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Ancient Civ: Origins - Ep 68
467 Plays3 years ago
Buckle up for an episode on the theory of the rise of early states and ancient civilizations. Episode 68 sets the stage for a series investigating early civilizations across the globe. We break down Elman Service and Lewis Henry Morgan's theories on cultural complexity and go through a couple of definitions for "civilization". Think that's going to be boring? Well just wait, we even talk about primary vs secondary civilizations and the four classic theories on how early complex civilizations rise.
Of course, any episode involving the great mistake of neothilization wouldn't be complete without poking fun of our friend Stefan Milo.
Literature Recommendations
- Ancient Civilizations by Chris Scarre & Brian M. Fagan, 4th edition
- Archaeology by Robert L. Kelly & David Hurst Thomas, 7th Edition
- Archaeology and Human History by Deborah I. Olszewski
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to episode 68 of A Life and Ruins podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living in life and ruins. I'm your host Carlton Gover, and I am joined by my co-hosts, Connor Johnen and David Howe.
Series Overview: Rise of Complex Civilizations
00:00:24
Speaker
For this episode, we kick off a new series focused on the rise of complex civilizations across the world.
00:00:29
Speaker
Why did our hunting and gathering ancestors give up their freedoms for an eternity of oppression by so-called elites? How did states develop differently across the globe? And will that neolithic apologist, Stefan Milow, assassinate the three of us before we finish this series? Well, let's find out.
Defining States and Critiquing Linear Progression Theories
00:00:45
Speaker
Guys, so states, we're not talking about the United States. What do you guys think of it when we think of the state? Starting with you, Connor.
00:00:54
Speaker
Well, I think my mind always goes back to the, you know, I think one of the earliest definitions of states, which is done by Elm and Service back in the day. Back in the day, 1962, where he's kind of like drawing this linear progression of people through time and space. Basically people that evolve or like start a savage or start in these like bands and
00:01:21
Speaker
and they eventually like move up or level up eventually to the highest of civilizations. But that's where I go initially just because I think it's it's a joke of a theory and it's really easy to like poke fun at because it's like oh okay like thank you for your blatant racism on how you think people societies and things should exist so I really appreciate your honesty on that.
00:01:47
Speaker
To play devil's advocate though, what is another way to describe the different state, the different social organizations of people? That's a good point. And it's definitely better than Lewis Henry Morgan's, how he tried to categorize different levels, quote, unquote, of society.
Categorization of Societies: Historical Perspectives and Critiques
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the line that you draw. So you can describe people in these different bands, tribes, chiefdom states. I think that makes sense, but it's like,
00:02:15
Speaker
okay tribes are better than bands well then obviously yeah states are better than tribes and you know it's it's like you're not achieved the ultimate achievement is being a state where you max out all your your attributes and your you know
00:02:31
Speaker
You're grinding those levels. Yeah. And I think if you are like talking about it in the sense of like things, you know, like linear evolution, they get up to the point of state and that's where they're going. That's like what Boaz was opposed to, which is not historical particularism, but that's what Boaz was. But if you think about it like.
00:02:49
Speaker
think of the Americas when the Spanish got there. You have a state-level society in like Mexico and South America. Then you have bands on the plains. Then you have tribes that are nomadic. And then you have like small statehoods like up in the north stuff too. So it's like you have simultaneous
00:03:07
Speaker
groups of people and like organizations of people, but you're right. It's like a fluid thing where there's no like fine line to like what, between what you are. Yeah. Like general categories are good descriptions. And this is coming out of like, especially like Lewis Henry Morgan in 1877 came up with the three ideas that you have
00:03:28
Speaker
savagery, barbarism, and civilization. So you have savages, barbarians, and then you have Europeans, which are the civilized. And this is all coming out of a point where Europeans are globalizing the world, like the early precursors of globalization, and trying to categorize
00:03:44
Speaker
cultures across the globe into these categories. We see this with the history of anthropology, where they start with these very broad, usually triumvirate
Fluidity of Social Organization
00:03:52
Speaker
categories. As the discipline of anthropology develops, we continue to break down. Lewis Henry Morgan, for instance, there's three levels of savages, three levels of barbarians, and three levels of civilizations.
00:04:06
Speaker
within each category. And then you get element service in 1962 with bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. And it sounds very, and David touched on this earlier, this concept of unilateral evolution, where you start from the bottom and then you move to the top. But even service and his idea, he talks about this idea, I think chiefly cycling comes later, but states can revert. You basically get two chiefdoms,
00:04:32
Speaker
And you can move to states, but you can fall back into chiefdoms. So there's a little bit of recycling at the top.
00:04:39
Speaker
You never ultimately go back to being like a tribe or a band is what they see. But yeah, there's this like fluidity between these systems. I mean, sometimes they work and sometimes a drought comes and tells you that this isn't working anymore. We have to split up and try something different. It's just like you have to adapt to the surrounding cultures and the environments that you're put into. Otherwise you're not going to survive.
00:05:07
Speaker
Absolutely. And like Justin, here's a really good quote by Scar and Fagan, just to kind of cap what me, David, and Connor talked about today. Archaeologists do not regard civilizations as better than hunter-gatherer societies or those of small-scale farmers, only different. It is perhaps only natural to admire the grandiose monuments, the powerful artworks, and the evocative literature left by the ancient Romans or Egyptians. These give us a vivid picture of complex societies in some senses comparable to Rome, but they're not better
00:05:35
Speaker
than earlier or contemporary, less complex society. So like the purpose of this series, we're going to talk about complex sieve. That's not to mean it's better than anything else, just complex. When you get complex sieve, paleo-Indian archaeology, paleolithic archaeology is fascinating. But when you get complex sieve, that's when you can really start talking about like commerce,
00:06:01
Speaker
religion, like more abstract ideas that are part of this human condition.
