The Ancient World
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PART 1 The Ancient World RT HISTORY IS MORE THAN the “history” began? Obviously, prehistory large plant-eating animals roamed the study of a stream of art objects was far from uneventful. Yet the major plains and valleys; the ancestors of today’s Acreated over time. It is inextricably events of prehistory, decisive as they lions and tigers preyed upon them, as did bound to the study of history itself, that is, may have been, seem to have unfolded our own ancestors. These people lived in the recorded evidence of human events. sporadically and gradually when measured caves or under the shelter of overhanging History, it is often thought, began with against the events of the last 5,000 years. rocks, as many sites bear witness, mostly the invention of writing by the civilizations Another criterion that defines “history,” in Spain and in southern France. Scholars of Mesopotamia and Egypt some 5,000 then, is a sudden acceleration in the call this phase of prehistory the Paleolithic years ago. To be sure, without writing, the occurrence of momentous events, a shift or Old Stone Age, because human beings growth human beings have known over from low gear to high gear, as it were. crafted their tools from stone. They lived in the millennia would have been impossible. There was also a change in the kinds of a manner that was suited to the conditions However, writing seems to have developed events that occurred. Historic societies of a waning ice age, and as those conditions over the course of several hundred years literally make history. The challenges changed, so did their way of life. after these civilizations had evolved— they face produce “great individuals and The Paleolithic era came to a close with roughly between 3300 and 3000 BCE, with great deeds” (one definition of history) by what is termed the Neolithic Revolution. Mesopotamia in the lead. Thus “history” demanding human effort on a large scale. Even though this was a period of transition was well under way by the time scribes Their achievements were memorable; that extended over several thousand years began to use writing to create records. that is, they were not only “worth during the Mesolithic (Middle Stone) Age, For historians, the invention of writing remembering,” but also capable of being it was indeed revolutionary, and ushered is a huge landmark: the lack of written grasped by human memory because they in the New Stone Age. It began in the records is one of the key criteria that occurred within a short time-span, not over “fertile crescent” of the Near East (an area differentiates prehistoric from historic the course of centuries. covering what is now Turkey, Iraq, Iran, societies. Yet this raises some intriguing Of the vast prehistoric era we know Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria) around questions. First of all, how valid is the almost nothing, until the last ice age in 12,000–8000 BCE, with the first successful distinction between “prehistoric” and Europe began to recede, from about attempts to domesticate animals and “historic”? Is it more about the state of our 40,000 to 8000 BCE. (At least three cultivate food grains. Arriving later in knowledge of the past (inasmuch as we previous ice ages had alternated with Europe, the revolution then spread much know a great deal more about societies who periods of subtropical warmth, at intervals more rapidly. wrote than those who did not) than about of about 25,000 years.) At the time, the The production of a regular food supply the past itself? Or was there a real change in climate between the Alps and Scandinavia was one of the most decisive achievements the way things happened, and in the kinds resembled that of present-day Siberia or of human history, and scholars still struggle of things that happened, after writing and Alaska. Huge herds of reindeer and other to understand why it came about. People 18 PART 1 THE ANCIENT WORLD LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 18 15/10/2012 14:52 in Paleolithic societies had led the unsettled uncertain; perhaps it was competition for before. First in Mesopotamia and Egypt, life of the hunter and food-gatherer, reaping grazing land among groups of herders or somewhat later in neighboring areas, and in wherever nature sowed. This placed them for arable soil among farming communities. the Indus Valley and along the Yellow River at the mercy of forces that they neither Perhaps, in fact, the Neolithic Revolution in China, people would henceforth live in a understood nor controlled. But having had been too successful, and allowed more dynamic world. Their ability to survive determined how to ensure the regular population groups to grow beyond