THE GREAT RIVER
VALLEYS:
ACCELERATING
CHANGE AND
DEVELOPING STATES
I. Cultural Diversity:
This has been the main theme of our
past, since the beginning of
agriculture.
A. Primary Separations:
1. Foraging
2. Herding
3. Tillage
B. Herder/Tiller Separation
1. Small, static societies = Stable
Adapted to climate change
without social/political
convulsions.
2. Empires: Occupy vast zones,
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feed huge populations, sustain
spectacular material
achievements – cities,
monumental arts, world
changing technologies
II. Cultural Divergence
1. Intensified settlement
2. Population concentrations
in large settlements
3. Multiplying social categories
4. Multiplying functions of
government
5. Emergence of chiefs
6. Emergence of fledgling states
7. Increasingly diversified and
specialized economic activity
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III. Cultural
Reorganization in the
face of growth.
Growth Market
More Craftspeople
Specialized Trades
Larger Specialization Units
IV. Intensified Settlement
and Its Effects
A. Americas (5000 – 3000 B.C.E.)
1. Mesoamerica/Central and
North America don’t reach
this level of development
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2. South America (Andes)
a. Social ranking
b. Economic specializations
c. Unequal wealth
d. Example: Aspero, Peru
3500 B.C.E.: System of
labor, large scale farming
settlements
B. Central Eurasia
1. Birthplace of transportation
technology: 3,500 years ago
covered wagons were created,
pulled by teams of oxen.
2. Carpathian Mountains:
copper and metallurgy
practiced at Rudna Glava
and Tiszna 7,000 years ago
3. Horse Domestication: Sredny
Stag (5000 B.C.E.)
4. Chariots: 2000 B.C.E.: Ural
Mountains
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C. Mediterranean Basin
1. Malta: Agriculture and
Centralized state was
necessary to create
monumental temple
complexes found on the island
2. Half a dozen temple
complexes built in the fourth
and third millennium B.C.E.:
Each holds Goddess statues
with female attendants
D. Scotland: Maes Howe
1. Temple complex of stones
designed to resemble tree
rings oriented to midsummers day (summer
solstice: longest day of the
year)
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V.Ecology of Civilization
The interaction of people with their
environment
A. Early Civilizations
a. Middle and Lower Nile
River: Egypt
b. Indus and Saraswati
Rivers: Pakistan
c. Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers: Mesopotamia
d. Yellow River: China
B. Commonalities between 5,000 –
2,000 B.C.E.
a. Intensified agriculture
b. Technological innovation
c. Development of state
power
d. Construction of cities
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C. Common Environmental
Features of the Four River
Valleys
1. Relatively dry soils
2. Reliance on seasonally
flooding rivers
3. Gradually warming and
drying climate
4. Need for irrigation
D. Common Societal Features
1. Divine/sacral kingships
2. Rigid social hierarchies
3. Lives/labor of inhabitants at
disposal of the state
4. Connection between royal
status and the management of
food and water resources
E. Common Economic
Specializations
1. Shifts in gender roles are in
evidence
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a. Shift from matrilineal to
patrilineal descent
b. Rise in birth rates
c. Art depicting women in
servile roles
d. Mesopotamian and
Chinese law codes: women
dealing with home and
child rearing
2. Women’s roles outside the
home
a. Mesopotamia: textile
workers
b. Harrappa: Cotton weavers
c. All: Women rulers,
prophetesses and
priestesses. Women’s right
to initiate divorce
F. Reasons for Cultural Divergence
of the Great River Valley
Civilizations
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1. Divergence was
environmentally conditions.
The greater and more diverse
the resource base the bigger
and more durable the society.
2. Interactions matter: Societies
learn from each other,
compete with each other, and
exchange culture with each
other.
G. Challenges to sustainability
1. Wealth and productivity
excited envy from outsiders
and invited attack.
2. Continued population growth
demanded ever more
intensive exploitation of the
environment at the same time
as climates and ecosystems
were continuing to change.
3. The vast collective effort
required for irrigation,
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storage, and monumental
building left huge classes of
people oppressed and
resentful of elites.
= Transformation or collapse
occurs with these civilizations
around 1500 B.C.E.
VI. Ecology of Egypt
Climate change: By 4,000 years ago
ancient hunting lands had dried to
scrub, sand, and bare rock. The Nile
River became the life-blood of
Egypt.
A. Advantageous Resource Region
1. Delta Region
a. fish – birds
b. melons – olives – dates –
leeks – lettuces – figs –
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pomegranates – apples –
sweet vines
c. Rushes and papyrus for
rope and writing paper
B. Cult of Everyday Abundance
Egypt offered a guarantee of
basic nutrition for a large
population (not individual
abundance)
1. Irrigation (4,000 B.C.E.)
a. Creation of micro-climates
b. Shaduf: A bucket on a pole
used as a fixed lever to
gather water
c. Flooding: Essential for
nutrients: nitrogen content
of soil decreases by twothirds in the top six inches
of soil between floods
2. Diet: Thick (nutritious) beer
and bread. Existed only
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modestly above subsistence
levels.
C. Trade
1. Nubia: Southern Nile: Gold –
Ivory
2. Sinai: Near East: Copper –
turquoise
3. Punt: Ethiopian Highlands:
timber – aromatic plants for
incense/perfumes
D. Politics
1. Kingship: King is the herder
tending his flock. The God
King was a vessel through
which the Gods chose to
speak. This concept gives
birth to all future defense of
royal power.
