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Originally posted by mike rozier:
what area in mesopotainia had the first "organised cites"..and what is the definition for the first civilization?

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Originally posted by rasol:
This thread is a good example of the way in which ideological aggression results in passive minded repetition.

How many who have even broached and answer to this question even stopped to ask themselves what "mesopotamia" is, exactly?

We know Kemet is a country - we therefore know when it was founded. Therefore we can date it.

There is no country called Mesopotamia and no such country was ever founded. Lacking the requirement to denote the specific, you can play with 'dates' at will.

Mesopotamia is a reiffied abstraction given the status of being some sort of 'origin' of civilisation primarily because it is easier for Europeans to claim it, than it is for them to claim Nile Valley or Indus river valley civlisation.


mesopotamos, from mesos "middle" + potamos "river" mid river.

hippopotamus, from hippo "horse" + potamus "river = river horse.

Which came first Mesopotamia, or Hippopotamia?


The 1st Nation-State -> is Kemet.

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Originally posted by mike rozier:
Most authorities credit the Sumerians with the invention of the wheel, initially in the form of the potter's wheel. The new concept quickly led to wheeled vehicles and mill wheels. The Sumerians' cuneiform writing system is the oldest we have evidence of (with the possible exception of the highly controversial Old European Script), pre-dating Egyptian hieroglyphics by at least seventy-five years. The Sumerians were among the first formal astronomers, correctly formulating a heliocentric view of the solar system, to which they assigned 5 planets (all that can be seen with the naked eye).

They developed mathematics using both senary (base-6) and decimal (base-10) number systems. Using the base-6 system they invented the clock with its 60 seconds, 60 minutes, and 12 hours, and the 12 month calendar which is still in use. They may have invented military formations and introduced the basic divisions between infantry, cavalry and archers. They developed the first known codified legal and administrative systems, complete with courts and jails. The first true city states arose in Sumer, roughly contemporaneously with similar entities in what is now Syria and Israel. Several centuries after their invention of cuneiform, the practice of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists and was applied for the first time to history, legend, mathematics, astronomical records and other pursuits generally corresponding to the fields occupying teachers and students ever since. Accordingly, the first formal schools were established, usually under the auspices of a city-state's primary temple.

Finally, the Sumerians ushered in the age of intensive agriculture. Emmer wheat, barley, sheep (starting as mouflon) and cattle (starting as aurochs) were foremost among the species cultivated and raised for the first time on a grand scale. These inventions and innovations easily place the Sumerians among the most creative cultures in human pre-history and history.

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Lol this is bullshit, no one has credited the sumerians with all those achievments

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Originally posted by mike rozier:

Most authorities credit the Sumerians with the invention of the wheel, initially in the form of the potter's wheel. The new concept quickly led to wheeled vehicles and mill wheels. The Sumerians' cuneiform writing system is the oldest we have evidence of (with the possible exception of the highly controversial Old European Script), pre-dating Egyptian hieroglyphics by at least seventy-five years. The Sumerians were among the first formal astronomers, correctly formulating a heliocentric view of the solar system, to which they assigned 5 planets (all that can be seen with the naked eye).

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They developed mathematics using both senary (base-6) and decimal (base-10) number systems. Using the base-6 system they invented the clock with its 60 seconds, 60 minutes, and 12 hours, and the 12 month calendar which is still in use. They may have invented military formations and introduced the basic divisions between infantry, cavalry and archers. They developed the first known codified legal and administrative systems, complete with courts and jails. The first true city states arose in Sumer, roughly contemporaneously with similar entities in what is now Syria and Israel. Several centuries after their invention of cuneiform, the practice of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists and was applied for the first time to history, legend, mathematics, astronomical records and other pursuits generally corresponding to the fields occupying teachers and students ever since. Accordingly, the first formal schools were established, usually under the auspices of a city-state's primary temple.

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Finally, the Sumerians ushered in the age of intensive agriculture. Emmer wheat, barley, sheep (starting as mouflon) and cattle (starting as aurochs) were foremost among the species cultivated and raised for the first time on a grand scale. These inventions and innovations easily place the Sumerians among the most creative cultures in human pre-history and history.

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Predynastic Egypt is conventionally said to begin about 6000 BCE. From around 4800 to 4300 BCE, the Merimde culture (Merimde Beni-Salame) flourished in Lower Egypt. This culture, among others, has links to the Levant. The pottery of the Buto Maadi culture, best known from the site at Maadi near Cairo, also shows connections with the southern Levant. In Upper Egypt, the predynastic Badari culture was followed by the Naqada culture (Amratian).

Around 3000 BCE, the wet phase of the Sahara came to an end. The Saharan populations retreated to the south towards the Sahel, and east in the direction of the Nile Valley. It was these populations, in addition to Neolithic farmers from the Near East, that likely played a role in the formation of the Egyptian state as they brought their food crops, sheep, goats and cattle to the Nile Valley.

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Located in the extreme north-east corner of Africa, ancient Egyptian society was at a crossroads between the African and Near Eastern regions. Early proponents of the dynastic race theory based this on the increased novelty and seemingly rapid change in Predynastic pottery and noted trade contacts between ancient Egypt and the Middle East. This is no longer the dominant view in Egyptology; however, the evidence on which it was based still suggests influence from these regions. Fekri Hassan and Edwin et al. point to mutual influence from both inner Africa as well as the Levant. This evidence suggests that ancient Egypt was populated by Afro-Asiatic-speaking peoples from North Africa and the Near East.


