in ways that made them more productive and more resistant to disease. As
their yields increased, so too did people's dependence upon them for food. As
people spent more and more time developing the new agriculture, they had less
time to spend on hunting and gathering. Since the animal populations were moving
anyway, this only allowed more people, including men now, to work at farming.
Domestication
of animals At
about the same time, however, people also began to find ways to keep some
animals, the smaller ones, from moving away. As women did with plants, so men
began to do with animals. There is evidence that as early as 12,000 B.C. human
beings had learned that wolf cubs, probably taken from their dens after the
parents had been killed, could be brought up and trained to help human hunters
on the game trail. The domestication of the wolf into the dog also gave man a
companion who could be used to gather and control herds of grazing animals like
sheep. Hunters must have noticed how some types of animals tended to follow a
leader, the ram or the billy goat. By taking control of these leaders they could
get control of the whole herd. Although at first people seem to have domesticated animals for their
meat - as a kind of controlled and predictable form of hunting - eventually they
began to realize that the animals were actually more useful for their milk, hair and other
"secondary" products. From controlled hunters they had now become
herders. Soon, these new herders also began to experiment
with breeding the stronger animals to achieve improvements in the whole herd.
Unlike developed
agriculture, which soon became sedentary, or settled permanently in one place, herding animals
was a pastime that could keep people on the move. Animals still needed to graze,
as well as to find water. Consequently, the people who depended on them also had
to move with them, usually according to the seasons, looking for grass and fresh
water.
It may have been through
observation of their animals that pastoralists began to realize the relationship
between conception and birth. As a consequence, they soon decided that just as
the ram was the head of the herd, so the oldest male should be the head of the
extended family or clan. In fact, pastoral peoples are almost always patrilineal, counting
descent and inheritance through the male line, and patrilocal, with wives
going to live with their husbands’ families. Such societies are also generally
patriarchal,
granting authority to men rather than women. Agricultural communities, on the other hand, continued to associate
women, probably the first agricultural specialists, with the basic element of
group survival, food production. Consequently, they remained largely
mother-oriented - at least until development of the plow, which was too heavy
for women to use effectively, gave men control of agricultural production too.
Although scholars generally agree that the discovery of domestication, both of plants and animals, a process often called the "Neolithic Revolution," occurred first in Southwest Asia at least as early as 10,000 B.C., particularly the area of the present-day Middle East, they also note that it occurred independently in six or seven different places at slightly different times - Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, South America, Mesoamerica, the highlands of Ethiopia in northeastern Africa, as well as the sahel region of Africa (the grasslands just south of the Sahara Desert), and West Africa. From these original regions of development, domestication of plants and animals spread into other parts of the world. From Southwest Asia, for example, the Neolithic Revolution spread into Egypt, the Mediterranean and Europe. From China and perhaps India it spread into Southeast Asia and eventually across the Pacific. From Mesoamerica it spread into North America. In all these areas, the basic patterns of developing agriculture and pastoralism were much the same. On the other hand, the local plants and animals that were available for domestication varied from region to region. Consequently, different areas developed very different bases for their agriculture and herding.
In Southwest Asia, for example, as early as 9,000 B.C., people in the Jordan River Valley were apparently domesticating figs and oats, while the the most easily domesticated grain plants were local grasses that would produce barley and several early forms of wheat (emmer and einkorn). In Asia, on the other hand, millet and rice became the most important grain crops sometime before about 8,000 B.C. In South America, potatoes and manioc were domesticated as a major food crop, and cotton, which was used for clothing and to make fishing lines and nets, was also a major agricultural product. Mesoamericans probably first cultivated squash and maize (corn) sometime between about 8000 and 7000 B.C., and by at least 4000 B.C. they had also domesticated beans.
Similarly, different regions depended on different domesticated animals - peoples in South America, for example, domesticated the llama, while those in the Middle East came to rely on sheep, goats, pigs, cattle and oxen. In India people tamed (though they did not not truly domesticate) the elephant, while Central Asian peoples apparently first domesticated the horse. In the deserts of Arabia and Central Asia, several types of camels also became an important domesticated animal that shaped peoples' lives and cultures. The different requirements and skills necessary for successful domestication of all these different plants and animals contributed directly to the different cultures established by the peoples in these different regions of the world as they adapted to their local environments.
