Cultural Evolution
The Paleolithic, the Neolithic, and
the Rise of States
Cultural takeoff
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Cultural evolution parallels biological evolution
for six million years, until the Late Paleolithic
and cultural takeoff.
Biological evolution continues, and we see it
the distributions of things like skin color and
lactase deficiency.
But since the Late Paleolithic, most of human
evolution is the story of rapid cultural change,
independent of biological change.
Early Paleolithic: The Oldowan
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Early Paleolithic: about 2.6 mya – .2mya
Oldowan and Acheulian tools associated
Australopithecus and H. habilis
Core tools with a single cutting edge.
Flake tools would certainly have been used,
but there is no evidence that flake tools were
made on purpose.
A tool was what was left over when you got
through shaping a rock with a cobble.
Core and pebble tools
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The distribution of core pebble tools is
widespread across African sites,
attesting to the development of
standardization, abstract thinking, and
the sharing of culture.
Culture is learned and shared and
cumulative and this all shows in the
early development of tools.
The Acheulian
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The Oldowan lasted a very long time.
The transition to the Acheulian was
accompanied by an increase in brain size
and the rise of H. erectus.
Hand axes, named for St. Acheul in
France, with a useful edge all around –
hence, bifaces.
Early Acheulian
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1.6mya – 1.0mya in Africa
1.6mya – .5mya in Europe
More standardized, more variety, and more
edge per kilogram of material.
Middle Acheulian
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1.0mya – .6mya
Migrations of H. sapiens
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Migrations of H. sapiens
The Late Early Paleolithic
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The Late Acheulian .5mya – .1mya
Flake tools – from Oldowan to Later
Acheulian
The baton and anvil method
Fire: perhaps controlled by .7mya – evidence
at Kao Poh Nam rock shelter in Thailand.
Fire-cracked, imported basalt cobles with
tools and bones of animals that have cut
marks on them.
Fire – .7mya?
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The basalt cobbles are not native to the
rock shelter and would have to have
been brought from outside on purpose.
And though there was plenty of
limestone in the rock shelter, it was not
used for a fireplace, presumably
because it is so inappropriate.
Non-lithic culture in the Paleolithic
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H. erectus began to live in houses.
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350kya in Bilzingsleben, Germany –3 circular
foundations of large houses.
Clothing allows migration of H. erectus to
colder areas – below 50 degrees
Social organization for hunting: 400kya
Ambrona and Torralba in Spain:
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Dismembered elephants, horses, red deer, wild
oxen, and rhinoceroses. And thousands of tools.
Wooden spears
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First spears in Schoeningen, Germany at
about 350kya.
Five spears, made of wood, and up to
seven feet long, in association with
butchered horses.
Non-lithic culture
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Learning to cross water: boats are inferred
from Flores Island in Indonesia, 15 miles
from Bali.
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No physical evidence of rafts.
More standardization and evidence of
purely symbolic materials:
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Incised elephant bone at 350kya in
Bizingsleben and red ocher (hematite) in
Africa, Europe, and Asia to stain the dead.
Burials
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First figurines show up at ~250kya in
Berekhat Ram (Golan Heights).
Yellow and red ocher at 130kya with
deliberate burials.
Burials common by 100,000 years ago.
Middle Paleolithic
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Middle Paleolithic: 300,000ya –
35,000ya
Neanderthals and H. sapiens co-existed
but at Qafzeh (http://tinyurl.com/gj372)
there may have been long-term mixing
of both genes and culture
The Levallois Technique
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The transition to the Archaic H.
sapiens during the Middle Paleolithic,
around 300kya, brings the Lavallois
technique of producing flake tools.
Africa, Europe, Middle East, China
around 250kya.
Edges and distance
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The source of stone material for
Acheulian tools is often no more
than 15-20 miles from where we
find the tools themselves
With the Levallois method, humans
get a first crack at mass production
and we find sources as far as 200
miles from the tools.
