EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD To the genius of Titus Lucretius Carus (99/95 BC-55 BC) and his insight into the real nature of things. EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD The formative histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China Charles Keith Maisels London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 First published in paperback 2001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 1999 Charles Keith Maisels All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-44950-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-45672-6 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-10975-2 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-10976-0 (pbk) CONTENTS List of figures viii List of tables xi Preface and acknowledgements xii Glossary xiii 1 HOW DOES THE PAST ILLUMINATE THE PRESENT? 1 The emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline 4 The lands of the Bible ( = Near East) 15 Social archaeology 24 Childe’s checklist 24 The present illuminated: paths of the past, spirals to the future 26 2 SEMA-TAWY: THE LAND OF THE PAPYRUS AND LOTUS 31 The place 31 The time 38 Late Palaeolithic 39 Epipalaeolithic to Neolithic 41 State formation process 60 Childe’s checklist 70 3 THE LEVANT AND MESOPOTAMIA 79 The place 79 The time 38 Syria and the Levant 91 To the heartland of cities in Sumer, via Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf 122 village farming cultures i The social order 152 Conclusion 170 Childe’s checklist 172 4 THE INDUS/‘HARAPPAN’/SARASVATI CIVILIZATION 180 The place 181 The time 186 Social evolution: Neolithic to Chalcolithic at Mehrgarh 186 Later agricultural subsistence 193 Urban society 208 The misrepresentation of the Greater Indus oecumene 213 Class stratification 224 The fall 230 Palaeoethnology: kinship to caste 241 Conclusion 170 Childe’s checklist 24 5 THE CENTRAL KINGDOM, ZHONG-GUO 250 The place 250 The time 256 The Neolithic clusters 262 Final Neolithic to Chalcolithic 280 The Chalcolithic: Longshan 285 The Chalcolithic: Hongshan 290 Clanship and the territorial state 294 Bronze Age urbanism 297 States: The three dynasties 300 The late Shang capital at Anyang 305 The earlier Shang capital at Zhengzhou 307 Western Zhou 309 Childe’s checklist 315 vii 6 CONCLUSION: THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL 327 COMPLEXITY How useful do Childe’s criteria turn out to be? 327 Childe’s other revolution 330 Political economies 333 Politics and the state 336 Social evolution 339 APPENDICES 344 Appendix A: The genealogical principle 344 Appendix B: Occupation, kinship and caste 348 Appendix C: The Sumerian King List as a historical source 350 Notes 353 Bibliography 379 Index 447 FIGURES Front endpapers Evolutionary landmarks Frontispiece Detail of statue from the Abu Temple, Khafaje (Tell Asmar), c. 2600 BC 2.1 Map of the Nile Valley with some key sites 33 2.2 Selected nome standards 35 2.3 The developed Nilotic irrigation system 35 2.4 Amratian dancing figurine 46 2.5 Naqada I grave goods of superior quality 48 2.6 Sites of the Buto/Maadi culture 50 2.7 Scorpion King with hoe on macehead 61 2.8 Naqada II pot showing boat with oars 65 2.9 Example of Hieratic script 73 3.1 Map of the Levant, Mesopotamia and Western Iran 80 3.2 Ancient levees from Landsat imagery 85 3.3 Flow chart of social evolution 92 3.4 Provisioning and settlement processes 94 3.5 Radiocarbon dates from PPNA sites 101 3.6 Plan of Netiv Hagdud 102 3.7 LPPNB two-storey house at ‘Ain Ghazal 108 3.8 PPNC temple at ’Ain Ghazal 108 3.9 Figure and ‘dumpy’ from the 1983 cache 113 3.10 Lifted deposit of statues at ’Ain Ghazal 113 3.11 Various Ghassulian house-forms 119 3.12 Hassuna standard painted-and-incised ware 131 3.13 Hassuna standard incised and painted-and-incised ware 131 3.14 Interdigitation and succession of prehistoric and protohistoric 131 cultures in Mesopotamia 3.15 Habur Headwaters map 131 3.16 Halaf polychrome plate from Arpachiya 135 3.17 Halaf painted pottery from Arpachiya 136 3.18 Tholoi in plan at Girikihaciyan 137 3.19 Geometric designs on painted pottery