Greatest Innovations of Early Civilizations

In today’s modern age it is hard to think of what civilization was like between 8000 BCE to 1450 BCE. With the lap of luxuries, we have today, it is difficult to understand what brought us to this era sometimes. One must understand what life was like back in that time period and know what they did not have that we have today. There are so many important innovations that took place in between 8000 BCE to 1450 BCE that it is hard to strip away the innovations and come up with just three that were most likely the root causes for creating civilizations as we know it. There is only one important innovation during this time, the Neolithic Revolution, but by breaking down this major innovation into lesser innovations, which leads us to just three of the most important innovations that occurred from 8000 BCE to 1450 BCE. These lesser innovations were the creation agriculture, the aristocracy, and religion.

The first great change that brought about human civilization as we know of it today was the creation of agriculture, or the Agriculture Revolution. The Agriculture Revolution was a time when humans moved from a hunter gather life-style to a more food production lifestyle. This new lifestyle led to a rise in agricultural production, domestication of plants and animals, a great boom in population growth, a sense of community and spirituality and the creation of cities.

Most of the innovations in agriculture came to be during this time frame as well, and later in history would only be improved upon. Plant and Animal domestication, which is the process of farmers selecting plants or animals for their desirable traits and breeding successive generations of a plant or animal, started during the Agriculture Revolution. Over time, a domestic species becomes different from its wild relative. Neolithic farmers selected for crops that harvested easily. Wild wheat, for instance, falls to the ground and shatters when it is ripe. Early humans bred for wheat that stayed on the stem for easier harvesting. At the same time that farmers were sowing wheat in the Fertile Crescent, people in Asia were growing rice and millet (Neolithic Revolution 2018). This single innovation was the bases of all agriculture for the rest of human civilization. There would be many other innovations such as the blow and irrigation but non that were as great as the domestication of plants and animals. Most innovations would build of this single innovation and only make agriculture easier to perform or more successful in production.

As people settled down in one area and collaborated on agriculture and began planting crops cities, societies, and religions where formed. The best-preserved Neolithic settlement is the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük in southern Turkey. Çatalhöyük has given archeologists a better understanding of the transition from a life of hunting and gathering to an agriculture lifestyle. The settlement is around 9,500 years-old and archaeologists have found dozens of mud brick buildings that are so closely packed that the residents had to enter through the roof. Researchers believe that the city held some 8,000 residents at its peak. The residents of the city valued art and spirituality. They went as far as burring there dead under their homes and painting pictures of goddesses on their walls (Neolithic Revolution 2018). As can be seen in Çatalhöyük as they settled down and started to produce food, the city obviously grew. As this growth continued a social community was formed and a form of spirituality, I hesitate to call it religion as that implies it was organized, was taken on.

The Neolithic Revolution was important because it came at time when the human population started growing rapidly. Therefore, to enable enough food supply, people switched to large scale production of food. It resulted in rapid growth of human population. This led to specializations in the process of production hence leading to changes in lifestyles and rise the of urban centers. With the rise of urban centers though you need someone to lead them, which led to the creation of an aristocracy.

            The next major innovation of 8000 BCE to 1450 BCE was the creation of the aristocracy. As agriculture was rapidly expanding, the need for political control also emerged. This led to a form of governance where power is retained within the noble families and passed through heredity or to other elite classes.

Before the Neolithic Revolution most societies were based around family groups, which didn’t allow for outsiders often. Sometime before the Revolution it is believed that society changed though and the creation of third-party organizations was created, which allowed for outsiders to be more welcome and have a fair say in the already established social groups (Strom 2018). This of course allowed societies to start settling down for agriculture and led to the creation of cities. These third-party organizations would form the basis of the aristocracy and Neolithic cities turned into city-states, territories, and later kingdoms. The aristocracy would control every aspect of the culture from laws to religion. Some of these leaders would be considered gods or demi-gods of their religions and take control of the society completely.

Egypt before 3000 BCE was in its Predynastic Period and was a fractured society. During the period known as the Protodynastic Period (generally dated 3100 - 3000 BCE) which refers to the period of time at the very end of the Predynastic Period, Egypt took its first steps toward political unification. Egypt’s formation began during this era with the rise of small city-states along the Nile River (Egypt: Pre-Dynastic and Early Dynastic Period n.d.). These small city-states would war against each other in Upper Egypt for territory and would later form the Egyptian Kingdom of later Dynasties.

The development of the Aristocracy was important because it laid the foundation to other future forms of governance such as the Greek Republic. These aristocracies laid the foundation for the development of politics and resulted in the many forms of governance across the globe. These aristocracies also created many different cultures that would form the ideologies of humans for millennium. Some of these aristocrats, the Pharos and Hammurabi would claim to be gods or demi-gods that would lead to the creation of religions.

Religion would play a big part in the early development of societies. It is believed that early man before the Neolithic Revolution had some form of spiritual belief, but this belief was not concert or solidified until the Revolution. In the Neolithic Revolution, the focus of religion was on fertility, or productivity and reproductivity. “The fertility of the land needed to grow crops, the domestic animals that fed the people and the reproductive abilities of women, so that children could care for the fields and for their parents in old age, were all major concerns during this time (Felgueroso 2018).” Neolithic People believed in the Mother Goddess, who died in the winter and was reborn in spring, who represented earth fertility, and also represented the life cycle of plants. She was typically depicted as a woman giving birth, which would later translate into “Venus statues.” Though fertility wasn’t the only thing on Neolithic minds, death was another major concern.

            With the development of religion came the development of death rituals. In Çatalhöyük the residents would bury their loved ones under their homes to keep their relatives close by (Neolithic Revolution 2018). Death rituals would become more elaborate though as the Neolithic era marched on. These rituals would later hit their peak with societies as the Egyptians who mummified their aristocrats and built huge monuments place them in.

            Religion would not stay contained to just worshipping the Mother Goddess though. In Mesopotamia you had a good for just about every idea or aspect of life. In Mesopotamia each city had had its own god, and great temple or ziggurat was constructed in the center of the city to worship him/her. The Sumerians had gods for the heavens (Anu), air, wind and storms (Enlil), wisdom, intellect and magic (Enki), justice and law (Utu), love, and war (Inanna). While the Babylonians had similar gods as the Sumerians, but with different name, the also added gods for the underworld (Nergal), and sea (Tiamat). Polytheism may have been the standard, but monotheism was also created at this time. The main religion of the Persians was known as Zoroastrianism, there was only one god named Ahura Mazda who created the world. He was a good god and constantly fought against evil (Ancient Mesopotamia n.d.). Monotheism was not the norm though as there was only one other religion, Judaism, that believed one god was in control of every aspect of life. Not much is known about the early people that worshipped Judaism, know as Jews. The Jewish people didn’t have one city or region that they necessarily came from, though they do claim modern day Israel as their homeland. No real proof of their early existence in the Neolithic age exists.

            These religious or spiritual beliefs would guide Neolithic peoples to concur lands and spread their societies to other parts of their world influencing the thought process of the people the conquered and creating a new reason to continue the betterment of their societies.

            Though the Neolithic Revolution as whole was the greatest innovation between 8000 BCE to 1450 BCE, we can break it down into the lesser innovations that made it the greatest. The lesser innovations of agriculture, aristocracy and religion are the three most important innovations that attribute to the Neolithic Revolution. We can see how these lesser innovations drove the Neolithic people to achieve the development of societies and create a culture that was every changing and evolving.

References

n.d. Ancient Mesopotamia. Accessed September 27, 2019. https://www.ducksters.com/history/mesopotamia/religion_gods.php.

University, Colorado State, ed. n.d. Egypt: Pre-Dynastic and Early Dynastic Period. Accessed September 27, 2019. https://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/egypt02-02enl.html.

Felgueroso, Aida Vega. 2018. Religion in the Neolithic Age. Accessed September 27, 2019. https://study.com/academy/lesson/religion-in-the-neolithic-age.html.

History.com, ed. 2018. Neolithic Revolution. January 12. Accessed September 26, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/neolithic-revolution.

Strom, Caleb. 2018. From Hunters to Settlers: How the Neolithic Revolution Changed the World. June 30. Accessed September 26, 2019. https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/neolithic-revolution-0010298.