Page 156 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

periodization—overview 1457

This evolutionary tree
of the human races
published in 1923 gives
some idea of notions,
since shown to be
wrong, about the ascent
of humans and the
relationship between
groups in different
regions of the world.

most of this era, the histories
of Afro-Eurasia, the Americas,
and the Pacific world played
out in completely separate are-
nas.While in parts of Eurasia,
agricultural societies emerged
as early as 10,000 years ago,
in Africa and the Americas, all
societies relied on foraging for
agriculture and of societies that depended mainly on several thousand years more, and in Australia agricul-
agricultural production, and the emergence of modern, tural societies did not exist until the modern era.The best
industrial societies. This scheme handles the organiza- way of defining this era, therefore, is to describe it as the
tional aspects of all periodization systems moderately era in which agriculture first began to have a significant
well in its first and third eras. Before 10,000 years ago, impact on human societies in some parts of the world.
it is reasonable to argue that all human societies relied on But the huge differences in timing mean it is vital to opt
technologies that can be described, loosely, as forms of for flexible subordinate periodizations within this large
foraging, so that some useful generalizations can be era.The scheme we have adopted implies the recognition
made about all human societies. But it is also true that of four broad phases in the history of agrarian societies.
foraging societies survived in many parts of the world These phases occurred at different times in different
until modern times, so if we are to define this first era regions. In the first, there existed agricultural communi-
more precisely, we might say that it is the era in which all ties, but no true cities and states. In the second, there
human societies depended on foraging for their sur- existed cities and early forms of states and empires. The
vival. In the modern era, too, it is relatively easy to offer third phase is distinguished by the emergence of larger
a global scheme of periodization because all parts of the and more interconnected systems of cities and states.The
world became interconnected and all have been subject fourth phase is defined retrospectively by the under-
to some of the same forces and influences. So we can standing that, between 1000 and 1750, the world was
define the modern era as the era in which the profound on the verge of a transition more revolutionary than any
technological changes of the last two or three centuries that had occurred in any previous era of human history.
transformed societies throughout the world. The sec- The best way of solving the ethical problems posed by
ondary periodization within this era reflects a loose (but any scheme of periodization is simply to take great care
by no means universal) consensus on some of the most with language and labeling. The labels used here are
important transitions within the modern era. intended to imply no judgments as to the superiority or
The organizational challenge is most intractable in the inferiority of different types of society or different eras of
agrarian era, from about 10,000 BP to about 250 BP.In human history. On the other hand, this periodization
this, the era that provides the subject matter for most his- clearly does imply a trajectory of some kind. On the
torical writing, the world was at its most diverse, and no largest scales, there can be little doubt that there is a
single label can adequately capture that diversity. For directionality to human history. Foraging, agrarian, and