The Story of Humanity: From Paleolithic Beings to First Civilizations

Early Expressions of the World View

Task:

The story of humanity begins with paleolithic beings on a quest for understanding. From the beginning, human beings expressed their world view in art such as cave painting and simple statuary. Over time early civilizations began to emerge leaving written records, as well as material objects: tools and weapons, bronze statuary, and monumental structures that reveal to us how early urban dwellers evolved. Basically, human beings were able to evolve a much richer and more complex social and cultural system. This development took place all over the world about 6,000-7,000 years ago when humans made the transition from being hunter-gatherers to farmers. In almost every case, the first civilizations sprang up in rich river valleys. This is no accident as these areas produced so much food that everyone did not have to spend their entire life hunting or foraging for food. Instead, cities sprang up with populations princes, priests, workers, scribes, goldsmiths and all of the other occupations that never produced their own food. Some time around 3,000 BC Great civilizations sprang up in the Hindu Kush, the Yangtze, in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. These last two civilizations will be our focus.

Mesopotamia: Cradle of Civilization

"Mesopotamia" is derived from two Greek terms mesos, meaning 'middle' and potamoi, 'rivers', so the name literally means 'between the rivers;' the two rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. This valley forms the eastern leg of a large semi circular area that begins on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and continues an arch toward the Persian Gulf. Due to its fertility, this area has been regarded as a prize by both the hill people to the north and the desert dwellers to the south. James Henry Breasted, a prominent archaeologist during the early years of the twentieth century, noted the vast number of Neolithic villages established throughout he
region, and gave this area the name "Fertile Crescent."

The first true civilization on planet earth (of which we are aware) developed in Mesopotamia, and the people who built this first civilization are known as the Sumerians. The Sumerians occupied the lower half of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, roughly the area presently known as Iraq. It was an area about the size of Massachusetts and had a hot, dry, wind-swept climate. There were no trees, and therefore no timber. It would seem that the only natural resources were the silt-laden waters of the rivers and the huge reeds that grew in abundance along the river banks. For the resourceful Sumerians, however, this would prove to be sufficient.

The flooding of the Tigris and the Euphrates was violent and irregular, hence the mental life of the Mesopotamian civilizations became dominated by a sense of anxiety. The world was unpredictable and capricious, bringing life-giving rain and fertility one day and devastating destruction the next. Since the forces of nature were expressions of the whims of the gods, their many gods were unpredictable and capricious.

In contrast, compare the Tigris-Euphrates valley with the Nile, the cradle of Egyptian civilization. The Nile was predictable. Though it flooded, it flooded with regularity, at the same time and with basically the same intensity every year. As we will see, this predictability is the key to understanding the longevity as well as the static nature of Egyptian civilization