| Transition to Civilization There is a near consensus amongst scholars and scientists to the effect that the latest age of human history started about 11,500 years ago1 It is an estimated date when the last ice age ended and the present climatic environment started. This period saw the beginning of agriculture, the establishment of the first settlements and the urban civilizations. The era of urban civilizations, of about fifty-five centuries, is a properly recorded history, as the urban civilizations were literal societies. Before recorded history there is prehistory, stretching back to the emergence of mankind. However, there is a difference between the time when there were permanent settlements, with agricultural tools, cult objects and other signs of settled life, and the era before them when wandering hunter-gatherer bands left primitive tools and occasional graves. The period of permanent settlements before the establishment of urban civilizations is called historical prehistory. It is estimated that the present human species, homo sapiens sapiens reached Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, 40 - 50,000 years ago. From then until the advent of agriculture they formed small roving bands of hunter-gatherers whose very existence was based on equilibrium with their environment. It certainly was a form of equilibrium, meaning that their needs were in proportion to the power of the environment to sustain them. If it had been so, then the crisis, which was caused by the climatic change that caused the Neolithic Revolution, would have occurred much earlier. The early humans existed in hunter-gatherer bands; and they surely had the mental capacity to change and innovate but somehow they did not see the need to do so.2 Indeed, they lived in the true prehistory. It was explained in the previous chapter that only a climatic catastrophe, which acted as a catalyst, could compel them to change their form of life from being food collectors to being food producers. Without that climatic catastrophe, they probably would have remained in their old, historyless ways. After the change to agriculture, there were a number of connected changes. The number of people increased and instead of roving bands, they had to have settled communities. When we talk about settled communities, we talk about history, even though our information about them does not come in the form of written documents but in the form of archeological sites, burial places and humble refuse middens. The fledgling settled communities could be assigned, categorized, named and pointed out on maps, and generally treated as historical subjects. The reason for the change to agriculture was a breach in the equilibrium, i e. too many people for the available and renewable food supply. There are those who claim that the food supply was reduced because of some unknown climatic catastrophe. There are others who assert that it was no catastrophic change but a gradual deterioration in environmental conditions, and yet others who think that the cause of the Neolithic Revolution was a process of demographic explosion which upset the equilibrium.3 Whatever the reason, the result was the same: too many people, not enough food. It should be realized that if an area became a foodless desert, even a very small hunter-gatherer band could be considered overpopulation. The period of sixty centuries, defined as historical prehistory, seems to have had tremendous importance for the future history of mankind. There are a number of points, crucial for the future, which originate in these sixty centuries. These are not only important points, they are sometimes riddles, to which it is difficult to give rational answers, without arriving at little green men from outer space, invaders from Atlantis, divine intervention, etc. Commonsense dictates that every question must have some rational answer, but lacking reliable sources, it is difficult to reach realistic and comprehensive answers to these enigmas. One of the most important riddles is the question of the start of civilization, i. e. when the small agricultural settlements coalesced into towns and cities, with organized administration and religion, with writing and all the appurtenances of civilization as we know it. The appearance of civilizations was sudden It is possible that their emergence was the direct consequence of increased population density which in turn required increased food supply, imposing greater pressure on the primary suppliers, the peasants, and more public works, irrigation channels, fortifications and other public buildings. It is unlikely that peasants in the early settlements were more generous than their late descendants, and parted from their surplus without heavy pressure. The cost of collecting the surplus must have been considerable. This was the beginning of the hydraulic civilizations that will play a central role in later chapters. Increased population means that agriculture did increase fertility, which opened the bottle of the demon of demography. Domestication of animals may have provided alternatives to breastfeeding, bringing on earlier weaning and higher rate of childbirth. It is probable that Mesolithic women had four children on average, while Neolithic women had six.4 Child mortality was high and remained high, but replacement factor was, and still is, 2.1 children by childbearing women. Given the high rate of child mortality, four children per woman could have been at replacement rate; six children per woman started an upward spiraling demographic pressure. It is still with us. In addition to the obvious reason, availability of animal milk to feed the children, ipso facto higher rate of childbirth, there are two other reasons, equally logical. The first reason is the transition to a settled way of life, and the second is the transition to a vegetarian diet. 1. Transition to a settled way of life Hunter-gatherer bands were on the move most of the time, i.e. from time to time they had to pack whatever scant property they had and move to a new campsite. It is possible that they had a number of campsites, and moved about in a circle, but still the fact of packing and moving were with them. It is obvious that the main burden fell on the women. After all, they must have been in charge of the household, whatever it was at that time, together with the rudimentary household equipment, gourds, pottery, etc. Obviously, they had to take care of the children too. One would expect a child of four to be able to walk with the grownups from camp to camp. Younger than that they had to be carried. It must have been one of the considerations, which limited the number of children. Four children every four years is 16 years, which is about a reasonable span of childbearing age at that period. If an average woman had her first child at the age of 14, after 16 years she was 30 that was quite old at that time. It is so even today in a number of places. 