The Levallois experiment
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Two groups of 17 men made stone tools at
Washington State University.
One group had verbal instruction, the other
did not.
The two groups made Oldowan and Acheulian
tools of equal quality.
Only the verbal group was able to make the
Lavallois tools.
Mousterian culture – The Neanderthals
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The Mousterian assemblage is Neanderthal
across the Old World, 150kya – 30kya.
In some cases, the Acheulian hand axes
continue but the Mousterian complex includes
multiple flakes from one core, retouching,
and many new forms, including borers and
gravers and smaller points.
First experiments that we know of with
bitumen glue.
Hunting and social organization
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70kya Würm glaciation in Europe
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Günz, Mindel, Riss, Würm
Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin
Humans are now across Europe and we see
more emphasis on the hunting of Pleistocene
megafauna as people deal with colder climate
Pyrenees, France: 108 animals, including wild
cattle stampeded over a cliff.
Skilled hunters and overkill
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We see this across Europe and then
again in the New World Paleolithic.
It isn’t easy to catch an entire herd and
move them to a spot where they will go
over a cliff for easy dispatch.
This indicates sophisticated social
organization and planning.
These were highly skilled hunters.
Burials: the later Middle Paleolithic
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Burial sites in Europe, South Africa, and the
Middle East.
The Kebra Cave burial in Israel at 60kya (64–
59kya) – 25-35 year old man with arms
folded over his chest and stomach.
The Shanidar Cave burial in Iraq, also 60kya
– bed and wreath of flowers.
Pollen analysis shows that the flowers were
pollinated by bees, so the flowers were
brought in from outside.
Symbolic behavior
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At Shanidar, more evidence of red ocher,
bone and ivory ornaments, and paint made
from manganese oxide.
Bone and ivory ornaments that have no
utilitarian value, including 50,000 year-old
section of a mammoth tooth in central
Europe.
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It was painted with red ocher and is polished from
handling. Microscopic examination shows that it
never had a working edge. It was pure ornament.
Did Neandertal play music?
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Slovenia – four holes, bear femur
82kya – 67kya
This is controversial
Lau, B., Blackwell, B. A. B., Schwarcz, H. P., Turk, I., Blickstein, J. I., 1997. Dating a Flautist? Using ESR
(Electron Spin Resonance) in the Mousterian Cave Deposits at Divje Babe I, Slovenia. Geoarchaeology: An
International Journal. Vol. 12 No. 6. 507-536.
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/FluteDebate.html
Upper Paleolithic and the blade technique
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This accumulation of culture really takes
off in the Upper Paleolithic with the
invention of the blade technique.
Up to 30 feet of blade edge per kg of rock.
Mousterian methods: up to 6 feet of edge
from the same amount of material.
H. erectus: 1 foot per kg
H. habilis: no more than 6 inches.
Old World Stone Tool Timeline
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Oldowan
Acheulean
Levallois
Blade
Upper Paleolithic: The pace quickens
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The atlatl (spear thrower), and the bow
and arrow are developed in the Upper
Paleolithic.
A spear thrown with no augmentative
force: kill range is about 3 feet at best.
With the atlatl, the kill range increases 20
times, and with the bow and arrow, the kill
range increases 60 times,
Highly skilled lithic technology
Music and art
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With the bow and arrow, there would
certainly have also been the development of
music – a one-stringed instrument.
Elaborate art: figurines, cave paintings in
France and Spain beginning around 32,000
years ago.
Australian rock art precedes the European art
florescence by 13,000 years.
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original Dreamtime motifs on rocks at 45,000ya.
Late Paleolithic Art
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France and Spain, around 32kya
Australia around 45kya
Evolutionary – microevolutionary – events
continue to this day, as we saw earlier, with
sickle cell anemia in some populations exposed
to malaria, and with lactase sufficiency
developing in some pastoral populations in
northern Europe.
