Page 84 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

tfw-24 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Black Sea

Catalhoyuk Tepesi
by mediating exchanges between agrarian regions and Hacilar Cayonu Ti Zawi Chemi
T gr
Abu Tigris R. Shanidar Caspian
sometimes by introducing technologies (such as the Cyprus Hureyra Sea
p
many technologies associated with pastoralism, from Mediterranean Mesopotamia Jarmo
Ain Ghazal
improved saddles to improved weaponry) or by trading Sea Nile Netiv Hagdud Eu Ganj
Delta Dareh
valued goods such as furs or ivory or feathers. Jericho Ali
Euphrates R.
Merimda Kosh
N
Agrarian Communities Persian
before Cities: 8000– Nile R. Gulf
3000 BCE SAHARA Red Sea
The early agrarian era is that time when agrarian com-
Nabta
munities existed, but no large cities or states. In Afro- Playa Wadi
Kubbaniya
Eurasia this time extended from about 8000 BCE until Bir EARLY FARMING
Kiseiba
about 3000 BCE, when the first cities emerged; in the COMMUNITIES in
SOUTHWEST ASIA
Americas this time began later and lasted longer, and in 0 400 mi
and EGYPT
parts of the Australasian and Pacific world zones it lasted 0 400 km
until modern times.

A World of Villages people had to find new ways of defining their relation-
During the early agrarian era villages were the largest ships with neighbors, determining who had access to
communities on Earth and the most important sources of stored resources, administering justice, and organizing
demographic and technological dynamism. In today’s warfare, trade, and religious worship. As specialization
world, in which villages are marginal demographically, spread, communities had to find ways of regulating ex-
technically, culturally, and politically, we could all too eas- changes and conflicts between persons whose interests
ily forget the crucial historical role that villages played for and needs were increasingly diverse.The simple kinship
many millennia. During the early agrarian era most vil- rules that had provided all the regulation necessary in
lages practiced forms of agriculture that anthropologists small foraging communities now had to be supplemented
might refer to as “horticulture” because they depended with more elaborate rules regulating behavior between
mainly on the labor of humans (and particularly of people whose contacts were more anonymous, more
women, if modern analogies can be relied on), whereas fleeting, and less personal. Projects involving entire com-
their main agricultural implements were digging sticks of munities, such as building temples, building canals, and
many kinds. However, these communities also pioneered waging warfare, also required new types of leadership.
important innovations such as irrigation and terracing, The archaeological evidence shows how these pres-
which eventually allowed the appearance of more popu- sures, all linked to the growing size of human communi-
lous communities.Thus, villages accounted for much of ties, led to the creation of institutionalized political and
the demographic and geographical expansion of the economic hierarchies, with wealthy rulers, priests, and
agrarian world through many thousands of years. merchants at one pole and propertyless slaves or vagrants
at the other pole. Archaeologists suspect the presence of
Emergence of Hierarchy institutionalized hierarchies wherever burials or resi-
Within the villages of the early agrarian era men and dences begin to vary greatly in size within a community.
women first encountered the revolutionary challenges Where children were buried with exceptional extrava-
posed by the emergence of larger, denser, and more hier- gance, we can be pretty sure that emerging hierarchies
archical communities. As communities became larger, were hereditary, so parents could pass their status on to