Manco Capac
Friday,13 June,I Collapse
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2010
- Messages
- 8,051
Ancient history always fascinated me more than modern history. Perhaps because it is shrouded with mystery since most human tribes didn't leave a writing legacy, allowing archeologists to hypothetize about their daily life.
Anyways, looking as whole, after reading a lot about small tribes, early "civilizations", etc., what draw my attention recently is "civilization" itself. Some populations reached high levels of sophistications while others stagnated. The reasons themselves are what interest me right now.
First of all, it is important to define what is "civilization".
Of course, I can't define it as well as I define an apple. Nevertheless, in its raw form, let the term civilization be "a group of people that has surpassed the state of hunter-gathering or primitive agriculture and capable to let a big part of the population into specialized talents". That more or less lead to monuments, forges, writing, etc.
First of all, IMPORTANCE is given about the strict stance against bad willed racial attitude. Myself, I am white (yeah, perhaps unnecessary to say) and I am extremely intolerant to racism. Mostly because it is often moved by personal gains at the expense of others. This is often read between the lines of their arguments.
=====
This debate is mostly about why people like the Aborigines, Bantu people, New World populations (to an extent), etc. didn't maintain the development of "civilizations" like Egypt, Europe, Middle East, etc.
Here is a bunch of reasons I might think it could be spot on and I hope replies may enlighten me even more.
1) Isolation.
Isolation seems to be one of the strongest reason why some populations never reached higher stages of civilizations. For instance, Aborigines were one of the most isolated population and they never got past the stone age, still stuck to hunter-gathering methods til the arrival of the Dutch. Bantu people were separated from the rest of the Old World because of the rainforest. And globally, the New World vs Old World.
Isolation might be caused by a myriad of reasons.
Bantu people not only were isolated by the rainforest, but also had to wade through the Saharian desert once it became arid (before it was called the green Sahara around 8000 BCE when the Earth axis permitted mosoons there). Aborigines were isolated because being separated by waters. Already China was more of less separated from the rest of the world because of mountains, so Aborigines suffered twice.
Especially in ancient times, routes were all important. And what strikes most is most mediterranean "civilizations" did maintain a correct balance between each other. Indeed, the mediterranean sea was an utmost important route to the exchange of ideas from the dawn of civilizations. Same for the nilotic people. Once a bit afar from the Mediterranea Sea, we see people took longer time to develop. Think about Celts, Slavic people, Mongolia, etc. In fact, the "civilizations" that had the best and easiest contacts developed quickly.
At last, more contacts also mean wars and wars are a mean of knowledge proliferation and motivation.
2) Rough climate
Indeed, both a very cold climate and a very hot one are difficult to withstand. Nonetheless, comparing both, we know that a cold climate doesn't generate as much food as hot ones. That left a motivation to northern populations to find new way to feed themselves and live comfortably while the populations of hot regions were fed easier without as much efforts given.
Another point is possibly arable lands. Especially in the far past, the very first sprouted "civilizations" were born from people living by the Yellow river, the Nile, the Euphrate/Tigre and the Indus. Flood plains for most, allowing them to farm with less efforts than others stuck with arid lands, poor soils or very cold climates.
IIRC, Aborigines had terrible climate and land for cultivation. Same for Bantu people. And inuits, how can they reach "civilization" with such terrible lands.
A correct close comparison would be Nubia versus Egypt. In the history of Kush/Nubia, most of the time, it was overshadowed by Egypt. Nevertheless, both were by the banks of the Nile, so why the differences.
It seems far far down Upper Egypt, it is more hilly and there are less arable lands than Lower Egypt, allowing less success into agriculture. Ironically, cattle wasn't succesful in Egypt and pastoralism is more demanding in resources than agriculture aided by fertile silts of the Nile. Nubia was more of less stuck with livestock and generalized pastoralism. It also seems the grazing lands were more extended than in Lower Egypt.
Hence, it can be somehow concluded:
"Agriculture friendly lands help early people to start a specialized economy, being less strained by the basic needs of feeding oneself. Also, since Lower Egypt majority of population had limited farmable lands, despite strongly arable, it helped an early bureaucracy, hence the birth of writing. Nubia had large swathe of grazing lands, thus there was no early (i.e. before the meroitic hieroglyph) practical motivation to start the art of writing. "
When the lands are even more terrible like the rainforest, an arid region, very cold climate, etc. It forces the population to be hunter-gatherer, thus nomads, which is a strong thwarting condition to the development of skills. It takes more time to feed oneself, more energy and so on. Not mentioning the surface per person to feed correctly as a hunter-gatherer is much more demanding than one population versed and favored by agriculture, allowing an explosion of population and talents.
3) Land geography.
Although not as developed as other points, I think geography can either favor or disadvantage a nascent "civilization". I'm more talking about "physical barriers" than the climate itself. For instance, for Egypt, the desert was a hostile region, but also protected the nascent civilization from constant raids. Yes, there were the Lybians (Temehu), the Nubians (Ta-Seti as they called them) and the semitics, but comparing between Mesopotamia and Egypt, the last one has assessed a strong early divine monarchy over a bunch of cities earlier and for a longer time than any mesopotamian people. In fact, I think the Mesopotamia was rather raided from every direction all the time, explaining city-states remained for a long time the political organization.
Of course, not only the small fertile banks of the Nile helped into an early bureaucracy, thus a political entity birth over a rather large region (limited by the banks of the Nile plus the Fayyum), but the lower rate of raids helped somehow to the nation stability and aided them to erect monuments and artistry.
Another example would be Rome with the italian boot. Not only protected by waters from three sides (and also allowing strong trade routes), the Alps was also a natural barrier, allowing the Romans to become the empire everybody knows by now.
4) Bad luck.
This one can cover a large range of reasons. It can be related to the climate with constant catastrophes to a lineage of terrible leaders. Racism can be born of pitiful of self-interest of maybe unacceptance of another culture found distasteful for the racist. Indeed, cultures different. They are a creating of a melting pot of factors: climate, fauna, flora, leading figures, random aspects, etc. What if a population subjected to abominable leaders resulted in engraving in people's minds habits and culture. Even much after the death of the leader, maybe, it affects generations and generations of people, leading them to do what they do now, successful or not.
5) This last point...the most controversial.
This one annoys me, but can't be overlooked. It seems genetic pools of certain nations have some effects. For instance, regarding testosterone level, it seems some nations have bigger level of that hormone than others. Of course, the mental disposition and body build is directly linked to the climate in which the population lived. This may be a reason why it turned bad for some populations and fell behind. But I prefer to mitigate this point since the studies seem inconclusive regarding that for now.
Now, what do you think of reasons explaining the success of certain nations compared to others?
