Human Evolution
and PREHISTORY
Chapter Twelve:
THE RISE OF CITIES AND
CIVILIZATION
Link to the Canadian Archaeological Association
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When And Where Did The World’s First Cities
First Develop?
What Changes In Culture Accompanied The Rise
Of Cities?
Why Did Civilizations Develop In The First
Place?
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WHAT CIVILIZATION MEANS
Societies in which large numbers of people
live in cities, are socially stratified, and are
governed by centrally organized political
systems called states
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When did Cities and Civilization
Appear?
First appeared in Mesopotamia (modern-day
Iraq), then in Egypt and the Indus Valley,
between 6,000 and 4,500 years ago
Civilization developed in Sumer, southern
Mesopotamia, about 5,500 years ago
Independently in the Americas, the first cities
appeared in Peru around 4,000 years ago and
in Mesoamerica about 2,000 years ago
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When did Cities and Civilization
Appear?
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Development of Civilization
Civilization does not suddenly appear after the
Neolithic
Many societies developed some of the
characteristics of civilization, but not all of
them
In precontact Canada, large public works and
complex social and religious institutions
developed in the absence of agriculture
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“Developed Northwest Coast Pattern”
Villages of large, planked houses grouped into a
loose confederacy
However, extended families held rights to
resources
There were nobles and commoners, slaves and
non-slaves, but all fit into a graduated series
from low to high status
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Characteristics of the First Cities
Catalhoyuk
9,500 years old
5,000 people packed into a
12-hectare “city”, with no
streets
Food production
supplemented by wild plants
and animals
No centralized authority
No public architecture
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Characteristics of the First Cities
Teotihuacan
2,200 years ago
Grew to 100,000 people in a formally designed
city
Social stratification
Imported exotic goods, raw materials and
labour
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Social Complexity
 Complex societies are best studied through comparison
 This is problematic for the study of early civilizations by
archaeologists
 Elman Service has suggested an evolutionary, unilineal scheme
of bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states
 Bruce Trigger rejects this, saying that this scheme denies
human behavioural diversity
 Alternate models, e.g. “complex society” rather than “state”
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TIKAL
 Lowland Maya city, settled
from the 1st millenium B.C. to
A.D. 369
 Great Plaza, surrounded by
300 major structures and
thousands of houses
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TIKAL
 Occupational specialists, e.g.
full-time traders, artisans,
astronomers
 Central bureaucratic
organization with a ruling
dynasty
 Importance of the priests,
particularly in matters of
planting and harvesting
 Slash-and-burn agriculture plus
household gardening
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TIKAL
Pressure for food and land reached a critical
point and population growth halted
Warfare increased
Advent of nutritional problems
Period of readjustment, and no population
growth for 250 years
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CITIES AND CULTURAL CHANGE
I.
Agriculture Innovation
a. Irrigation systems, e.g. the Sumerians
b. systems of tree cultivation and raised
fields in areas of flooding, e.g. the
Maya
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CITIES AND CULTURAL CHANGE
II. Diversification of Labour
a. People could be involved in nonagricultural
b.
c.
d.
e.
activities on a full-time basis
Variety of skilled workers, from sculptors to brewers
Specialization led to invention, e.g. Bronze Age tools
and weapons
Extensive trade systems
New knowledge, e.g. geometry, astronomy
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CITIES AND CULTURAL CHANGE
III. Central Government
The governing elite ensured that:
a. Services were provided
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
The city was safe
Taxes were paid
Legal claims received “justice”
Personal and property safety were guaranteed
Surplus food was stored
Public works were supervised
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Evidence of centralized authority
1. City planning, e.g.
streets and drainage
system of Harappa
2. Monumental
structures, e.g. Tikal
temples
3. Writing
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Writing
Courtesy of Mesa Community College, Anthropology
A technique to record
information, e.g. food
surpluses in Mesopotamia
Earliest technique was
pressing marks into clay
tablets, e.g. in Uruk, 5,100
years ago
In the Americas, the
Maya had a sophisticated
system of hieroglyphics
(Figure 12.4)
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The Earliest Governments
In the earliest cities, there was typically a king and his
special advisors
e.g. Hammurabi of Babylon (1950 to 1700 B.C.), known
for his highly developed legal system
Another form of government was a widespread governing
bureaucracy
e.g. Inca empire of Peru (A.D. 1525) stretched 2,500
miles from north to south and 500 miles from
east to west
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CITIES AND CULTURAL
CHANGE
IV. Social Stratification
The emergence of social classes, e.g. in
Mesopotamia people were ranked by their
work or the family into which they were
born
Earliest holders of high status were the heads
of government, or those close to them
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Evidence of Social Stratification
Courtesy of Mesa Community College, Anthropology
1.
Burial customs, e.g. grave
goods and skeletal remains
2.
Size of dwellings
3.
Written documents, e.g.
law code, royal chronicles
4.
Correspondence, e.g.
letters written by the
Spanish conquistadors
about the Aztec empire
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ORIGINAL STUDY
Finding the Tomb of a Moche Priestess
Excavations at a Moche site in Peru uncovered the tomb of a high-status
adult female, buried some after A.D. 550
The objects buried with her identified her as a priestess, one specifically
depicted in Moche art
This priestess was one of the principal participants in the “Sacrifice
Ceremony”, found in the Moche kingdom at four sites
The implication is that there was a state religion with a priesthood in each
part of the kingdom
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Theories of Civilization’s Emergence
What caused the transition from a small,
egalitarian farming village to a large
urban centre with centralized
government?
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Theories of Civilization’s Emergence
1. Irrigation Systems (“hydraulic theory”)
Specialists were needed to manage these large,
complex systems that grew out of farmers’
small dikes and canals
The centralized efforts to control the
irrigation systems developed into the first
governing body and elite social class
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Theories of Civilization’s Emergence
2. Trade Networks
Some form of centralized authority was
needed to organize the trade necessary to
obtain scarce resources and then redistribute
them throughout the population
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Theories of Civilization’s Emergence
3. Environmental and social circumscription
When populations no longer have the space to
expand, they begin to compete for increasingly
scarce resources
Internally, this results in the development of social
stratification, and externally, to warfare, which
needs organization by a centralized authority
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Theories of Civilization’s Emergence
4. Religion – the example of the Maya
Tikal began as an important religious centre
and thus, people settled there, with the
population growing in size and density and
complexity
Therefore, religion played a central role in
starting the process that would lead to
civilization
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Theories of Civilization’s Emergence
5. Action Theory
Although the systemic nature of society and
the impact of the environment are critical in
shaping human behaviour, a forceful leader
may create the kind of change that results in a
political central authority
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CIVILIZATION AND ITS
DISCONTENTS
1. Waste disposal problems, creating
optimum environments for diseases
such as bubonic plague and Salmonella
2. Health problems, e.g acute, infectious
diseases
3. Social problems created by internal
stress, e.g. poverty, crowding, warfare
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NEXT TIME:
Modern Human Diversity
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