But from this point on, the predominant
environment of humans is culture.
The New World Paleolithic
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The Bering Straits land bridge at
about 13kya
Clovis
Folsom
Paleoindian culture
The Old World Mesolithic
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12–14kya, the Würm recedes in Europe and
the Pleistocene megafauna go extinct
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Focus on local plants and smaller animals at water
sources
This transition period is the Mesolithic,
between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.
Microliths for small animals and the
harvesting of wild grain with compound tools
Semi-permanent settlements – all without
agriculture.
Broad-spectrum collecting
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Wheat and barley in the Anatolian
highlands
Natufian culture: harvests and village
life without agriculture
The case of the tough rachis – from
about 12kya to about 10kya
Selection for tough over brittle rachis
in wild wheat
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Wild grains have a brittle rachis – the attachment of
the kernel of grain to the stalk – and a tough husk.
Brittleness maximizes the scattering of seed by wind
at a moment when the seed is ripe and best able to
germinate.
Native to hilly slopes, of the Zagros mountains, above
the drainage of the Tigris River.
These slopes are not the best for farming, but are the
site of ancient villages.
Natufian culture
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The key to civilization: silos
As people come to depend on plants,
the people get planted
Zagros Mountain sites in Iraq and Iran
10kya: penning of animals (note the
same in Peru at 6kya)
Complete villages of 50 houses
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This happened over at least 2000 years.
No one in any one generation could
have known where it was all going.
By the end of the process, there were
settled, agricultural villages, with walls
around them – whole towns, like
Jericho
The Neolithic
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The transition took place in different
places and times – note the concept of
cultural horizon
Fertile crescent 12kya
Before agriculture Thailand
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Spirit Cave in northwestern Thailand
and also sites in south China
Domesticated pigs and intensive use of
wild beans, peas, bottle gourds, and
cucumber.
Pottery – all 9kya
Japan 13kya, Mexico 8kya, southern
Africa 6kya, southern U.S. 5kya.
Food production creates surplus
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Jack Harlan showed that a family of four
could harvest a kg of grain per hour
A few weeks of harvesting would produce
enough for a year.
The equation seems simple: harvest a lot, eat
better.
But … wild cereals not only have brittle
rachis, they also have very tough husks that
have to be removed.
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This requires soaking and milling and the
tools for doing this are heavy.
Foragers could not carry the equipment
needed.
Under population pressure and the drying
conditions of the time, the solution was semipermanent villages where all the technology
of production could be stored and
maintained.
Storage
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The problem of storage was solved with the
invention of clay-lined pits around the houses
of the Natufians.
Pottery may have developed when people
figured out how to take those clay linings out
of the ground.
And beer would have been a by-product of
this activity long before leavened bread was
invented.
Domesticated anaimals
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At Zawi Chemi Shanidar and other sites in
the Zagros mountains of Iran and Iraq, we
see the sex ratio of goats change dramatically
around 10,000 years ago.
Large numbers of juvenile males killed.
At 6,300ya in Peru we see a large number of
infant llamas, indicating the penning up of
wild animals.
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Enterotoxemia an early problem in penning
animals.
Village life develops…
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Enyan site in Israel, three Natufian villages, one atop
the next.
700-sqm settlements – villages, with 50 circular pit
houses, stone walls above ground and other
indications of harvesting wild grain – and of storing it
in sunken pits.
Burials became more complex: social inequalities.
Villages become more densely populated and the
number of different foods increased.
There are processing areas and sickles – for righthanded people.
The price of success
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The technology of surplus-producing
agriculture plants people.
Roasters, grinders and pit boiling and
storage pits.
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As people came to depend on plants,
people got planted themselves.
As Kent Flannery asks: “Where do you
go with a ton of wheat?”
From experiment to states
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From the early experiments with agriculture
came settled agricultural villages.
Many had long histories, with population
expansion and eventual incorporation of
villages into larger political units until the
development of the state – and what we
commonly call civilization.