2. Transition to a vegetarian diet With the advent of agriculture, the ratio of calories from meat in the normal diet of the early humans must have declined. Previously they must have received their food needs from the results of their hunting and a smaller percentage from their gathering activities, now the ratio was reversed. It is a known fact that vegetarian diet increases the ratio of body fat to the total body weight. It is also a known fact that increased ratio of body fat against body weight in women means a higher fertility rate. Increased population brought on the development of urban centers, and with it probably the greatest riddle of them all. Somehow, we meet civilizations that seem to start at a high level, without any period of growth and development, and then they remained on the same level or even seemed to regress. Sir Flinders Petrie wrote: "The materials used in building tell much of the builders. In the series of pyramids the finest materials and work is at the beginning, and through the IVth to the VIth dynasties the degeneration is continuous, until a pyramid was a mere shell of a building filled with chips."5 Agriculture did not bring much ito the life of the Neolithic population, apart from those who came to dominate the first agricultural communities, but then it was not supposed to bring improvement; it was a means of keeping alive in deteriorating climatic conditions. It is worthwhile to bring here a quotation from Ernest Gellner, one of the leading sociologists of our time : "(The Neolithic Revolution) was a tremendous trap. The main consequences of food production and storage was the pervasiveness of political nomination... The moment there is a surplus and storage, coercion becomes socially inevitable, having previously been but optional. A surplus has to be defended. It also has to be divided. No principle of division is either self-justifying or self-enforcing: it has to be enforced by some means and by someone."6 This is for the inevitability of changes, mostly for the worse, at least for those people who had the luck of being part of the Neolithic Revolution, which was the large majority of those alive at that time. It must be pointed out that the statement above has no intention of implying ethical judgments. We can decide that the Neolithic Revolution, the transition from humans being food collectors to becoming food producers, was a retrograde development as its disadvantages overcame its advantages, but there is no point sitting in judgment. We can, just as well, claim that sitting in a storm cellar during a tornado is not the most comfortable of enjoyments. The storm is here and there is not much we can do about it. If judge we must, let's examine the alternatives. The alternative to sitting in the storm cellar is being tossed and mangled by high winds. The alternative to the Neolithic Revolution was starvation. Ernest Gellner saw the problem from the viewpoints of a sociologist. There are other views as well: "...reliance on easily stored and processed carbohydrates brought on long-term malnutrition...physical anthropologists often can determine exactly when a society settled into a Neolithic existence, just by noting the sudden appearance of smaller and more heavily diseased skeletal remains."7 There were a number of factors that with the advent of agriculture caused an outbreak of diseases. One of the reasons was the sedentary life of agricultural settlements. Hunter-gatherer bands frequently shifted camps, leaving piles of refuse behind them. When they returned to the same camp, if they returned there, the refuse piles must have rotted away, neutralizing the dangers. When they turned to a settled way of life, the refuse piles remained with them, infecting the drinking water. It is doubtful that our forefathers in the early settlements had better sanitation than their descendants until nearly modern times.8 The second reason was the domestication of animals. It is known that most infectious diseases originated with animals. Domestication of animals brought humanity a tainted gift. There were undoubted advantages, food, workpower, transportation, etc, but with a heavy price to pay. Here is a short list of diseases originating in animals.9 Animal origin Human diseases Cattle Measles Cattle Tuberculosis Cattle Smallpox Pigs, ducks Flu Birds Malaria The transfer of animal diseases is still in progress, The AIDS epidemic was probably caused by a mutation of a virus in African monkeys. 10 In addition to the physical problems of overpopulation, malnutrition and diseases, there was also a deep psychological deterioration. When the Neolithic people were forced to adapt to the new economy, they were forced to do so by undergoing a period of slow starvation due to the loss of their means of subsistence. If the Neolithic peasants underwent a mental transformation, similar to that which was described by Colin Turnbull, 11 then they turned from a group with admirable characteristics, such as kindness, generosity, affection, consideration, honesty and hospitality into monsters fighting each other for the diminishing food supply. If there was a small light in this murky picture, it was the possibility that the need to cope with adversity caused our ancestors to develop their capacities for languages, culture and technological innovation.12 It was a long and trying sixty centuries. In addition, it was a period with deep contradictions. One part of a region might already have a full agricultural economy, while another part of the same area, perhaps even very near, was still occupied in hunting and gathering. This happened in the Jutland peninsula and Scandinavia in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC The spatial diversity was true for chronological diversity as well. We can imagine the map of the area of the Neolithic Revolution as a map of North Africa, the Middle East and Europe drawn upon a sheet of white paper. Before the start of the Neolithic Revolution the paper was all white. The start of the Neolithic Revolution can be represented by a red triangle on the map, whose three corners are the valley of the Nile, the valley of the Indus and the Iranian highlands, somewhere near Armenia. This triangle was the birthplace of the Neolithic Revolution. Sumer, of course, was within the triangle, on the line connecting the Nile and the Indus. If we would take a periodical snapshot, every century or so, we would be able to see that the red spots would spread to the north. At first the map would be pink, as a mixture of white and red, then more and more red, until at the end of the sixty centuries, the map would be red completely, with pink fringes in the north and west. At the end of the period, at about 3.000 BC there were still hunter-gatherer bands in the far north and the far west, just as we still have today Stone Age tribes in remote areas, like New Guinea or the depths of the still remaining rain forests in the Amazon valley.13 The following chapters examine the aspects of those sixty centuries enabling us to understand as much as possible, the background of the Urban Civilizations which followed, starting about 3.500 BC It is the opinion of this book that the development of Urban Civilizations, and the period immediately preceding them, especially the very slow advance of the red spots on the map of the area, were the factors which shaped the two antagonists in the feud, the primary subject of this book. Notes: |