2. Farming requires fixed land
use. This leads to disputes
and wars over land, which
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strengthens rulership roles.
Increased war and wealth
shifts patriarchs and elders
out in favor of strong and
wise leaders.
E. Religion
1. Egyptian religion defined a
moral code that the state
could not easily modify or
subvert.
2. Earliest Egyptian after-life
was seen as a repetition of
earthly life (same inequalities
and lifestyles).
3. Around 2,000 B.C.E. this
changes: Reception into the
after-life only if one lived a
moral life.
a. The Gods weighed the
souls of the dead
(supervised by Anubis, the
Jackal headed god of the
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underworld). The reward
for no sin was a new life in
the company of Osiris
(ruler of the universe).
Punishment was total
extinction.
b. Sins: sacrilege, sexual
perversion, abuse of power
against the weak
c. Good deeds: obedience to
human laws and divine
will, acts of mercy,
offerings to gods and
ancestor spirits, bread to
the hungry, clothing to the
naked
F. Expansion and Trade
Down the Nile River corridor for
grain, oils, fodder. Political
unification of the upper and
lower Nile River regions.
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VII. Shifting Rivers of
the Indus Valley
Wide alluvial floodplain, frequent
changing river courses, varied
climate – coastal outpost, hot
interior, upriver Himalayan
headwaters: flooding twice a year
from spring snowmelt and monsoon
rains.
A. Harappan Society
1. 2,000 B.C.E.: Harappan
culture area was the biggest
in the world (1/2 million
square miles. This was
evidence of weakness. The
Harappan solution to feeding
its people = expansion
2. Cities were extremely
uniform in construction and
layout. Dwelling spaces were
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organized according to social
hierarchy.
3. A caste system existed.
4. Strict organization of
manpower. Uniform (state)
production of mud bricks /
sewage systems
5. Elite had defined societal
functions
B. Resources
1. Two crops annually with the
rivers flooding: wheat/barley
2. Raised zebu: hump backed
cattle
3. Wealth was based on surplus
agriculture
4. Coastal outpost at the seaport
of Lothal, on the Gulf of
Cambay (Indian Ocean) =
rice/millet trade
C. Art
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1. Naturalistic animals
2. Violations of realism: apes
with horns – half men half
tigers – starfish turning in
unicorns
D. Politics: Either republics or
theocracies
E. Expansion and Trade
Northward into the Asian
interior. Mined copper and lapis
lazuli.
F. Decline
When the Indus River altered
course and the Saraswati dried up
Harappan cities dwindled to dust.
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VIII. Fierce Nature of
Early Mesopotamia
Delta: marshlands, ponds, lakes,
waterways; upriver alluvial plains
flooded irregularly; harsh summer
sandstorms, intense heat; winter
floods, rainstorms; lack of forests,
stone
A. Mesopotamia: 3000 B.C.E.
1. First big cities: The culture of
its cities resulted from a
cultural exchange with Iranian
culture. Each city was sacred
to the deity it housed. Houses
raised on mounds above
floods. Each was a small rival
kingdom, city-states.
2. Irrigation channeled and
conserved water.
3. Winter crops: wheat, barley,
onions, chickpeas, sesame
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4. 5000 B.C.E.: Ox drawn plows
being used.
5. Earliest imaginative literature
in history (Gods of storm and
flood dominate)
B. Religion
1. Nintu (earth) zealous – jealous
mother – yielding nourishment
– suckling infants – guarding
embryos
2. Enki (water) also
unpredictable
C. Political Structure
1. Kings organized war against
neighboring cities
2. Earliest known law codes rise
here. Kings were not
considered gods so law codes
were an attempt by kings to
regulate entire societies even
when the king was not present.
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3. Earliest = Code of Ur: a list of
fines for infractions of laws.
Code of King Lipit-Ishtar of
Sumer and Akkad expands to
attempt societal regulation.
Hammurabi’s Code (1700
B.C.E.) was intended to
substitute the physical
presence of the ruler, a means
to perpetuate royal
commands.
D. Expansion and Trade
Unification through conquest
(Sargon of Akkad). Sets and
imperial direction for
Mesopotamian city-states
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IX. Good Earth of Early
China
Unpredictable river floods
surrounding areas creating loess soil
– basis of agriculture; probably
more rainfall than the other three
regions. At 2000 B.C.E. the Yellow
River region was a savanna
(grasslands mixed with woodland)
A. Resources
1. Water buffalo – wild boar –
silver pheasants – water deer
– bamboo rats – rhinoceros
2. Millet production rotated
with Soya
B. Political Structure
Shang Ruling Dynasty 3000 –
1000 B.C.E.
1. Kingship began as mediators
to the gods. This shifted to
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divination through oracle
bones, a fighting tradition,
and kings desiring to give the
world a stamp of their own.
2. Millet sustained the densest
population in the world
3. The Shang was a unitary state
by the 2nd millennium B.C.E.
4. Armies of tens of thousands
of warriors were kept in the
field
5. Urban Culture
C. Religion
In ancient China magic and
religion were in the hands of the
state. Kingship was judged by
how well the ruler looked after
his subjects in this context.
Religion is connected to the state
very early on.
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1. Mandate of Heaven: Imperial
rule over the world is divinely
ordained.
D. Expansion and Trade
Extremely stable imperial state
through millet growing regions
(Yellow River Valley).
- Rice-growing (Yangtze
River)
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