of the Halaf Period at 139 Arpachiya 3.20 Site map of Tell es-Sawwan 145 3.21 Tell es-Sawwan, Levels I with III 145 ix 3.22 Naturalistic and geometric designs from the classic trio: Halaf, 148 Samarra and Ubaid 3.23 Tell Abada site plan showing large houses tightly nucleated 150 3.24 The house at Kheit Qasim III 151 3.25 The internal structure of the Lamusa household 153 3.26 The Iš-dup-dEN.ZU oikos led by Ebiirilum 154 3.27 Tell Qalinj Agha site plan 154 3.28 Oikioi at Tell Abu Salabikh 154 3.29a and b Irrigation regimes in northern and southern Mesopotamia 160 3.30 The Ibgal of Enannatum 160 3.31 The EN in action: four glyptic images 167 3.32 Impressions of city-seals from Jemdet Nasr 171 3.33 Fine seals from Nippur in the Akkadian Period 173 4.1 Map of the Greater Indus drainage 181 4.2 Plan of Mehrgarh 3, Area MR3-MR3-4 188 4.3 Mehrgarh in comparative context 190 4.4 Diagram of Potter’s structures at Mehrgarh, Period VII 194 4.5 Neck pieces, painted sherd and plain beakers from Kot Diji 194 4.6 Vases and globular vessels from Kot Diji 194 4.7 Mehrgarh Period VII pottery 194 4.8a Early Indus ware 194 4.8b Period II pottery at Nausharo 194 4.9 Painted potsherd at Kot Diji 194 4.10 Painted incised and plain pottery at Kot Diji 201 4.11 Decorated jars at Kot Diji 201 4.12 Diagram of the river regime: land-use zones of the Punjab in 201 cross-section 4.13 Methods of flood/flow irrigation 201 4.14 Rehman Dheri situation map 210 4.15 Plan of Kuntasi 212 4.16 Layout and entrances at Kalibangan on the Ghaggar 218 4.17 Plan of ‘citadel’, Mohenjo-daro 220 4.18a Horned deity, detail 220 4.18b and c Horned deity on jar 220 4.19 Horned creature on jars from Kot Diji 220 4.20 House-forms at Mohenjo-daro 225 4.21a and b The rivers in the domain of the Hakra 233 4.22a and b The Sarasvati nexus 238 4.23 Terracotta animals, Harappan period at Kot Diji 242 4.24 Female and male terracotta figurines from Mehrgarh 249 5.1 Outline map of China locating some key sites 252 5.2 Map of the administrative divisions of China 252 5.3 Vegetation zones of East Asia 253 5.4 Gansu Yangshao painted pottery amphora 264 x 5.5 Gansu Yangshao pottery jar 264 5.6 Yangshao decorative (fish) motifs from Banpo village 268 5.7 Jiangzhai village layout 270 5.8 Yangshao house types 272 5.9 Scapula blades from Hemudu layer 4 276 5.10 Mortice and tenon joints from Hemudu layer 4 277 5.11 Pottery from Hemudu layer 4 278 5.12 Plan of the Longshan cemetery at Chengzi 281 5.13 Stratification in the structure of the Conical Clan 284 5.14 Shandong Longshan white pottery tripod pitcher 286 5.15 Shang bronze vessel for heating wine 286 5.16 Shang bronze battle-axe head 286 5.17 Shang bronze food container 286 5.18 Distribution of Hongshan culture sites and others in Liaoning 291 5.19 Longshan and related cultures map 293 5.20 Restoration of hall F1, Panlongcheng site 295 5.21 Guo diagram: Zhou state expansion by colonization and conquest 295 5.22 Erlitou area map 302 5.23 Shang city walls in Yanshi and Zhengzhou 306 5.24a Reconstruction of Fenchu elite buildings 310 5.24b Plan of Fenchu elite buildings 311 5.25 Emblems that may be related to professions 317 5.26 Formalized agricultural calendar 319 5.27 Carved bone plates bearing three stacked taoties 320 5.28 Bronzes and jades from Fu Hao’s tomb 323 6.1 Contrasting evolutionary trajectories from foraging to large- 328 scale complex societies 6.2 The political domain as the arena of contest-exchange 336 Appendix A Intermarriage within the jati (sub-caste) 377 Back endpapers Map of the Levant, Mesopotamia and Western Iran TABLES 1.1 An evolutionary classification of sites and cultures from the Nile to the 28 Yellow River 2.1 A new cultural and political chronology for the Pre-Dynastic-Early 52 Dynastic transition as derived from the seriations 2.2 Scheme of cultural and political progression 55 2.3 List and comparative sizes of royal tombs found by Petrie at Abydos 66 3.1 Ecological features of Ebla and Lagash, and their exploitation 83 3.2 Chronological scheme of cultural developments in the Southern Levant 87 during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene.