Marla_Singer
United in diversity
In the last couple of years, I grew a strong interest on the question about emergence of civilization. And as we are on a "civilization" forum, I thought that question may interest some others of you. Hence this thread! 
To begin with, it is important to point out that the lack of writing causes the issue to still be largely unknown at this point. We found out some required elements (sedentarity, agriculture, demographic dynamics...), but the question about their incentives, which is the most interesting to me, is still largely uncertain. Also I would add that we don't know a lot about the previous periods which were Paleolithic and Mesolithic. According to the most recent research, late Paleolithic lifestyles were far from being as primitive as it used to be assumed. At that stage, hunters-gatherers were largely semi-Nomadic already, only following games in their own migrations from the winter to the summer seasons. In many cases, they alterned between two very specific locations between both seasons, sometimes building settlements in which they came back every year. Also there's been many cases of early sedentary lifestyle that have been found out by Paleonthologists which could last for pretty long periods of times, sometimes milleniums, before vanishing.
What we know is that the climates before the last glacial maximum were pretty rough all over the earth. Temperate areas were very limited, most areas either being large hot and arid deserts or large cold tundras and taigas. Progressively after 20,000 BCE, the climate became more hospitable, with more areas guaranteeing permanent supplies of food all year long. As a result, sedentary ilfestyle became more frequent, even if still disappearing after a certain period of time in most cases. There are many obvious reasons to explain why it ultimately stops: natural disasters, food resource depletion, climate change, conflicts or whatever else. Also it's important to note that nomadic or semi-nomadic people had pretty stable demographics. They had a longer breastfeeding period that behaves as a natural contraceptive, therefore the fertility rate was pretty stable around 2 children per woman. Sedentary lifestyle allowed shorter breastfeeding leading to more pregnancy and more dynamic demographics. This necessarily had an impact on societies in the longer term forcing people to adapt, probably sometimes leading to conflicts.
Yet there's been one very first exception in Near East: the area has been permanently settled for the last 13,000 years without any interruption. Others will follow in the Indus valley, China, Mesoamerica and the Andes. The question that intrigues me is how was it possible for some people (not necessarily always the same) to live permanently in a sedentary way for such a long period of time, despite natural disasters, despite droughts, despite conflicts or whatever other cataclysms that have necessarily happened, they insisted in continuing to live permanently in that specific region no matter what. All studies show that those first sedentary people in Near East, all the way to the first farmers emerging later in the same area, had much poorer health than hunters-gatherers of the same period of time. They had more nutritional deficiencies, had poorer teeth, were shorter and died younger. Therefore we can genuinely wonder why would they inflict to themselves so much misery.
From what I understood, we lack of elements to really know the reasons for it, therefore what will follow next are largely assumptions. We can indeed wonder if the fact they stayed, despite poorer health, wasn't because they had an interest to stay where they were. Indeed, that area between modern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine was a fertile corridor connecting the three large landmasses of Africa, Europe and Asia. It was also located between the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and the Red Sea. As such it is a natural, pretty much unavoidable, crossroad for trade. We know that obsidian, shells and beads were already traded pretty intensively in that area. Very likely, perishable goods were also traded, even if they obviously disappeared, limiting our certainty. What's important about trade is that it creates connections between distant and different peoples, allowing them not only to share goods, but also to share knowledge. All accross History of Mankind, the most advanced civilizations have always been those controlling trade.
A Spanish team has recently proven that Anatolian hunters-gathers already mastered some form of bread cooking from wild wheat even before agriculture emerged. Considering that sedentary people had dynamic demographics, leading to population growth, we can actually wonder if they didn't start to cultivate cereals in the area in order to sustain that growing population very locally, because instead of moving elsewhere as they normally should have, they wanted to stay in those very specific locations that were some forms of proto-marketplaces on various trade routes. And indeed, if we look at the craddles of civilizations all accross the world, they were always characterized first by a trade network.
I tried separating clearly what I understood as established knowledge to what seems more hypothetical at this stage. Have you studied the topic by yourself? What do you think? I'm really interested to know your insight about it.
To begin with, it is important to point out that the lack of writing causes the issue to still be largely unknown at this point. We found out some required elements (sedentarity, agriculture, demographic dynamics...), but the question about their incentives, which is the most interesting to me, is still largely uncertain. Also I would add that we don't know a lot about the previous periods which were Paleolithic and Mesolithic. According to the most recent research, late Paleolithic lifestyles were far from being as primitive as it used to be assumed. At that stage, hunters-gatherers were largely semi-Nomadic already, only following games in their own migrations from the winter to the summer seasons. In many cases, they alterned between two very specific locations between both seasons, sometimes building settlements in which they came back every year. Also there's been many cases of early sedentary lifestyle that have been found out by Paleonthologists which could last for pretty long periods of times, sometimes milleniums, before vanishing.
What we know is that the climates before the last glacial maximum were pretty rough all over the earth. Temperate areas were very limited, most areas either being large hot and arid deserts or large cold tundras and taigas. Progressively after 20,000 BCE, the climate became more hospitable, with more areas guaranteeing permanent supplies of food all year long. As a result, sedentary ilfestyle became more frequent, even if still disappearing after a certain period of time in most cases. There are many obvious reasons to explain why it ultimately stops: natural disasters, food resource depletion, climate change, conflicts or whatever else. Also it's important to note that nomadic or semi-nomadic people had pretty stable demographics. They had a longer breastfeeding period that behaves as a natural contraceptive, therefore the fertility rate was pretty stable around 2 children per woman. Sedentary lifestyle allowed shorter breastfeeding leading to more pregnancy and more dynamic demographics. This necessarily had an impact on societies in the longer term forcing people to adapt, probably sometimes leading to conflicts.
Yet there's been one very first exception in Near East: the area has been permanently settled for the last 13,000 years without any interruption. Others will follow in the Indus valley, China, Mesoamerica and the Andes. The question that intrigues me is how was it possible for some people (not necessarily always the same) to live permanently in a sedentary way for such a long period of time, despite natural disasters, despite droughts, despite conflicts or whatever other cataclysms that have necessarily happened, they insisted in continuing to live permanently in that specific region no matter what. All studies show that those first sedentary people in Near East, all the way to the first farmers emerging later in the same area, had much poorer health than hunters-gatherers of the same period of time. They had more nutritional deficiencies, had poorer teeth, were shorter and died younger. Therefore we can genuinely wonder why would they inflict to themselves so much misery.
From what I understood, we lack of elements to really know the reasons for it, therefore what will follow next are largely assumptions. We can indeed wonder if the fact they stayed, despite poorer health, wasn't because they had an interest to stay where they were. Indeed, that area between modern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine was a fertile corridor connecting the three large landmasses of Africa, Europe and Asia. It was also located between the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and the Red Sea. As such it is a natural, pretty much unavoidable, crossroad for trade. We know that obsidian, shells and beads were already traded pretty intensively in that area. Very likely, perishable goods were also traded, even if they obviously disappeared, limiting our certainty. What's important about trade is that it creates connections between distant and different peoples, allowing them not only to share goods, but also to share knowledge. All accross History of Mankind, the most advanced civilizations have always been those controlling trade.
A Spanish team has recently proven that Anatolian hunters-gathers already mastered some form of bread cooking from wild wheat even before agriculture emerged. Considering that sedentary people had dynamic demographics, leading to population growth, we can actually wonder if they didn't start to cultivate cereals in the area in order to sustain that growing population very locally, because instead of moving elsewhere as they normally should have, they wanted to stay in those very specific locations that were some forms of proto-marketplaces on various trade routes. And indeed, if we look at the craddles of civilizations all accross the world, they were always characterized first by a trade network.
I tried separating clearly what I understood as established knowledge to what seems more hypothetical at this stage. Have you studied the topic by yourself? What do you think? I'm really interested to know your insight about it.
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