This sequence happened several times,
entirely independently.
Jomom period in Japan
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One early transition, around 8kya, in the
fertile crescent: Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey,
Iraq, and Iran.
It began in Japan around 12kya and in
Thailand around 10kya years ago with the
development of rice.
Cord-marked Jomom pottery and polished
stone tools.
More than 10,000 sites in Japan for the
Jomom period (13kya – 2300ya).
Same process: Africa and the NW
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The process took place in Mexico and Peru
much later, but the trajectories were the
same.
The Würm retreated in the Old World
beginning about 12-14kya.
Process complete by 8kya in Europe and Asia,
and 6kya in Africa (when the Sahara had
lakes and people hunted crocodiles and
hippos) and in the Americas.
Prehistory of the Americas
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In the Americas, the process did not include
the domestication of draught animals.
But by 5,000 years ago, people in Alabama
and Kentucky, who hunted extensively in the
game-rich forests, were focusing on smaller
game and developing a broad spectrum
adaptation.
Cultural horizons
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With the end of the Ice Age, the consequence
was the same across the northern
hemisphere: disappearance of the megafauna
and broad spectrum focus on hunting and
gathering, leading eventually to agriculture.
Humans across the world went through
similar cultural horizons, though at different
times.
Myths about agriculture
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Agriculture was not invented. It evolved.
Agriculture produced a surplus, but this did
not lead immediately to the elimination of
foraging.
Agricultural surplus did not get translated into
less work, especially for women.
Agriculture did not produce a secure way of
life, or a healthy way of life – at least not for
a long time.
Paleodemography
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In fact, life expectancy goes down around the
world when hunting and gathering is initially
replaced by food production.
Surplus creates inequalities, long hours, little
leisure, lower life expectancy, higher infant
mortality.
Studies of modern hunting and gathering
societies show that people spend less time in
subsistence work, have more leisure, and live as
long or longer than village agriculturalists, and
practice birth control.
Theories of the Neolithic
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Thus, the big question about the
Neolithic is why should people give up
hunting and gathering technology when
it provides for their needs?
Theories of the Neolithic: V. Gordon
Childe, Robert Braidwood, Lewis
Binford, Kent Flannery
V. Gordon Childe
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The Most Ancient East (1929)
The Middle East dried up after the Wurm
From pollen at Lake Zeribar in western Iran,
we see that the climate changed radically
between 22kya and 8kya
At 22kya the vegetation was low, with few
trees. By 10kya, some oak and pistachio trees
By 8kya there are oak forests, as there are
today.
Regions of refuge
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Hunters and gatherers were forced into
regions of refuge.
People and animals lived much closer,
leading to domestication.
Population expansion led to planting of
the wild grasses that were consumed.
Wild animals concentrated at the oases
to eat the remains of the crops.
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People penned the animals and
eventually domesticated them.
Childes’ theory is that people selected
plants and animals for human
consumption.
If Childe was right, then there should
be many early Neolithic sites along the
river valleys of the Middle East.
Braidwood and the hilly flanks
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Robert Braidwood found many Neolithic
sites were on the hilly flanks of the
Zagros mountains around the fertile
crescent.
These sites had some of the earliest
plants that were domesticated.
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But the earliest cities of the area developed in
the valleys around 5500ya.
Three explanations:
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They moved to the valleys when population
pressure required greater productivity
They developed in place, but the remains of
earlier peoples are covered up today.
Rivers have changed course in the last 10k years;
many sites may also be covered over with silt,
making it tough to locate them.
Flannery’s theory
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Kent Flannery: there is no pressure to give up
seasonally collected resources if the collecting
fits into a yearly round of activities.
As people selected features of wild grasses,
the higher productivity led to greater
exploitation.
People came to rely on specific plants and the
communities experienced increasing
population density.
The carrying capacity trap …
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Until 9kya the density in the Middle East was
>1 person/sq. km.