00:06:07
Speaker
And then this is not to say that those things didn't exist beforehand with these smaller groups. It's just they're evident through the material culture. Like you have art, you have maybe writing in some cases that actually describes these religious ceremonies or whatnot. But we know through our kind of modern studies of hunter-gatherers, they do have some sort of belief system there. But it's just easier for us to study as archaeologists.
The Nature and Evolution of Civilizations
00:06:34
Speaker
it's more visible or evidence for it is more visible and larger because it all comes down to population density and with population density you get more material record density. In the sense of like the classical Maya and like the Maya collapse like when we think of Maya you think of you know the temples and Tikal and things like that but when it collapsed the Mayans went back to living in like small agrarian communities and some hunted and gathered
00:07:01
Speaker
like up until then I think they hunted together. I remember hearing something about that, but either way, like they're still Maya. They still speak Kitch Maya. And like when the Spanish got there, that's who would have been interacting with, but they're not in the state level society that they used to be. So it's the same culture is still there. You just have to adapt to the environment because you can't sustain that large urban complex anymore. And the Maya, which we'll get to later are an interesting case study because they they're more analogous to like Greek city-states.
00:07:30
Speaker
rather than like the Roman Empire. You kind of have a homogenous culture group with different polities, speaking the same language, engaging in the same culture, but like Tikal is not the capital. Athens wasn't the capital of the Greek world. There's different, yeah, there's different city centers located across a large period of time. I only think of Mel Gibson, honestly, when I think of the model. I mean, it's just so accurate and so good.
00:07:59
Speaker
The guy, damn it, he knows story structure, but the guy's crazy. You know, we had David Anderson on the show early on, I think episode 12 or 13, and he did a review of that. And you wouldn't know, but when they have that image of Tikal, which is also, is that the Star Wars Rebel Base from The New Hope? Yeah.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah. The monuments they have in the background, they were not contemporaneous and Dr. Anderson equated it with having the Colosseum next to the Vatican, next to the Parthenon, all in the same place. So in terms of architecture, it wasn't correct, but that's getting into the weeds a bit.
00:08:44
Speaker
So when they were doing my sacrifice and stuff like that, looking out onto that, I didn't even realize that. That's wild. Yeah. I would never have realized that he pointed out, because he's a myatologist. So of course he knows the architecture.
00:09:00
Speaker
That's like putting the Lincoln Monument next to some Dolan's in Ireland. There's this correlation between state-level societies and civilization. Just for listeners, the term civilization is a shorthand for urbanized state-level societies.
Primary vs. Secondary Civilizations: Development and Influences
00:09:22
Speaker
and these are really associated with pre-industrial societies. So everything are civilizations, right? So we are still talking about people without mechanized equipment as we do. For you two, David and Connor, I'll start with David first. When you think of civilization, what are some qualities a civilization must have or that you associate with civilization? Sorry.
00:09:43
Speaker
When you guys hear words, do you, do you see like the colors of it or like get like a smell of something or like, do you like, does an image come to your head? Not most days. Okay. So like when you said civilization, like I get a taste of like corn in my mouth and I can like smell it and like it makes me think of, I guess like the, the Mesoamericans. Like that's what like my head jumps to. Fair enough. That's a weird thing to describe, but yeah, that's how my head works.
00:10:11
Speaker
No, that's like, when I hear civilization, the first thing I think of is like, ur and ur, like the earliest ones doing the globe.
00:10:19
Speaker
And like, yeah, I have this image of for some, because it's in like between the Tigers and the Euphrates when I hear of, or I think of like Iraq. That's where my mind goes to. Yeah. I guess like when I was in grade school and like before. Archaeology, I think civilization, you know, popped up like the Civ five, like the, the classic like China and the Mediterranean and, and that grade school was Civ three grade school. It was Civ civilization three.
00:10:48
Speaker
Oh, I didn't play until four. Yeah. But you were in middle school or high school when four came out. High school. Yeah. The main intro theme to Civilization Four got a Grammy. Continue, Connor. So I didn't, at CSU, they don't offer as much international archeology and don't have that many international archeologists. So I really think of
00:11:09
Speaker
kind of like the, the hope well, or kind of these, these mound kind of sieves as we call them. But I also think that there's a, there's a certain amount of weight and judgment that the word civilization is used for. Yes. It's used for, it's used as a way to describe people who either are like with us or kind of against us, you know, like, are they some, you're either with me or you're against me.
00:11:36
Speaker
and speaking of Star Wars references, I was about to make one. You know how our Qui-Gon Jinn Bob Kelly defined civilization?
00:11:47
Speaker
A complex urban society with a high level of cultural achievement in the arts and sciences, craft specialization, a surplus of food and or labor, and a hierarchically stratified social organization. Bob Kelly is unneeded. What does high level of culture mean? What is achievement? What is achievement? Making a stone tool or making the phone a Lisa?
00:12:14
Speaker
I think we had this debate before and it didn't end well for me, so I'm gonna tune out. Okay, well, let's just assume that we give, there's a value system associated with civilization, where we draw civilization versus not civilization. There's a thing, it's a problem.
00:12:31
Speaker
will not deal with it on this podcast. Yeah, I mean, we're getting in the weeds with that one. Yeah. Yeah. But we assume that it's like people expressing themselves and in a really cool way that preserves archeologically and as a system of writing, you know, I don't know what other character. Record keeping.
00:12:53
Speaker
And the reason, the only reason I say record keeping is because like the Inca didn't have writing and had key poos. That's a really good point. I mean, I know what you're talking about, but I think like the current one is just a system of record keeping to transmit knowledge.
