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The Beginnings of Civilization, 10,000–1150 B.C.E

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The Beginnings of Civilization, 10,000–1150 B.C.E M02_LEVA2848_03_SE_C01.QXD 12/22/09 8:03 PM Page 10 1 The Beginnings of Civilization, 10,000–1150 B.C.E. ᭿ Defining Civilization, Defining Western Civilization ᭿ Mesopotamia: Kingdoms, Empires, and Conquests ᭿ Egypt: The Empire of the Nile IN 1991 HIKERS TOILING ACROSS A GLACIER IN THE ALPS burning embers and dried meat and seeds to eat on BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND Italy made a startling discovery: the trail. The arrows in his quiver featured a natural a man’s body stuck in the ice. They alerted the adhesive that tightly bound bone and wooden points police, who soon turned the corpse over to archae- to the shafts. The most noteworthy find among ologists. The scientists determined that the middle- Ötzi’s possessions was his axe. Its handle was made aged man had frozen to death about 5,300 years of wood, but its head was copper, a remarkable inno- ago. Ötzi the Ice Man (his name comes from the vation at a time when most tools were made of Ötztal Valley where he perished) quickly became an stone. Ötzi was ready for almost anything—except international celebrity. The scientists who examined the person who shot him in the back. Ötzi believe that he was a shepherd leading flocks of Ötzi lived at a transitional moment, at the end of sheep and goats to mountain pastures when he what archaeologists call the Neolithic Age, or “New died. Grains of wheat on his clothing suggested that Stone Age,” a long period of revolutionary change last- he lived in a farming community. Copper dust in his ing from about 10,000 to about 3000 B.C.E. in which hair hinted that Ötzi may also have been a metal- many thousands of years of human interaction with worker, perhaps looking for ores during his journey. nature led to food production through agriculture and An arrowhead lodged in his back indicated a violent the domestication of animals. This chapter begins with death, but the circumstances remain mysterious. this most fundamental encounter of all—that between Ötzi’s gear was state-of-the-art for his time. His humans and the natural world. possessions showed deep knowledge of the natural The achievement of food production let world. He wore leather boots insulated with dense humans develop new, settled forms of communi- grasses chosen for protection against the cold. The ties—and then civilization itself. The growth of civ- pouch around his waist contained stone tools and ilization also depended on constant interaction fire-lighting equipment. The wood selected for his among communities that lived far apart. Once bow offered strength and flexibility. In his light people were settled in a region, they began trad- wooden backpack, Ötzi carried containers to hold ing for commodities that were not available in 10 M02_LEVA2848_03_SE_C01.QXD 12/22/09 8:03 PM Page 11 ÖTZI THE ICE MAN This artist‘s recreation shows Ötzi in his waterproof poncho carrying his state-of-the-art tools. their homelands. As trade routes extended over long distances and interactions among diverse DEFINING CIVILIZATION, peoples proliferated, ideas and technology DEFINING WESTERN spread. This chapter focuses on two questions: CIVILIZATION How did the encounters between early human societies create the world’s first civilizations? And, ᭿ What is the link between the food- what was the relationship between these civiliza- producing revolution of the Neolithic tions and what would become the “West”? era and the emergence of civilization? 11 M02_LEVA2848_03_SE_C01.QXD 12/22/09 8:03 PM Page 12 12 CHAPTER 1 The Beginnings of Civilization, 10,000–1150 B.C.E. Anthropologists use the term culture to describe tion grew more complex. The labor of most peo- all the different ways that humans collectively ple supported a small group of political, mili- adjust to their environment, organize their expe- tary, and religious leaders. This urban elite riences, and transmit their knowledge to future controlled not only government and warfare, generations. Culture serves as a web of intercon- but also the distribution of food and wealth. nected meanings that enable individuals to They augmented their authority by building understand themselves and their place in the monuments to the gods and participating in reli- world. Archaeologists define civilization as an gious rituals that linked divinity with kingship urban culture with differentiated levels of and military prowess. Thus, in early civilizations wealth, occupation, and power. One archaeolo- four kinds of power—military, economic, politi- gist notes that the “complete checklist of civi- cal, and religious—converged. lization” contains “cities, warfare, writing, As Map 1.1 shows, a number of civilizations social hierarchies, [and] advanced arts and developed independently of each other across the crafts.”1 With cities, human populations globe. This chapter focuses on the Mesopotamian achieved the critical mass