their was challenged less by the forces of nature provision of food, they settled in permanent available food supplies. A number of than by human forces: by tensions and villages. The new way of life resulted in the solutions might have eased this problem. conflicts arising either within or between introduction of a number of crafts, among Constant warfare could have checked societies. The problems and pressures them pottery, weaving, and spinning, as the population, or the people could have faced by historic societies thus are very well as basic methods of construction in united in larger and more structured social different from those faced by peoples in the wood, brick, and stone. Around 4500 BCE, units bound by ambitious goals—such Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, and through people in southeastern Europe developed as building fortifications—that a loosely the centuries, efforts to cope with them metallurgy, in the form of copper-working. organized society would struggle to achieve have proved to be a far greater challenge This was the beginning of the so-called on its own. than the earlier struggle with nature. Eneolithic era. Inasmuch as it involved We do not know the outcome of These momentous changes also spurred use of intense heat, this technology grew the tensions in the region, though future the development of new technologies in naturally out of the technology used excavations may reveal how far the what scholars term the Bronze Age and the in pottery and thus it did not in itself urbanizing process extended. About 3,000 Iron Age, which, like the Neolithic Age , are constitute a major development; nor did years later, similar conflicts, on a larger stages rather than distinct eras. People first it have an immediate impact. scale, arose in the Nile Valley and again began to cast bronze, an alloy of copper The Neolithic Revolution placed human in the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates and tin, in the Near East around 3500 BCE, beings on a new level, where the forces rivers, and forced people in these regions at the same time that the earliest cities of nature would not challenge them in the to abandon Neolithic village life. Thus arose there and in Egypt. The smelting same ways as they had Paleolithic peoples. emerged the first civilizations. The word and forging of iron were invented about In a few places, however, a new threat civilization derives from the Latin term for 2000–1500 BCE by the Hittites, an Indo- emerged, posed not by nature but by something pertaining to a city, civilis, and European-speaking people who settled in human beings themselves. Symptomatic to be civilized means to live as a citizen, Cappadocia (now east central Turkey), a of that threat are the earliest Neolithic to be a city dweller. These new societies high plateau with abundant copper and fortifications, built almost 9,000 years ago organized themselves into much larger iron ore. Indeed, competition for mineral in the Near East. What fueled the conflict units—cities and city-states—that were resources helped to incite the conflicts that that made these defenses necessary is far more complex and efficient than ever beset civilizations throughout the world. PART 1 THE ANCIENT WORLD 19 LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 19 15/10/2012 14:52 L Aegean YD IA Mt. Parnassus Delphi Sea Chios IO N IA Corinth ATTICA Athens Ephesos Olympia Mycenae Salamis Samos Cyclades Priene Atlantic PELOPONNESUS Aegina Delos Miletus Paros Didyma Ocean Naxos Halikarnassos North A E Amorgos IRELAND S Sea C Knidos I T era Siphnos L A (Santorini) Akrotiri ENGLAND B Mediterranean El Seabe R Crete Heraklion Stonehenge T . Knossos N ha R Mt. Ida mes R. h in e Mallia R 100 km . Phaistos 100 miles Se E in Trier e R P D . Hohlenstein-Stadel n iep BRITTANY R. er G E R M A N ula R. O Y Vist R. Loire R Willendorf E A N C Lake Constance U F R E Lascaux . R e Altamira n G N E ô R D O h Venice DACIA R Po D O Pech-Merle R. Chauvet ITALY A B . Florence A ube R Segovia d L an Cernavoda T r K D Arno R. ib i e a A SPAIN Arezzo r t R N . i c S Vulci S e Tarquinia Veii a Cerveteri Rome Praeneste Byzantium Primaporta M Naples Mt. Vesuvius A C E D O N I (Constantinople) Ischia T Vergina y Herculaneum Mt. Olympus r Pompeii Samothrace r h Paestum Troy e n GREECE i a Lemnos Pergamon A n L Corfu A S e Y a e M Actium Mt. Parnassus D g I e O I e a A n N d Ionian I Sicily Athens S A Mt. Etna e Tralles i Sea a Carthage t e Rhodes r Crete r a See inset n e a n S e a NORTH AFRICA A B Y A S L I L I B L Y A N D E ’ S E e Roman Empire R at the time of Hadrian T 500 km 500 miles 20 PART 1 THE ANCIENT WORLD LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 20 15/10/2012 14:53 THE ANCIENT WORLD D o n R S .