00:13:09
Speaker
not through an oral way. And that, that comes about because of, I have another point after this too, but that comes about because of trade and currency and tax. Like you have to, once you start needing to collect money from people or exchange like money for things instead of just goods for goods, you got to have someone write that down. Cause you're like, hang on you, let me read some writing real quick. Cause you owe me, like I'm going to, I'm going to put this down here on this tablet. So you remember,
00:13:38
Speaker
And literally, that's how writing starts. Yeah, you don't have a name, but I'm going to give you a name. You're Bob. Take that name. You're Bob. You owe me interest. The word civilization can apply to so many things, I think. That's a big issue I have with the Hancock stuff. In his book, I read it or listened to it on Audible. He doesn't necessarily say there's a giant civilization that's missing in the Amazon.
00:14:02
Speaker
He just says there's a decrepit civilization there. I forget how he put it. But when people hear that, they're like, where are the temples? Why are there no giant stone temples there? Where are they hiding it? Have they just not found it yet? And it's like, yeah, but it's a civilization in the sense that the Hopewell Mountains are a civilization. It's just a complex city center that was likely there. But then people get this idea of, wow, there must have been sculptures and art and people rolling heads down pyramids.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, there's this con there's this in the public.
00:14:34
Speaker
zeitgeist, there is this perception that civilization equals complex and state level. And as David said, you can have like the Iroquois civilization, like you can have different cultural groups, which are civilizations, but we attach this like bias towards what that means. And for the purpose of this year, we were talking about complex civilization, which is associated with these early statehood societies. Yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
And with that, we get two kinds of early civilizations. You have primary and secondary. Define those. So primary. Better and worse. No, no, Connor. That is absolutely wrong.
00:15:15
Speaker
So, Skarn, Fagan, and ancient civilizations, fourth edition, they define primary civilization. I'm so sorry. Primary civilization is usually reserved for those civilizations that are thought to have come into being independently.
00:15:33
Speaker
they are sometimes simply called first civilizations. The list includes Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Indus Valley, Shang China, the Maya, and the early civilizations of Peru. In none of these cases is stimulus from another center of civilization thought to have played a decisive role. The secondary civilizations are those of later date, notably the Minoans, the Mycenaeans, and the Aegean, or the early civilizations of Nubia and Southeast Asia,
00:16:03
Speaker
Here it is held that influences from long established civilizations had a crucial formative impact. So you have civs that come into civilization without outside stimulus. They came into it.
00:16:14
Speaker
themself. Sorry, I'm reading the text box. Um, question to that would be like, so when you were listing those off, I was thinking of the Southeast, like, you know, the mountain builders and Mississippians. So Mississippians in this case would have been highly influenced by like Olmec told to like the civilizations there. I think it was what we, yes. Or would they, or is it more like,
00:16:40
Speaker
I mean, because their expression of it is completely different or fundamentally different than the old Mac and those like that. Would it be like the smaller areas surrounding those that are like variations on that? I mean, the same thing applies for chiefdoms. You have primary, secondary network and corporate chiefdoms, which
00:16:57
Speaker
early Hopewell is, so you still have that same diffusion of these complex ideals emanating from Mesoamerica predominantly, which I think there's a bit of environmental determinism behind that, but we'll get that in the next segment.
Global Overview of Primary Civilizations
00:17:12
Speaker
But yeah, David, so things that happen in the Southeast, Southwest United States are as diffusion of ideas coming out of Mexico.
00:17:22
Speaker
But, so primary is just like they happen independently. Like there's nothing else influencing them, but secondary civilizations or complex civ is because you have the Mycenaeans and Manoans who know of Egypt and Uruk and Mesopotamia and then adopt those principles. So there's that outside influence that is they're adopting and putting in their own cultural group.
00:17:56
Speaker
Are you sick of hunting and gathering? Always moving from place to place?
00:18:02
Speaker
Who are my farmers out there? Sick of local patriarch raids from warring tribes? Well, have we got a concept for you? New from Lithic Technologies, Inc. The state! Here, you can stay in one place, hide behind high walls, and defended by the strength of a conscripted military? Come on in! We have religion, music, even silks and milk! Side effects may include disease, taxes, slavery, civil war, cavities, and the deaths of firstborn child and large-scale rape and slaughter.
00:18:30
Speaker
Thank you for that, Stefan Milow. So yeah, this is a great sell for all of us. We absolutely want to take part of that. How does complex civilization rise? Now, for our listeners, there's the primary states that we had talked about.
00:18:46
Speaker
There's a couple. Get them in the Andes around 1500 BC, Mesoamerica also 1500, Egypt 3000 BC, the Mediterranean 2000, Mesopotamia 3500 BC, Indus Valley 2500 BC, and Northern China in 2000 BC. So almost all of the early States arise in an equatorial
00:19:10
Speaker
Latitude, except for the Indians, and they're kind of different, and they do some cool stuff, but... Is that longitude? Yeah, they do. No, latitude, if you say latitude, your mouth goes horizontal. If you longitude, your mouth goes vertical, and that's why I remember it from third grade. Yeah, they do. I didn't say latitude, but yeah, that's cool. I didn't know that. Yeah, mouth tricks. Yeah. Takes that as well. Wow. We think they all develop within these climates,
00:19:37
Speaker
And there are multiple theories on how they ultimately come to be, and it takes on and it evolves through anthropological history and theory. So you start with V. Vera, I think it's his first name, Gordon Child, who wrote something about the urban revolution, Carlson.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yes, so there's four classic theories. V. Gordon Child's urban revolution, Robert Canaro's warfare hypothesis, there's a technology and trade aspect, and Carl Witt Vogel's hydraulic civilization theory. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, that's Oriental despotism.
00:20:20
Speaker
I think that's what that's called, right? What? What's the guy's name you said? Carl Whitfogel, very German. Well, there's someone that came up with this idea that like the state arises in Asia because it's called Oriental despotism, which the word is now not good, but like because people have to have these like watered areas to like live and grow their farm. Like there's people that become like despots and it's kind of racist.
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that fits very well in with Carl Whitfogle. So the hydraulic sieve theory is centered on these at during his time in the mid 20th century.
Alternative Theories for State Formation
00:20:56
Speaker
Wait, it is him. I just looked it up. Yeah. Or it'll just autism is by, uh, by, uh, Carl August Whitfogle. Sorry.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, that fits. And he is on notice because he recognized early on during his time that the earliest civilizations that they're funding archeologically are around areas that do not have a lot of rainfall are in arid regions. So this hypothesis is basically people organize that you have social stratification in which people become elites because they're just managing irrigation ditches.
00:21:33
Speaker
And that the person that controls the water then becomes the despot, ruler, the despot. I want to say that if you look his name up, the first thing on Wikipedia is that it'll, they mentioned him as a playwright more than an anthropologist. So, you know, he did a lot of things. Well, he was German. Of course he did.
00:21:54
Speaker
Didn't laugh. No laughing involved. It was a very serious place that he wrote. So water's important. Water's important is basically the management of water led to the rise of states. And basically there was someone that conned a bunch of deans into giving him access to their water and became powerful through that.
00:22:18
Speaker
Then V. Gordon Child, he claimed that a Neolithic revolution, which witnessed the beginning of farming, was followed by an urban revolution. He theorized that this second revolution saw the development of metallurgy and the appearance of a new social class of full-time artisans and specialists who lived in much larger settlements, that is cities. Basically, because of the Neolithic, because you had a distinct ... We had gone from a period where you didn't
00:22:46
Speaker
prior to the Neolithic revolution, you were a farmer, you made your own pots, you had to do everything to sustain yourself. And you made like you hung out with your neighbors and if someone was better, you would trade. But through the Neolithic revolution, you had full-time specialists and it's through this use of full-time specialists, you get urban revolutions because you had to have bartering and commerce between individuals. So the potter didn't die of starvation, right?
00:23:10
Speaker
I'll trade you me goat for that little thing of pottery you got there. That was bad. I'll think of a better one.
00:23:21
Speaker
Doesn't Carneiro do the same thing except for it involves conflict, essentially? Yes. So whereas Carl Whitfogle was influenced by the Northern Chinese early statehood societies and V. Gordon Child is really looking at Mesopotamia. Carneiro is looking at the archaeology of coastal valleys in Peru to propose that warfare played a key role in state formation.
00:23:47
Speaker
His coercive theory of state origins argued that the amount of agricultural land in these valleys was limited and surrounded by desert, so a series of predictable events led to the development of states. At first, these autonomous farming villages flourished in the valley landscape, but as the population grew and more land was taken up, the communities started raiding each other's fields as they competed for limited acreage, and then they basically grew into warlords.
00:24:13
Speaker
They just, they controlled too much and, you know, wanted more and they kept wanting to expand and, you know, it's natural. Exactly. You know, Canaro's theory in particular is hard to test in the field, but it has some support in Highland, Mexico, like specifically the Oaxaca Valley warfare in the form of inter-village ratings seems to have begun very soon after the first villages were established.
00:24:33
Speaker
And the technology and trade, that's really just the interconnectivity between individuals and the needing of keeping record keeping, as David said, like a big part of state formation and early complex civilization is keeping track of who owes you, fundamentally capitalism. Yeah. And I assume red light district stuff too.
00:24:57
Speaker
I feel like the world's oldest profession is bartering not necessarily prostitution but hunting but I mean bartering is a there's a quick a couple steps away bartering is a couple steps away from prostitutes quid pro quo hey full circle
00:25:16
Speaker
Like Carlton had mentioned, there's theorists who put importance on different aspects of changes from the Neolithic Revolution that are important and basically ascribe them more importance than others for why we have these societies that emerge in this kind of statehood, civilization, whatever
00:25:41
Speaker
you want to call it. And I think honestly, I believe that it's probably a combination of all those things. I mean, I think there's probably importance in different areas, different economic areas, different environments, but the need to have water, the need to protect the things around you and the need to trade and
00:26:02
Speaker
all this stuff really should contribute to you creating this society that's structured and protects all that you have, kind of the surplus you have from the Neolithic Revolution. That's just me. No, absolutely. And it's not just you. These are the four classic theories from the mid 20th century. And modern anthropologists today, they all say this is a mixture of all these things.
00:26:29
Speaker
100%. Like there's not one theory that can explain it. It's a mixture of all. And more importantly, we have like social theories have become more predominant, which become more abstract.
Power Dynamics in Early State Formations
00:26:40
Speaker
Like the four classic theories are primarily rooted in the physical evidence. Whereas contemporary anthropologists and archeologists that Stu study comps early complex civ are like, there are these non-evidential things like abstract ideas that don't contain the archeological record that we can
00:26:57
Speaker
used to assume what's going on in the past. And all three of those pretty much, this is like, how do you get states where you have stratified, it involves power and you can get power in three domains and it's economic power, social and ideological power and political power. And it's the combination of these things that basically gives elites the ability to maintain control by force, which were vital ingredients of early states.
00:27:23
Speaker
So basically you have that one from high school who's able to wield power. Like if you were to look at an early civilization, early farm, you have that one dude or woman who kind of just thinks they're hot stuff, gets their groupies around to bully everyone else into giving them their stuff. Yeah. I mean, that's you're not wrong. Yeah. I was going to say like the first description of that is not me, but the latter description is me for some reason.
00:27:53
Speaker
I had like a gang of kids in high school that I would they did my bidding The gangs in New York this was in this was in Nashville actually Yeah, I organized a fight between the like the regular kids and the redneck kids that the guys I was dressed country and like talk to everybody and One day was like meeting the gym at 6 a.m. And like half the school was there like witnessed this giant fight and I was like, oh
00:28:20
Speaker
And then I rode the – it sounds made up, but I rode this guy's back. He was like very tall and I held like one of those folding chairs and a mop pole and like rode into battle. But then we stopped because, you know, what were we actually going to fight about? Nothing. I just stirred – anyway, so the point of that is that is literally how state-level societies are. You have somebody who's like, hey.
00:28:41
Speaker
That other group has some good plots of land over there to, you know, grow wheat or corn out of. We're going to go take that. And like, that's kind of like where this comes from. And that's kind of at the end, like.
00:28:54
Speaker
Nomadic stuff too. I don't know but then but then you like ascribe like an ideology like oh I I am this person from God who has this power I should have control over this and everything you see around me and or like so like it just gets way more intense than just like Claiming resources, right? This is when you start seeing
00:29:19
Speaker
organized religion that is supporting elites. Like prior to state level societies based on element service, you have chiefdoms in which you have, that's where you do have both achieve status in which you gain notoriety to lead the people, but also ascribe status in which you can inherit status. State level societies are inherently ascribed. So basically there's, there's somehow
00:29:45
Speaker
one individual who's the ruling elite has to convince his peers. And it's usually, especially in early societies, what we believe they tap into the religious aspect. Like, no, me and my family are different. We're gods. Therefore you have to listen to us. And if we F up, it's because you guys failed us. Whereas if it was an achieved society and you failed, they would just get the next highest achiever and replace you.
00:30:16
Speaker
So there's this, there's, you have to convince the population in early civ because what we see in early civilization, like things go bonkers. We all live in a complex, like, you know, industrialized statehood society. We're used to power differentiations. Like that's, that's our norm. Like we get it. Back then, this is unheard of.
00:30:40
Speaker
We've gone from like egalitarian where everyone's equal that you really have to be that guy that has to convince everyone else that you're special. Like they can't, like they're not worried about the fact that you're not working like everyone else. They have just accepted that as life. Yeah. And that's crazy to think.
00:30:56
Speaker
I don't know. And that's, that's the neat thing about like with, with chimpanzees and stuff, you can observe them and they have like territorial disputes and like they sometimes just gang up on people for no reason. They're just like, yeah, just like in the case of the high school thing, just cause it was fun. But then like in the sense of like a state level society, then you can add human culture into it and you have like religion and then you can convince a whole bunch of people to follow you for this reason or X reason. And like people ask me on ethno to define religion a lot and it's like,
00:31:27
Speaker
It's a system of belief that comes up to, you know, deal with the harsh realities of nature, but also it's a social organization. And when it's run and it's organized by one person, and state level society is usually the Pharaoh or someone like that, who's like the Supreme, then you can have
00:31:42
Speaker
all of the people do your bidding and go to the next place. And as Carlton said, you know, war with the next state. And yeah, like Carlton said, it's pretty, uh, pretty crazy. Well, David, I know you've, you've talked about this in other areas, or at least we've talked about it, like,
00:31:59
Speaker
things get wild with the Neolithic Revolution in terms of violence, between civilization violence and also public displace of violence, where you have the Maya folks who are actively sacrificing folks to appease the gods and things like that. So there is this uptick in violence caused by the Neolithic Revolution and this organization of state
00:32:24
Speaker
societies ultimately to maintain power either within the sieve or to ultimately stop other groups from messing with your current civilization.
00:32:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a form of population control and like there's all sorts of stuff to it too. And this is kind of relevant, but I had somebody comment on a YouTube video. Like I take issue with cultural relativism because X, Y, and Z like doing something.
00:32:54
Speaker
I was essentially saying you can totally judge another culture because it's hurting somebody or something like that. And I was like, yeah, you can judge it at night by yourself with your significant other talking in bed about it. But when you're doing the anthropological note taking when you're in there, you need to put that aside. And so in the case of the Spanish, they wrote everything about the Maya and the Aztec as being
00:33:16
Speaker
Un-Christian and demonic and things like that. But they're judging it from their perspective, but this is relevant because in Europe, they were also mass-sacrificing people in a different way, which was public executions because they didn't follow specific gods the right way or they…
00:33:33
Speaker
you looked at the king the wrong way one day and he's like, Oh, I'm out. But it's the same kind of thing. But like all state level societies have certain stuff like that. And it's, it's pretty crazy how that all just like goes up. Does that make sense? Sorry. I feel like it's kind of random. My advisor, Doug Bamford, that's really good analogy. When he got that book, archaeology of warfare and the great plains published, his sister reached out to him and said, look what this local pastor said and like reviewed his book and was like, look what?
00:33:59
Speaker
look at the horrible butchery of North America before Christianity arrived. And Doug responded, it's like, right, because the great Crusades were before Jesus died, right? Yeah, I think I lost track of the culture relativism part, but we can't sit here and say, which one is better, the Crusades?
00:34:24
Speaker
Some of the Mayan sacrificial people were probably like, all right, yeah, I'll sacrifice myself or Huishilopoli. And then like in Europe, it's usually not, you know, you don't want that to be happening. But yeah, there's this. You nailed that name, but you struggled at the beginning of this segment.
00:34:42
Speaker
with, what the hell was that word? Oh, uh, conscription. Conscription. You couldn't say conscription, but you said. I was like, defended by the strength of a conscripted military, but I was like, defended by the conscript of a... But you nailed the Nahua word. Props. Uh, I kind of got lost in what I was saying, but I agree with you and I was just kind of expanding upon that.
00:35:09
Speaker
No, yeah. Cultural relativism. Like we can't look at, we have to look at these as best we can from an unbiased lens. We can't. You're crazy to think that there's not forms of violence everywhere and all civilizations like it. Get out of here. It's just different. Yeah.
00:35:25
Speaker
because you got to cull the population in some way. This is going to get dark. But then you have collapse, right? And they don't have, yeah. So before we go Easter Island, right? That's a collapse because they ate all the stuff and then they chopped every tree down and they're like, oh man, really should have taken some ecology classes before I got here. And in that case, if there was population control, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad.
00:35:50
Speaker
there's there's a reason why states get so big and it's because there's all those little things fall into place which don't have to fall into place and they I would rather people didn't get sacrificed but like see I'm saying probably digging a hole here but like it there's so there's so much complexity of stuff with like human culture I don't know sometimes you just got to kill people and on that note we will catch you in the third segment of episode 68 of the life you're in this podcast
00:36:16
Speaker
Welcome back to a Life in Ruins podcast. This is episode 68, where we are talking about the rise of civilizations and modern and ancient theories about how they did arise. And I think we're going to start with our first case study here of a civilization arising and some characteristics of that. And of course we have to go to the Fertile Crescent, the Middle East, because that's the oldest.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yes, so the earliest early civilizations that we do find and oldest doesn't necessarily mean better is in Mesopotamia. But it's also important to realize like these didn't just happen in a vacuum.
Origins and Developments in Mesopotamian Civilization
00:36:58
Speaker
So Mesopotamia, the earliest civilizations, we get about 3,500 BC. The Middle East has specifically Mesopotamia region, has some rather important villages for you guys to look upon your own that do kind of prelude to the early civs. So they're kind of like the prequel.
00:37:14
Speaker
And so you have Jericho in the Jordan Valley, Abu Herrera, and of course, Chetahoyuk in Turkey. So there are kind of like these archaeological sites prior to the early civilizations that have components of what will later become very much a part and associated what we see with early sieves. I think it's Ur is the first city that is there. Yep. Yeah, it's Ur and then there's
00:37:44
Speaker
Uruk. And I feel like there's another one that's close to that. So it's Uruk is the first one. And so the Uruk Revolutions it's called. So you have the city, you have not just one city, you have multiple.
00:38:04
Speaker
which lead to the state and then writing. So cuneiform is already established during the Uruk period around 3,500 BC, which marks the beginning of the Mesopotamian civilization and which marks like these significant developments in craft specialization, the growth of centralized religion and secular control. So you get temples and palaces and an expansion of trade between the South Mesopotamian plain and neighboring regions, rich in raw materials.
00:38:34
Speaker
And so the Uruk period lasted over a thousand years, so about like 4,200 to 3,100 BC, and saw the greatest transition, transformation, sorry, of Mesopotamia. So this is when we actually start seeing like cities and states. And the earliest one is here in what, as Connor described, the Fertile Crescent, which extends to the Eastern Mediterranean. So think like Northern Israel, Syria, up into Southern Turkey, Northern Syria.
00:39:02
Speaker
and through the Tigris and Euphrates rivers into, I don't know what sea that is, unfortunately. I know the south, the Dead Sea. No, it's not the Dead Sea. The Persian Gulf, right? Caspian Sea. Yes. Yeah, Persian Gulf. Into the Persian Gulf. So it makes a crescent, and this is what they call the fertile crescent, because in this region, which is extraordinarily dry, these are major areas that have a lot of water. And civilizations arise around water for what reason?
00:39:32
Speaker
So that's where Carl Whitfogle's hydraulic theory comes into play, that basically you have these civilizations maintaining irrigation systems, because like even like Egypt, which is the next one, they're trying to monitor and control Nile river flooding. And this is where geometry comes into play, where they develop geometry. But the Tigris and Euphrates, Ramesopotamia or Babylon shows up, they're managing the water in between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
00:39:59
Speaker
And so you have this water management play in a very arid area and you get the rise of these complex sieves. And this is where you see like cuneiform. And I really want to get, I've seen these on Pinterest and TikTok, those cuneiform cookie cutter things, you know what I'm talking about? That's pretty cool. Some linear bee cookies. Yeah, man. Well, I think does linear A come before linear B or is it one of those things where it's like... Linear B was Europe, I think. You just said linear B.
00:40:26
Speaker
Okay. Well, yeah, I said linear B because it's the first one that came to my head, I guess. But I forget what linear A is. But this is Cuneiform, regardless. Earliest accounts. And I think Gilgamesh is in Cuneiform, right? Possibly. Yeah, I feel like it is. It has to be like the oldest recorded story or the oldest recorded story. Written story. Yeah.
00:40:48
Speaker
What would be the alternative theory to like, not saying it has to be the despotism, but like, are the hydraulics theory, but like, what's the alternative theory to that? Cause like in my mind, it's like you're around the rivers. Like we see that in North America where they're growing corn, like on the Mississippi where it's like fertile, the Nile for sure, the Tigris Euphrates. And like, is it not like correct that like society is just built up and built up and someone's gotta like, you know, step up and lead it? Cause not everyone can agree.
00:41:14
Speaker
Easily. I mean, that goes into that whole urban revolutionary thing because like even in Mesopotamia, this is where you're starting to see wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas, dates, peas, pistachios. So, and that's like around 1200 before present, so 10,000 BC. So, this place even prior to urbanization, you have like 8,000 years worth of practice agriculture, which then leads to population explosion and therefore population density.
00:41:39
Speaker
But but you can have irrigation and agriculture without complex states. Yes. So there has to be something else that's involved to ultimately get them to be a state level civilization. It's not just like, oh, I found water. Now I'm going to dominate the world. There's other factors involved. I mean, water, you have to have water. I feel like that's. Yeah, that's like no matter what. But you have areas where they they do practice irrigation and they don't become these larger
00:42:09
Speaker
larger civilizations. So that'd be my only like against the water hypothesis. I gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. But so some of the remains of, is it Uruk? There's like pretty cool architecture that is preserved from Ur and Uruk.
00:42:33
Speaker
They're just, they're called zigger cigarettes. Yeah. Step pyramids, step pyramids that are, I think they still are preserved to today. So you could, you probably can't visit them now and it might not be the greatest place to visit, but look it up. Oh yeah. Those things. I mean, our mentor, Bob Kelly and DHT,
00:42:56
Speaker
I mean, once again, they boil this down to multi-causal theory for the origin of states. Like, you know, they say that some places irrigation exists without states and other states exist without irrigation and some warfare precedes states formation, but in others it follows as with agriculture is impossible to specify a single prime mover for states. No single condition is both necessary and sufficient to create an archaic state. So, you know, even, even BK and DHT,
00:43:25
Speaker
They can't point to one, but they do.
Modern Theories on State Formation
00:43:29
Speaker
Like we said earlier, the role of ideology is extremely important in early state formation. So we'll never see the individual in the archaeological record that said, hey, assholes, follow me. This is what we're doing. I want to find that guy. I want to be that guy. Well, I was looking online. There is a code of laws associated with the that is supposed to predate the code of Hammurabi.
00:43:55
Speaker
that's one of these kind of elements to the civilization that is pretty cool is that they're ultimately, you know, getting better at agriculture and controlling the environment around them, but also creating these codified things to help control and keep themselves in power. Oh, absolutely. I mean, is that that same, does that story, does that come from Gilgamesh where,
00:44:24
Speaker
There's that story of two women in court arguing over who the baby belongs to. And the judge is like, all right, well, let's split the baby in half and each can have one. And the woman who like shed her tears, like crying like, no, no, no, just let her have it. He's like, that's the mom.
00:44:43
Speaker
I think that's Jerry Springer, Jerry Jerry. I was going to say that at the beginning and then you talk about the baby in half and I was like, let me hold my tongue. I don't remember if that's the case, but I do remember like the code of Hammurabi is like a big thing. The, the wheel, I don't think was invented there. That was invented by the like step people, but there was a lot of like, well, like step parents.
00:45:10
Speaker
A lot of technology is coming out of this area. Was Mesopotamia Neolithic or was it Bronze Age? I imagine bronze because metallurgy is very important. If not bronze, definitely copper. But it's part of that herb.
00:45:30
Speaker
It's the first sieve, so it's part of a whole different revolution. But going on with technology, they developed the cylinder seals in which you had these impression seals that you'd roll onto clay tablets. And then inside, the seals would have tokens. And that's how they kept track of things. So if they shipped something to you, you'd get a cylinder seal. You'd have to break it. And inside would be these tokens for how many sheep should be on the shipment.
00:45:59
Speaker
If there was a discrepancy, they'd be all pissed off. 3800 BC was the beginning of Ur. So what period are we in there? Still within that Uruk period. So Ur is within the Uruk period. Uruk is also a settlement within the area, but they're separated. So Uruk is in the southern Fertile Crescent. Now I think it's underwater.
00:46:25
Speaker
because it's like southeastern Iraq, if not. What's that country owned by BP that the first Gulf War was started over? Kuwait. Yeah, that one. It might be in Kuwait. And then that's Iraq. And I'm trying to find war on this map. War is like on the border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, I think. That's Iraq.
00:46:49
Speaker
Mm hmm. I mean, these are I mean, like the names of these civilizations, you have Shuripak, Zablaba, Uma, Bad Tabira and Uruk. So I mean, like these are very, oh, you know, just something out of interest. The oldest word that hasn't changed over time in all languages is mama and papa. I think it's fun fact to move there. Exactly. One hundred percent. I listen to that on NPR. I think goat is one that hasn't changed too much. Goat has.
00:47:19
Speaker
But words related to filial relations like mama, papa, mom, and dad have been pretty, because those are the first people you know, and therefore the first words associated in mom and papa come because
00:47:34
Speaker
You know, like some civilizations, it's Abba or Appa.
Cultural Continuity and Power Legitimization in Mesopotamia
00:47:38
Speaker
Same deal, just flip the consonants. Vowels. If you're pushing air out and then if you're bringing in his... That makes sense for a baby. Anyways. There was some National Academy of the Sciences paper that came out a while back saying that they had traced a whole bunch of
00:47:54
Speaker
cognates down to like what the oldest words like that we know of like that share all languages Most languages and it was like weird stuff. I think mama was on there, but then like ash And bark and worm were on there for sure. Yeah, and there was another one That was like very odd. But like yeah, they share similarities like Indo-European and Chinese and stuff I
00:48:18
Speaker
Anyway, irrelevant. So Ur is a little bit further northeast than Urrurk. And yeah, Gilgamesh is firmly associated with, he's the king of Urrurk. And also that story I shared earlier was him.
00:48:33
Speaker
But as is with most of these ancient shivs, not shivs, sivs, they ultimately are abandoned at some point for some sort of reason. I don't think we're gonna use the word collapse, so we're gonna try to avoid that. Collapse is so loaded, we'll get to that at some point. Yeah.
00:48:56
Speaker
With Uruk, as Connor's alluding to, becomes the Akkadian Empire, and there's this transition of who's in power and where the capital is. But they maintain state-level societies. So the Mesopotamian or the Uruk
00:49:10
Speaker
civilization might, quote unquote, collapse or end and something takes its place. But like the people themselves fundamentally don't change and the culture doesn't change. It's more of like a fluidity thing, too, here, right? Because it's like nothing has to like collapse, especially when they're all concentrated. It's just people shift to other cultures gradually over time. Yeah, basically, there's no cut in the line from Uruk to ISIS. It's all continuous. Like how different are like British and American? Connor's eyes went so wide.
00:49:39
Speaker
I mean, you're not going to completely abandon the Friddle Crescent. Like, oh, sorry, this one city didn't work, so we're just going to leave and abandon it. We'll come back in 200 years. This place is stupid. All these goods. Yeah. The statehood societies or state level societies do not disappear from Mesopotamia after period. They just change hats. We're still fighting over it.