By 7kya, it was 2/sq km.
By 5kya it was 6 or 7 because of irrigation.
Once again, people got trapped.
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The population rose to the carrying capacity of the
land and technology.
H/G was no longer a viable option, given the
population.
Boserup’s observation
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The first change at the Natufian horizon may not
have been because of population pressure, but
later developments of technology are in response
to population pressure.
Ester Boserup identified the cycle: clear the
forest with stone tools; produce more food;
produce more people; clear more land; shorten
fallow periods (not let the land return to forest);
produce more people; exceed carrying capacity;
intensify technology again.
Domesticates: All by 5kya
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Wheat and barley: Middle East
Olives: Mediterranean
Millet, soybeans: China
Rice: Southeast Asia (some yams)
Corn: Mexico
Sorghum: Africa (some yams, rice)
The Neolithic Evolution
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In sum, the Neolithic Revolution took about
4000 years – from 12kya to 8kya – to get
under way and was completed by about 5kya
when almost all the world’s chief
domesticates were established.
The Neolithic Revolution is not complete.
There are still communities that have not fully
given up their hunting and gathering way of
life, but they are fewer and fewer each year.
Ali Kosh and Tehuacán
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Two type sites for understanding the
concepts of cultural horizons and of
intensification.
At 9,900ya, Ali Kosh, in the Deh Luran
Plain of Iran, was a 1 acre site of
houses made of unfired clay and woven
mat roofs.
Ali Kosh
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People planted wheat and barley, and hunted
wild goats.
The goats were killed young. Less than 1/3 of
the bones found are of animals > 3 years old.
Most of the older goats were female,
indicating that the females were kept for
breeding and the young males were
butchered for consumption.
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The people of Ali Kosh also ate gazelles,
oxen, donkeys, pigs, and water fowl, and
took fish from the swamps.
No seeds or animal remains from species that
are typical of the summer season.
This indicates that they occupied the site
during the winter, but abandoned it for rich
hunting and foraging during the summer.
Trade develops …
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Over time, the proportion of wild to
domesticated species decreases, but there is
continued use of wild species.
By 7500ya, the site was 3 acres and there
were about 170 people, with satellites around
the main site.
Stone tools at the site indicate long distance
trade of 500 miles;
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The cowrie shells are from at >200 miles away.
Intensification
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The people of Ali Kosh intensified their
production system again.
They moved from the edge of the swamps to
the edge of streams and began irrigation.
The villages in the area grew to around 1500.
This required much more land to be cleared,
which led to the decline of the gazelle and
other wild animals.
Craft specialists
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At 7500ya there are fired clay pots,
indicating the presence of craft
specialists.
We see the Boserup cycle at Ali Kosh:
land cleared for animal pasture; then
later, land cleared for crops.
Tehuacan
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Tehuacán: 9kya-7kya 6% of plant foods
were domesticates.
7000-5400ya 14%
5400-4300ya 25%
3500ya, irrigated agriculture and 60%
domesticates
2850ya permanent villages
The big picture
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Note: the cultural horizons were the
same in both cases, but independent in
time and space.
The glacial retreat in the New World
and the Old World at different times is
the best explanation for this – so far.
First Demographic Transition
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Until 30kya there were perhaps 1m
people on Earth.
Upper Paleolithic, 30–15kya, population
may have reached 6–8m.
Broad spectrum period 15–10kya,
population may have reached 10m.
The concept of civilization
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Classical definition: agriculture, writing,
monumental architecture, stratification
Northwest Coast of North America:
stratified society without agriculture
Aztecs and Incas: complex societies and
monumental architecture without
writing.
Hearths of civilization
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Bend of the Huang Ho (Shang) 3600ya
Indus Valley (Mohenjo Daro and
Harappa) 4500ya
Nile Valley
Tigris-Euphrates
Highland Mexico and highland Peru
The origin of the state
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In all cases the evolution has been the
same: incipient agriculture, a formative
period, and a florescent era followed by
militarism and cyclical empires.
Mohenjo Daro in 4500ya; Shang culture
at the bend of the Huang Ho in 3600ya;
Egypt and Mesopotamia.
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Population concentrated in fertile river
valleys; food crops stabilized; surpluses
converted to support for specialists,
including priests and militarists.
Two theories of the state
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But what caused the development of
the state? Why did people give up their
freedom to become incorporated into
larger political units?
Hydraulic theory – Karl Wittfogel, Julian
Steward
Circumscription theory – Robert
Carneiro, Marvin Harris, Ronald Cohen
Hydraulic theory
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Rainfall limits intensification, which leads to
irrigation
Regional states compete as irrigation limits
are reached
Cyclical conquest follows
Food producers cannot keep up with the
increasing demands of the state and there is
a collapse
Later, re-establishment of states
Julian Steward’s theory
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Compared five cases that conform to this
model of primary state formation: southwest
Asia, Egypt, northern China, Peru, and
Mesoamerica.
All have monumental architecture, irrigation
technology, and calendrics.
But: the Mayan ridged fields and the Bali nonstate irrigation system show that inequality
and centralized authority are not mandated
by irrigation.
Irrigation and intensification
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Intensification is always associated with
population growth, but there is the
problem of correlation and causation.
Carneiro’s circumscription theory
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In circumscription theory, warfare, trade, and
religious/political elites are outcomes rather
than causes of states.
Population growth leads to:
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intensification; further population increase; trade;
specialization; further intensification; leadership to
organize irrigation and other large projects;
control of force and the power to tax.
The war-makes-states (and states make war)
theory (Ronald Cohen).
Writing
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Writing is associated with the
development of trade in the context of
the state, but not all states develop
writing.
More later about this.
Who “discovered” America?
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Siberian sites at 40–30kya
Upper Paleolithic peoples had good seafaring skills –
Australia at 40kya
Controversial dates:
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Santa Rosa Island at 29kya
Meadowcroft Rock Shelter at 19,200ya
Pikimachay (Flea Cave) in the Ayacucho Valley of Peru at
22kya
By 14kya humans had reached Tierra del Fuego and
by 12kya there were many local cultures across the
Americas.
Wisconsin glacier and the Bering Straits
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People came across the Bering Straits when
the straits were a land bridge during the
height of the Wisconsin.
But 12-13kya the glacier blocked the passage
from what is today Siberia to what is today
Alaska.
With people in Peru at 14kya, there must
have been earlier and non-land bridge
crossings.
Paleolithic seafaring
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Evidence from the peopling of Australia and
much other evidence shows that upper
Paleolithic people had developed good
seafaring skills.
Many people must have come down the coast
of North America, but those settlements
would today be far out at sea.
There must have been crossing back and
forth during the glacial maximum but it is not
the only route.
Other contacts
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People also came to North America from
northern Europe – first to Greenland and then
to northeastern North America as early as
4500ya
This, too, must have required boats
The pottery from Valdivia in Ecuador, at
4500ya, is similar to the Jomom pottery of
Japan at that time, so it looks like there was
contact there.
The Siberia-North America gap
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There were almost certainly South Atlantic
crossings from Africa to South America.
The first people in the Americas were Paleohunters who followed big game, the
Pleistocene megafauna that are now all
extinct.
The Siberian sites are dated at around 40kya
to 30kya.
By 12kya there were many local cultures in
the Americas.
Paleo-Indian stage
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There were pre-projectile point people, up to
about 10kya.
Paleo-Indian stage, until about 8kya.
Proto-Archaic and then the Archaic.
River of Bones at the Olsen-Chubbock site in
southeastern Colorado: stampede by PaleoIndians of bison across an arroyo.
The animals were butchered on the spot.
Olsen-Chubbock site
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There were 190 bison, and 75 percent were
completely butchered. This would have taken
100 people about 2.5 hours, using stone
tools, or 10 people about 2.5 days.
The bison contained about 36,000 pounds of
meat. This would have fed 100 people for 37
days. If they also had 100 dogs, the meat
would have been gone in 22 days.
Pleistocene overkill
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Bands may have comprised six families, with
25 people, including 5-10 hunters.
The extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna
... 31 species of animals died off quickly in
North America alone and were not replaced.
(See Paul Martin’s work on this.)
This also happened in Australia and New
Zealand and in Madagascar.
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No corresponding reduction in small animals.
The elk, deer, mountain sheep, bison,
caribou, mountain goat today are smaller
than their late Pleistocene ancestors.
Paul Martin’s theory: the animals were hunted
into extinction.
But some animals that became extinct were
not hunted.
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The absence of the megafauna set the stage
for the next adaptation: the Archaic Indian
culture of North America.
This included highly specialized adaptations
to niches, restricted wandering in territories.
Forest, desert, and coastal adaptations, with
differences in the tool kits, and different
emphases on seeds and animals.
Maize: the key to NW civilization
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This leads eventually to the
development of agriculture with the
domestication of corn.
Civilization in the Americas
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Major civilizations developed out of the
Neolithic in several places across the
Americas. Olmec, Chavín, Teotithuacán,
Zapotec, Maya.
The Olmec civilization began 3500ya in
the vicinity of Veracruz, Mexico.
Olmecs
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Olmecs developed a calendar, hieroglyphics,
stone stelae, and a ceremonial center.
The most widely know artifacts of Olmec
civilization are the massive (50-tone) stone
heads.
By the late period, 2500ya, Olmecs
developed temple mounds.
The Olmec civilization was the precursor of
later indigenous civilizations in Mexico, the
last of which was the Aztec.
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Olmec, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Aztec
Zapotecs at Monte Alban
Maya at Chichen Itza
Chavin, Tihuanaco, Inca
Note the difference between the
Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan sites
Civilization across the world
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Japan
Ghana
Egypt
India
Mexico and Peru
Southeast Asia
Once again, the concept of cultural horizon
applies
Chavin to Inca
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The Chavín civilization developed in
Peru around 3000ya. It is the precursor
to the several indigenous civilizations of
the Andes, the last of which was the
Inca.
Tihuanaco: 2400-1000ya
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By 1300ya, the city of Tihuanaco, on Lake
Titicaca, may have had 115k population out
of 365,000 in the region.
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Monumental architecture (pyramids)
One piece of sandstone from that city was
131 metric tons, with a base of nearly 700
square feet.
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Required more than 2500 people to haul. City had
20,000 acre irrigated farm supplying food.
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The Tithuanaco civilization lasted about
800 years, until about 1400ya.
It covered parts of Bolivia, Peru, and
Chile.
Egypt
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By 5100ya, the Nile River had many
small states which were united into a
single state around 4850ya.
The Great Pyramid at Giza probably
required 80,000 people to work 80 days
per year for 20 years. It contains 2.3
million blocks of stone, averaging
around 2.5 tons each.
Cuzco and Macchu Pichu
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In Peru, the collapse of the Tihuanaco
civilization came quickly and lasted for
700 years.
The Incas reunited the state at Cuzco in
1428, about 100 years before they were
conquered by the Spaniards, under
Pizarro.
Cultural horizons in ancient states
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In Egypt, there was a century of war and
collapse beginning at 4160ya.
The eventual reunification was the Middle
Kingdom.
The same parallel development is seen in
Mexico in the development from the Olmecs
on the coast of Vera Cruz to the great
civilization at Teotihucán in the Valley of
Mexico.
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States are characterized by:
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intensive agriculture
storage technology
high density population
large settlements
extralocal exchange
a high degree of specialization
social stratification
clear lines of leader and power
And cyclic florescence and decay.