THE
RISE OF TOWN LIFE
By the late Neolithic period,
around 5,000 B.C., people in the Middle East had made great strides in taking
control of their environment. They had created new inventions, such as pottery,
which allowed them to store water and food, the sail and the wheel, which made
long-distance transportation and trade easier, and even the plow and the ox
yoke, which made it easier to till the soil. It was in this period too that they
first learned to use metals.
Copper was the first metal to be made into tools. Easily identified where
it occurred in natural deposits on the surface of the earth, copper also had a
low enough melting point to be melted out of the ore in ordinary charcoal fires.
Once extracted from the ore and cooled, the metal was still soft
enough to be easily shaped. Copper tools lasted longer than stone tools, and
could be reshaped if they broke or were bent out of shape. Eventually, people
learned that when copper containing small amounts of other materials like
arsenic and especially tin was melted, the combined result, a metal alloy
known as bronze, was both easier to melt and shape. Once it cooled, bronze was
also harder than copper and could carry a sharper edge. As
soon as people began to shift from using stone and copper tools to bronze
tools, they had left the Neolithic era and had begun what many scholars have
traditionally called the Bronze Age.
By making human farming
techniques more efficient, the new tools increased even further the amount of
food that people could produce. More food in turn meant that more people could
be sustained, and communities began to grow larger. The same social patterns
that had already begun in the earlier settlements of the hunters and gatherers
were accelerated in these new agricultural settlements. From the level of the
village, people began to live together in such large numbers that small towns
were established. The sheer size of community life reinforced all the patterns
of privacy, private property, and social stratification that had begun in places
like the Natufian settlements.
By about 7,000 B.C. the
process of agricultural development in the Middle East had allowed communities
of over a thousand people to develop. Archeologists have uncovered one such
early town in southern Turkey, at a place called Catal
Huyuk (Chatal Hooyook). Another, which some scientists date back to 8,000
B.C., was established at Jericho, in the valley of the Jordan River in
present-day Israel. (And yes, it did have walls that seem to have fallen down,
though we do not yet know why.) These early towns were apparently in contact
with others like themselves, for there is clear evidence of trade goods that
must have originated in other regions. Still, towns were not the rule, for most
human beings on the planet did not yet live in such communities.
Artist's rendition of Catal Huyuk, taken from http://www.museum.agropolis.fr/images/mod6b.gif
Social
and Cultural Consequences The shift to sedentary agriculture that made such
large towns possible also had social and cultural consequences. As we have seen,
pastoral nomads became patriarchal in nature, dominated by men. The same thing
happened even in the agricultural centers, as the invention of the plow, the
hoe, and other tools requiring heavy labor brought men into the fields in
increasing numbers. As control over agricultural production passed from women to
men, so apparently did control over society as a whole.
Although female oriented fertility cults continued to be the center of
peoples' religious life in agricultural communities, they also gradually became
more symbolic, with women holding less and less real power in society. This
shift may also have reflected a growing awareness of the man's role in producing
children.
Just as relationships
between men and women changed with the rise of large towns, so too did the basic
relationships among the various groups within the communities. Jericho and Catal
Huyuk, for example, had populations ranging from 2,000 to 6,000 people. With so
many living in a relatively small area, the organizational skills that had begun
to develop in Neolithic villages had to be greatly expanded. The prosperous
specialists, who could already be seen in the Mammoth-bone culture, now became
real elites, directing town life with careful concern, consciously we might say.
Specialization as a whole increased, as growing food surpluses left time
free for many people to develop their own special crafts or arts. Specialization
also made trade with other communities important, particularly for items that
were not easily found in the area of one's own town. In the hills above the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers, for example, trade in salt, an indispensable item
for all human beings, especially those living in warm climates, became a major
factor in growing communications among Neolithic villages. Villages near salt
supplies began to specialize in producing the vital substance, which they then
traded to other villages in exchange for grain and other foodstuffs, or perhaps
even articles made of copper and bronze.
Jericho is perhaps the best example of this process for the town was
located near good supplies of salt, as well as sulfur and pitch, both substances
used in making fire. The people of Jericho traded these items for a variety of
things from far away places, especially obsidian, an extremely hard, glass-like
volcanic rock that could be sharpened to a razor edge. They also traded for
decorative stones like turquoise, lapis lazuli, even cowrie shells from the Red
Sea.
Jericho also tells us a lot
about how social and religious organization developed. A very powerful ruling
group ran the town. They seem to have gotten their power from the fact that they
kept the town’s religious shrines. People still believed that the world was
inhabited by spirits. Especially powerful were the forces of nature. Even more
important was the earth, which was generally seen as a great mother goddess.
Both the plants and the water so necessary for human survival sprang from her
body. Even salt was dug from her fruitful womb. The specialists who tended all
these spirits were naturally considered vital to the survival of the community.
If the spirits of nature did not cooperate, the entire existence of the
community might be at stake. Religion in such an environment was thus a kind of
insurance plan, designed to guarantee the continuing cooperation of nature with
the human effort to survive. The specialists who maintained this cooperation
were themselves increasingly seen as invaluable. They might produce no physical
commodity, no pottery bowls nor cowrie shell necklaces for adornment, but people
must have believed that through their special knowledge and ritual efforts they
kept the human community in harmony and balance with the natural world on which
it depended.
The same patterns seen at
Jericho were repeated with even greater development at Catal Huyuk. There,
agriculture was also the basis of human existence but it was supplemented by a
more highly developed level of animal herding than was the case at Jericho. In
general a greater variety of meats, grains, and vegetables was available. Catal
Huyuk developed even more specialized industries than Jericho too, especially in
making flint and obsidian weapons and tools. The ruling elite was probably
larger and even more powerful.
The religious shrines scattered throughout the town, which were built
like regular houses, though generally larger, tell us that the mother goddess
was worshipped in Catal Huyuk, along with other gods and goddesses that seem to
have been associated with both fertility rites and death rites. Like Jericho
too, Catal Huyuk eventually found the need to fortify itself, presumably against
raids from groups of people who lived outside the town. Perhaps these raiders
were passing bands of hunters and gatherers desperate for food in times of
drought. Perhaps they were nomadic pastoralists seeking to steal the town's
livestock. Once again we can only speculate.
Yet also like Jericho, as far as we can tell Catal Huyuk was a unique development in its region. We have discovered no other towns of comparable development in association with it. Although the elements of what we might call civilized life are clearly seen there, civilization itself had not yet begun. That development came first during the 5th-4th millennium, culminating around around 3500 B.C., a thousand miles away, in the region where two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, flowed into the Persian Gulf.
The
expansion of villages into towns, towns into cities and the establishment of relations among cities
marked not only humanity's creative discovery of civilization, but their
emergence into what most scholars call the historical era.
THE
EMERGENCE OF CIVILIZATION
Much has been written about
the origins of civilized life - what it is, where it first developed, and why it
developed. Yet still we have no firm answers to many of our questions. Even the
terms 'civilization' and 'civilized' mean different things to different people. In the English language, these words all come from a Latin word, civis,
which means citizen or 'city-dweller.' The ancient Greeks used the term
'civilized' to distinguish between those people who spoke Greek and lived in
cities and those who didn't. Those who didn't they called 'barbarians.' A
similar distinction was also made in China, where the term 'civilized' applied
only to the main Chinese population, who call themselves the Han - while all others
were considered 'barbarians.'
Most modern scholars use the term civilization to refer to people living together in relatively complex societies, marked by varying combinations of several basic elements: large-scale production of surplus food, usually through agriculture, perhaps supplemented by pastoralism or even fishing; the development of large towns or cities, particularly including large-scale or monumental architecture; divisions of labor that reflect well-developed levels of economic specialization, including organized government; and writing or record-keeping, which allows people to record and transmit information both to each other and to succeeding generations. According to these definitions, civilized people are those who have given up the nomadic or semi-nomadic existence of their forbears, to pursue a cooperative, sedentary life.
Of course, for most of us
the terms 'uncivilized' and 'barbarian' still have a negative meaning. This is
primarily because such peoples and ways of living have historically represented
perhaps the greatest
threat to the 'civilizations' that ultimately dominated the earth - and that
produced us in the process.
The first civilizations that
we know of apparently developed out of the need to control water supplies for
large-scale sedentary agriculture. Like the initial development of agriculture and pastoralism, the resort to large-scale irrigation
agriculture itself was probably due to rapid changes in global weather patterns,
particularly the onset of major long-lasting drought that forced people closer
and closer to reliable water sources - major river valleys.