necessary to develop and Egyptian civilizations because many of the specialized occupations and a level of economic characteristics of “Western civilization” origi- production high enough to sustain complex reli- nated in these areas. The history of “Western civi- gious and cultural practices—and to wage war. lization” thus begins not in Europe, the core To record these economic, cultural, and military territory of the West today, but in what we usually interactions, writing developed. Social organiza- call the Middle East and what ancient historians ARCTIC ARCTIC OCEAN OCEAN EUROPE NORTH AMERICA ASIA ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC AFRICA OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN SOUTH INDIAN AMERICA OCEAN Indus/Ganges River Valleys AUSTRALIA Huang Ho River Valley Tigris/Euphrates River Valleys Nile River Valley 0 3000 km Central Asia 0 3000 mi Inca *Scale at the equator MAP 1.1 The Beginnings of Civilization Civilizations developed independently in India, China, central Asia, and Peru, as well as in Egypt and southwest Asia. Western civilization, however, is rooted in the civilizations that first emerged in Egypt and southwest Asia. Learn on MyHistoryLab M02_LEVA2848_03_SE_C01.QXD 12/22/09 8:03 PM Page 13 Defining Civilization, Defining Western Civilization 13 call the “Near East.”* By 2500 B.C.E., when, as we in the Zagros Mountains in Southwest Asia. Pigs, will see, city-states in Mesopotamia formed a which adapt well to human settlements because flourishing civilization and Egypt’s Old Kingdom they eat garbage, were first domesticated around was well-developed, Europeans still lived only in 7000 B.C.E. By around 6500 B.C.E., domestication scattered agricultural communities. Without the had become widespread. critical mass of people and possessions that Farming and herding were hard work, but accompanied city life, early Europeans did not the payoff was enormous. Even simple agricul- develop the specialized religious, economic, and tural methods could produce about 50 times political classes that characterize a civilization. more food than hunting and gathering. Thanks to the increased food supply, more newborns survived past infancy. Populations expanded, Making Civilization Possible: and so did human settlements. With the mastery The Food-Producing Revolution of food production, human societies developed For more than the first 175,000 years of their exis- the mechanisms not only to feed themselves, but tence, modern humans, known as Homo sapiens also to produce a surplus, which allowed for eco- sapiens (“most intelligent people”), did not pro- nomic specialization and fostered the growth of duce food. Between 200,000 and 100,000 years social, political, and religious hierarchies. ago, Homo sapiens sapiens first appeared in Africa and began to spread to other continents. Scientists refer to this stage of human history as the Pale- The First Food-Producing Communities olithic Age, or Old Stone Age, because people The world’s first food-producing communities made tools by cracking rocks and using their sharp emerged in southwest Asia. People began cultivat- edges to cut and chop. These early peoples scav- ing food in three separate areas, shown on enged for wild food and followed migrating herds Map 1.2. Archaeologists have named the first area of animals. They also created beautiful works of the Levantine Corridor (also known as the Fertile art by carving bone and painting on cave walls. By Crescent)—a 25-mile-wide strip of land that runs 45,000 years ago, these humans had reached most from the Jordan River valley of modern Israel and of Earth’s habitable regions. Palestine to the Euphrates River valley in today’s The end of the last Ice Age about 15,000 Iraq.† The second region was the hilly land north of years ago ushered in an era of momentous Mesopotamia at the base of the Zagros Mountains. change: the food-producing revolution. As the The third was Anatolia, or what is now Turkey. Earth’s climate became warmer, cereal grasses The small settlement of Abu Hureyra near the spread over large areas. Hunter-gatherers learned center of the Levantine Corridor illustrates how to collect these wild grains and grind them up for agriculture developed. Humans first settled here food. When people learned that the seeds of wild around 9500 B.C.E. They fed themselves primarily grasses could be transplanted and grown in new by hunting gazelles and gathering wild cereals. areas, the cultivation of plants was underway. But sometime between 8000 and 7700 B.C.E., they People also began domesticating pigs, sheep, began to plant and harvest grains. Eventually they goats, and cattle, which eventually replaced wild discovered that crop rotation—planting different game as the main sources of meat. The first signs crops in a field each year—resulted in a much of goat domestication occurred about 8900 B.C.E. higher yield. By 7000 B.C.E. Abu Hureyra had grown into a farming community, covering nearly 30 acres that sustained a population of about 400.
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