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The Birth of Civilization
UNTIL AROUND 5,300 YEARS AGO there were no civilizations with cities, urban development, national infrastructure, and central leadership anywhere in the world. At least none that archaeologists have discovered to the satisfaction of the mainstream academic community. The world was still in the Stone Age, the period when tools and weapons were made from simple materials such as wood, bone, and stone. Modern humans are thought to have evolved around two hundred thousand years ago, and they inherited the use of such implements, along with fire, from their evolutionary predecessors. These early humans were Homo sapiens, just as we are today. Take one as a baby and bring her up in the modern world and she could do anything we can do. However, it took millennia of trial and error, along with the remarkable human imagination, to invent and develop the skills and innovations that ultimately led to civilization. It was at the same time as civilizations began to appear around the globe that the Megalithic culture first emerged in the British Isles, but let’s start by taking a brief look at the various accomplishments and lifestyles of people around the world before this time.1
Animal hides may have been used as simple clothing from very early on in human history, but it took the invention of the bone sewing needle around 50,000 years ago for more elaborate garments and footwear to develop. The first threads would have been made from animal parts—sinew, tendons, or thin leather—or twine, formed from the fibrous strands of plants, such as reeds, cacti, and certain trees. By 40,000 years ago humans were well into art, making stone and bone carvings and painting on rock and cave walls. They probably decorated their skin, hair, and garments too. These prehistoric paints were made from various ground minerals and charcoal, mixed with fat. And 25,000 years ago we had begun using clay to make pots for cooking or vessels for storage by baking it hard.2 Yet despite such advances, for their first 190,000 years, Homo sapiens lived in small tribal or family groups and were for the most part nomadic, moving from place to place in search of fresh pastures or following herds. They were so-called hunter-gatherers, obtaining their food by foraging, stalking animals, and moving with the seasons. In certain lush or fertile areas, some did live in permanent settlements, fishing or obtaining food locally, but these settlements remained small. During this period, known as the Paleolithic era, or the Old Stone Age, dwellings would have been simple wooden frameworks (in some cases frames made from the bones of large animals such as mammoths) covered with hides or vegetation such as branches, straw, or reeds, and sealed with mud. Some people would have lived in caves, and in frozen areas, others might have lived in huts made from ice or snow, like the Inuit igloo.3 Then around 12,000 years ago, people began to settle, and that was due to the invention of farming.
The widespread initiative of deliberately growing plants and domesticating animals seems to have begun shortly after the last Ice Age, around 10,000 BCE. This was the birth of the Neolithic era, or New Stone Age, when crops such as cereals were cultivated and various animals, such as sheep and goats, were reared for food, wool, and milk. It’s not known where this significant innovation first occurred, but it was to change everything: it meant the establishment of larger and more permanent settlements. Humans were able to live together in much greater numbers, work collectively to develop initiatives, share ideas, and have a certain amount of leisure time to contemplate and invent. Life was no longer merely a perpetual toil to survive. The Neolithic period saw many groundbreaking inventions, such as the raft, which boosted migrations, while the development of better bows and arrows, rather than just spears, for hunting increased the food supply and led to a rise in populations; also, from around ten thousand years ago, the invention of the spindle meant that animal hair, such as sheep and goat wool, could be more effectively drawn out to make yarn. Wool was plucked either by hand or by using combs made from bone, while plant fibers were woven employing crude wooden frames, and cloth began to be made. No longer did people need to wear only animal skins to keep warm.4
It was just over five thousand years ago that the next crucial advance occurred: civilizations suddenly emerged separately in Egypt, India, and Mesopotamia. And it was all down to the invention of bronze. People in various locations had known about metals for centuries, probably as a by-product of firing ceramics. When the temperature of clay reaches 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit), chemically bonded water begins to dry off, and at 500 degrees Celsius (932 degrees Fahrenheit), it is fully dehydrated to form permanently changed, hard, solid pottery. In their natural state metals are contained in silicate rocks known as ores. To extract them, you need to heat the rocks to the specific temperatures at which the metals melt. They can then pour out of the rock, which remains solid: silicon, the main constituent of stone, doesn’t melt until it reaches around 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,552 degrees Fahrenheit), whereas many metals melt at lower temperatures. Early in their history, modern humans had the knowledge to create fire by sparking hard rocks or by friction with sticks. It was a turning point for our ancestors, providing a source of warmth, light, and protection, and a way of preparing food that would otherwise have been inedible. Right from the start people would have noticed that mud surrounding a fire would bake hard, and by twenty-five thousand years ago, they had begun to deliberately shape mud and then bake it to make solid earthenware pots. Sustained temperatures of over 500 degrees Celsius were needed to create permanent, more durable ceramics, and this could have been achieved in the so-called firing pits common throughout the world by around twelve thousand years ago. These were simple trenches into which the molded clay items were placed, then surrounded with combustible material such as peat, straw, and wood, which was kept burning for many days. Such pits were ringed by an arrangement of stones to contain the fire, and when these stones were made from metal-bearing rock, our ancestors could not have helped but notice that certain metals would melt out, to be left as a residue of small, shiny, solid chunks when the firing was done.5
The first metal to be discovered in this way was probably tin, as it melts at the relatively low temperature of around 232 degrees Celsius (450 degrees Fahrenheit). However, no one seems to have done much with it, as only a few isolated examples of simple tin artifacts, such as awls (small, pointed spikes for piercing leather), are known from before around 5,300 years ago. Metals such as gold, silver, and copper melt around 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit), and it was not until the invention of the kiln, basically a brick or stone oven heated from below, for the more efficient firing of clay, that the control of such temperatures was achieved. No one knows precisely where and when these kilns were first invented, but they became widely used in various parts of the world by around 5,500 years ago. There are a few isolated examples of gold, silver, and copper artifacts, such as simple jewelry, found earlier than this time, but the large-scale, deliberate making of items from these metals could not occur before the invention of the kiln. But it was the chance realization that melting copper and tin together formed a much harder and altogether more useful metal—the alloy bronze—around 5,300 years ago that kick-started what we would now call civilization. (Tin must be smelted separately and then added to molten copper to produce bronze.) Although there are a few instances of pieces of bronze being made earlier, elsewhere in the world, it was its industrial production in the ancient Near East that began the Bronze Age. It started in Mesopotamia, a fertile region around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers system, centered on what is now Iraq, and shortly after in Egypt, and then in northwest India.6
Fig. 2.1. The first civilizations.
The invention of bronze meant that useful, sturdy metal tools could be fashioned, and that dramatically changed everything. The metal plow replaced the stone ard (plough) for tilling the land, which led, in turn, to the use of beasts of burden. The invention of the harness meant that domesticated creatures could be used as draft animals to pull sledges or drag loads on wooden frames, which soon led, in turn, to the invention of the wheel and consequ
ently carts. A variety of animals were domesticated for various tasks, including oxen, horses, goats, yaks, and donkeys. (Dogs had already been domesticated as hunting companions, even before Neolithic times.) A whole variety of bronze implements made agriculture immensely more efficient. Farmers no longer needed to laboriously cut cereal crops with crude flint blades but could now cut faster and easier with metal sickles. Bronze axe heads replaced stone ones, bronze spades replaced bone shovels, and knives were now made of metal rather than flint. All these innovations meant faster and vastly greater food production and accordingly a further surge in population. And with this came large urban settlements and cities.7
The use of animals as a form of transport led to the building of roads, which were paved in cities but were cleared, flattened, and maintained dirt tracks in the countryside. The building of roads and the use of animals as a form of transport brought about kingdoms and empires. Bronze also meant the invention of the sword, metal arrowheads, and spear tips, and so appeared the world’s first armies. Warriors could travel faster and more effectively along the newly created road networks, taking with them food and supplies carried in horse-drawn carts. This meant that tribal leaders could extend and maintain their influence over large areas. Trade and communications were also made easier by the development of boats, no longer dugout canoes or simple rafts, but vessels made from wooden planks, impossible before the invention of metal fasteners, such as the nail. The nail meant that timber frameworks could be made very much larger than those tied with rope, so buildings became bigger and more impressive. Simple bricks, made from mud dried in the sun, had been in use in certain parts of the world from early Neolithic times, but harder ceramic, or fired, bricks were developed with the first cities just over five thousand years ago. And this led to the creation of elaborate temples, palaces, and public buildings and highly effective city walls. Although rope, as well as string, had been used since the beginning of Neolithic times, it was made by twisting and braiding strands of plant fiber by hand, limiting its production. With the birth of civilization came the development of special tools for making rope, and the large-scale manufacture of rope made it possible to build remarkable structures, where the effort of hundreds or thousands of workers could be synchronized to haul heavy objects such as stones.8
A civilization, in the anthropological definition, is a complex society characterized by urban centers or cities, an intricate social hierarchy, peacekeeping forces or armies, an elaborate communication structure, typified by roads, and writing or some symbolic transmission of information. The birth of such urbanized civilizations seems to have begun in the land of Sumer around 5,300 years ago, in what is now southern Iraq. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers made the area particularly fertile and allowed the growth of an abundance of grain and various crops. It was probably there that bronze was first made in any meaningful amount, and within a century or so civilization was established there, with all its trappings. Metal molding saw the development of all manner of new tools, made for a whole variety of purposes: for example, finer needles for sewing, devices for the weaving of superior clothing, chisels for carving elaborate ornamentation and statues for temples, palaces, and tombs, and the stylus for forming designs in clay. The development of the metal stylus, a small tool for intricate marking and shaping, led to the invention of writing by imprinting soft clay with symbols denoting objects, items, complex ideas, and verbal sounds. The birth of writing meant that communications were vastly superior. Orders, proclamations, and ideas could be disseminated on clay tablets, easily made and transported, and monuments could be inscribed with records of religious observances, national accomplishments, and the exploits of leaders and the ruling class. Sumer was the first place on Earth to emerge from prehistory into “history”—the era from which written, historical records survive.9
Citizens of Sumer’s cities, such as its capital of Urak in the modern Iraqi province of Al Muthanna, enjoyed many accoutrements previously undreamed of. Early pots had been made by coiling and rolling clay into long threads and pinching them together to form vessels, but the invention of the potter’s wheel, turned by hand or foot, made pottery making faster and more efficient, enabling the industrial production of ceramic ware. So as well as having large and comfortable homes and officials to keep law and order in the streets outside, city dwellers not only had decent furniture, thanks to the advances in carpentry using metal tools, they also had the kind of domestic crockery—pots, plates, cups, and storage vessels—we take for granted today. And they had metal cutlery too. Knives and spoons meant they no longer needed to eat with their hands10 (although, strangely, no one seems to have gotten around to inventing the simple table fork for another four thousand years). And your status in society could be expressed through various ornamentations unheard of elsewhere in the world. Adornments made from shells, bones, and stones were commonly worn throughout the Neolithic period and earlier, but metalworking took personal decorations to another level entirely. Along with the manufacture of bronze, gold and silver were also smelted to produce sophisticated ornaments, such as bracelets, necklaces, and rings, together with household items such as platters, drinking vessels, and statuettes. Also, the cutting, shaping, and polishing of precious stones developed on a more commercial scale, meaning that many people could wear at least some kind of jewelry.
Sumer consisted of a number of cities about 250 acres in size, each with populations of approximately ten thousand people. Urak itself was much bigger, almost 1,000 acres in size with more than fifty thousand inhabitants. These cities were linked not only by waterways but also by an extensive network of roads, while the fields surrounding them were fed by an ingenious system of artificial irrigation channels. Each city had temples for the priesthood, palaces for the local rulers, and public buildings for centralized administration. Workers were divided into specialized groups, such as carpenters, masons, and artisans, and slave laborers were captured from the surrounding hill country. The overall leaders seem to have been a succession of priestly rulers—both men and women—advised by a council of elders.11Modern archaeology has determined that early Sumer was not the kind of misogynistic society it was once thought to have been. It had a pantheon of deities, but the chief among them seem to have been a male and a female of equal status: Nin, the supreme goddess, and En, the supreme god. Whoever ruled was thought to govern with the power of the deity that represented his or her gender. Just how the leader was chosen is unknown, but it may have been by some form of election, much the way the Catholic Church now chooses a new pope. It was not until around four centuries after the start of Sumerian civilization that a dynastic era of male kings emerged and the god En became known as Enlil, the chief divinity, while Nin was demoted to his consort, Ninlil.12 It is possible that it was from Sumer that the biblical tale of the Garden of Eden originated. Genesis 2:14 refers to Eden being fed by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and in Sumerian mythology Nin and En, like Adam and Eve, are said to have once dwelt as immortals in a heavenly paradise at the beginning of time.
It was about 150 years after the nation of Sumer became established that another civilization began. Around a thousand miles to the west, the land of Egypt had already grown prosperous due to the life-giving Nile River and its spreading rivulet system in the delta region, and the Egyptians traded with the Sumerians. By around 3150 BCE they had learned from their trading partners how to manufacture bronze. The Sumerian system of a centralized government, a cultural elite, law codes, social stratification, and standing armies was also adopted, and the nation of ancient Egypt was born. The Bronze Age Egyptians seem to have skipped the sexual equality era and gone straight into a male-oriented dynastic society with its kings, or pharaohs, ruling with absolute power. This second civilization was founded on the city of Memphis, about 20 miles south of modern Cairo; this first Egyptian capital had around thirty thousand inhabitants, and the towns under its control were linked by the Nile and its vast array of rivulets. By around 3100 BCE, ancient
Egypt had gained nearly all the benefits of civilization enjoyed by the Sumerians. Although they lived over 1,000 miles apart, Egypt probably copied much of its early technology, such as the making of bronze and building techniques, from Sumer, but Egypt developed along separate cultural lines: it had different gods, temple designs, and other architecture, and it innovated its own writing in the form of hieroglyphics. The controlled making of bronze, which seems to have begun in Sumer, found its way not only to Egypt but also to the peoples of the Indus Valley, in what is now Pakistan, over 1,500 miles to the east. Whether these people discovered the process independently is still open to debate. Either way, around 3000 BCE the Indus Valley civilization had emerged, centered on the city of Harappa, in the modern Sindh province. It was about 400 acres in size and had a population of some twenty-five thousand people.13
As time passed, other civilizations arose. To put all this into a global context and time frame, the approximate dates of the births of the best-known ancient civilizations are as follows:
Wisdomkeepers of Stonehenge Page 3