00:50:04
Speaker
You're right. I mean, the only person ever outside influence ever, like, quote unquote, conquer the Middle East was Alexander the Great. That's because he burned every village that opposed him. Go get his comment made his way through there pretty well. Same deal. Burned every village that opposed him. That's true. That's the only way to placate that area. Just kill everyone that doesn't agree with your rule. Can't do that in a democratic society, though. But we at a legendary podcast are not advocating such things.
00:50:34
Speaker
We're not about that. No. But yes. So that's that's some of the oldest. That is like the oldest Uruk and Ur are like the oldest and they have like there's human sacrifice associated with one of them. I think they excavated one of the temples. You find the king and queen in there and like 30 band players. Wow. With instruments in there that look like something out of Dr. Seuss. They just look crazy. It's the cantina band. And like that just goes to show
00:51:02
Speaker
how powerful those elites are. Not only are they dead, but they told like 50 people.
00:51:07
Speaker
like, Oh, no, no, no, you're going into the afterlife with these people. You're going to get in this room and you're going to enjoy it. And they went willingly. Like they're not bound. Their bodies are not like skeletons are in a place that would suggest that they were forced to do it. Like they willingly died. Like that's how deep this power ideology is in state societies where people are so bought in that if you were God forbid, you're the best tubal player. And like, once you get to the Greeks, if you're a beautiful woman, your life sucks.
00:51:35
Speaker
I feel like that's just a common theme. I mean it could be it could be great. It could suck like all around but like It's gonna That literally had no point Nothing, I just think it's hilarious like all I think of is like the cantina band, you know, they're like Anakin's like sorry You guys are sand people, you know, you're gonna be a part of my crew
00:52:00
Speaker
I think we were talking in between the break about China and the Chinese Alexander the Great, as I've seen him called, like just their big, their big dude. He is a guy with the terracotta army. And also, fun fact, he ended up eating a lot of mercury because he wanted to live forever. And they're like, yeah, try this. And he went crazy and was going blind. And then he would go shoot a crossbow into the ocean to shoot sea monsters. And like he was like, come with me and applaud. And they were like,
00:52:29
Speaker
You did it. He was going crazy. But then he died. And then they sacrificed a whole bunch of people to be with him in the afterlife, like an army to protect him. And like, they, I don't know if they workers, they killed all the workers that worked on it to keep it secret.
00:52:45
Speaker
OK, and I know there's like a bunch of sacrificed women in there, too. I believe I believe they don't think of another Chinese thing. Can you imagine that your your despot is blind, going crazy for Mercury, shooting crossbows into the ocean and you just applaud him? Like that speaks to how bought in people are bought into the whole system. Yeah, we should write a new song that's called Despot Ceto. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
00:53:16
Speaker
That was so good. That was so good. Oh, we got to end it there. We got to end it there. We can't go on. That's bad. I knew Despacito right now. Oh, it's a lot of Spanish. Oh, you can speak Spanish as you blew my mind. We went to that restaurant that one night. Wait, where?
00:53:40
Speaker
When we were with, oh, the three of us left somewhere together. Oh yeah. After we got our, uh, Connor's car stuck and then we went to that Spanish restaurant. What did I say to her? Uh, you basically said, let me pay for, in Spanish you said, let me pay for the bill. Don't say this in English because the fat guy across from me will argue.
00:53:59
Speaker
Yeah, I don't remember. I was like, no, they're going to protest, but like, I'm going to favor this. And she was like, OK, I forgot about that. But I was trying to learn the song Despacito real quick to sing it. And then I realized I don't know any of that song at all. So for our listeners tonight, the bones of this came from archaeology and humanity's story. A brief introduction to the prehistory by Deborah Olszewski, Ancient Civilizations by Chris Scar and Brian M. Fagan, fourth edition. And shout out to Dr. Jason to at the University of Wyoming.
00:54:28
Speaker
And then of course, archaeology, seventh edition by Robert L. Kelly and David Hearst Thomas, an instructors edition because I was this DA. So those were the three primary sources I use to provide the bones, but I have a few more. There's also order legitimacy and wealth that is by.
00:54:47
Speaker
Oh crap, I can't remember the guy's name. We had to read this on ours. I know there's also ancient states and there's another one called, crap, I can't recall. I have to see the picture of the book. They're on my shelf. Order Legitimacy and Wealth. That is by Janet Richards and Mary Van Buren. I know there's ancient states. Let me see. Okay, Myths of the Archaic State. That's what it is. And that is by Norman Yaffe. That's a good one. That's a good one. Yum. That is. There's another, but that's fine.
00:55:16
Speaker
they will be in the show description. So we have a list of those and we'll continue this series. And now that we've got like the basics out of the way, we can go into like different regions in the cities and what makes them different than the early sieves. Cause there's some really interesting things that go on. Shoot us an email guys are on Instagram. Let us know which one you want us to do first. Don't help us plan. I want to get into China because China we don't talk about and I want to get into Asian and Oceana.
00:55:44
Speaker
Um, yeah, and please rate the podcast. Can't do it on Spotify, but rate and provide us feedback on whichever platform you are listening to, to the, to our show. So with that, we are...
00:56:04
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. So I was looking up online. I think this is supposed to be one of the oldest jokes written down. I'd dive into your momma joke.
00:56:28
Speaker
It kind of is. Something which has never occurred since time immemorial. A young woman did not fart in her husband's lap. Okay, you know what? That's probably happened. And see, here's the thing, though. If that's the oldest joke, it's probably from Mesopotamia, right? Those guys were eating chickpeas and flax and wheat and just gluten it up. And it was the first time in the world where they were like,
00:56:54
Speaker
And yeah, right. Intensively meaty oat and bread. And tell me they're not. That probably smelled pretty bad, guys. Not gonna lie. And I'm out. We're out.
00:57:16
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV Traveling America, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.