Maria Gatto has suggested that the makers of the predynastic Egyptian Naqada culture centered in Upper Egypt shared an almost identical culture with the A-Group peoples in Lower Nubia.This is based in part on the similarities with the royal tombs at Qustul. Joseph Vogel, Cheikh Diop, Volney, and other scholars have even proposed an Egyptian origin in Nubia among the A-Group. In 1996, Lovell and Prowse reported the presence of individual rulers buried at Naqada in what they interpreted to be elite, high status tombs, showing them to be more closely related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia than those in Southern Egypt.However, most scholars have rejected this hypothesis and cite the presence of royal tombs that are contemporaneous with those in Qustul and just as elaborate, together with problems with the dating techniques.

Toby Wilkinson, in his book Genesis of the Pharaohs, proposes an origin for the Egyptians somewhere in the Eastern Desert. In addition, there is evidence that sheep and goats were introduced into the Nabta Playa from Western Asia about 8,000 years ago. There is some speculation that this culture is likely to have been the predecessor of the Egyptians, based on cultural similarities and social complexity which is thought to be reflective of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

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Sumerian civilization coalesces in the subsequent Uruk period (4000 to 3100 BC).Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and, during its later phase, the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script. Proto-writing in the region dates to around 3500 BC, with the earliest texts dating to 3300 BC; early cuneiform writing emerged in 3000 BC. It was also during this period that pottery painting declined as copper started to become popular, along with cylinder seals.Sumerian cities during the Uruk period were probably theocratic and were most likely headed by a priest-king (ensi), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women. It is quite possible that the later Sumerian pantheon was modeled upon this political structure. Uruk trade networks started to expand to other parts of Mesopotamia and as far as North Caucasus, and strong signs of governmental organization and social stratification began to emerge leading to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900 BC). The Jemdet Nasr period, which is generally dated from 3100 to 2900 BC and succeeds the Uruk period, is known as one of the formative stages in the development of the cuneiform script. The oldest clay tablets come from Uruk and date to the late fourth millennium BC, slightly earlier than the Jemdet Nasr Period. By the time of the Jemdet Nasr Period, the script had already undergone a number of significant changes. It originally consisted of pictographs, but by the time of the Jemdet Nasr Period it was already adopting simpler and more abstract designs. It is also during this period that the script acquired its iconic wedge-shaped appearance.At the end of the Jemdet Nasr period there was a major archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak and other parts of Mesopotamia. Polychrome pottery from a destruction level below the flood deposit has been dated to immediately before the Early Dynastic Period around 2900 BC.

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Egyptian civilization begins during the second phase of the Naqda culture, known as the Gerzeh period, around 3500 BC and coalesces with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3150 BC. Farming produced the vast majority of food; with increased food supplies, the populace adopted a much more sedentary lifestyle, and the larger settlements grew to cities of about 5,000 residents. It was in this time that the city dwellers started using mud brick to build their cities, and the use of the arch and recessed walls for decorative effect became popular.Copper instead of stone was increasingly used to make tools and weaponry. Symbols on Gerzean pottery also resemble nascent Egyptian hieroglyphs. Early evidence also exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan and the Byblos coast, during this time.Concurrent with these cultural advances, a process of unification of the societies and towns of the upper Nile River, or Upper Egypt, occurred. At the same time the societies of the Nile Delta, or Lower Egypt, also underwent a unification process. During his reign in Upper Egypt, King Narmer defeated his enemies on the Delta and merged both the Kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt under his single rule.

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The Indus Valley Civilisation starts around 3300 BC with what is referred to as the Early Harappan Phase (3300 to 2600 BC). The earliest examples of the Indus Script date to this period, as well as the emergence of citadels representing centralised authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. By this time, villagers had domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates, and cotton, as well as animals, including the water buffalo.

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The Norte Chico civilization proper is understood to have emerged around 3200 BC, as it is at that point that large-scale human settlement and communal construction across multiple sites becomes clearly apparent. Since the early 21st century, it has been established as the oldest known civilization in the Americas. The civilization flourished at the confluence of three rivers, the Fortaleza, the Pativilca, and the Supe. These river valleys each have large clusters of sites. Further south, there are several associated sites along the Huaura River. Notable settlements include the cities of Caral, the largest and most complex Preceramic site, and Aspero. Norte Chico sites are known for their density of large sites with immense architecture. Haas argues that the density of sites in such a small area is globally unique for a nascent civilization. During the third millennium BC, Norte Chico may have been the most densely populated area of the world (excepting, possibly, northern China). The Supe, Pativilca, Fortaleza, and Huaura River valleys each have several related sites.

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The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, flourishing from c. 3000 BC to c. 1450 BC and, after a late period of decline, finally ending around 1100 BC, during the early Greek Dark Ages. It represents the first advanced civilization in Europe, leaving behind massive building complexes, tools, artwork, writing systems, and a massive network of trade. The civilization was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. The name "Minoan" derives from the mythical King Minos and was coined by Evans, who identified the site at Knossos with the labyrinth and the Minotaur. The Minoan civilization has been described as the earliest of its kind in Europe, and historian Will Durant called the Minoans "the first link in the European chain".

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Chinese civilization begins during the second phase of the Erlitou period (1900 to 1500 BC), with Erlitou considered the first state level society of East Asia. There is considerable debate whether Erlitou sites correlate to the semi-legendary Xia dynasty. The Xia dynasty (2070 to 1600 BC) is the first dynasty to be described in ancient Chinese historical records such as the Bamboo Annals, first published more than a millennium later during the Western Zhou period. Although Xia is an important element in Chinese historiography, there is to date no contemporary written evidence to corroborate the dynasty. Erlitou saw an increase in bronze metallurgy and urbanization and was a rapidly growing regional center with palatial complexes that provide evidence for social stratification.The Erlitou civilization is divided into four phases, each of roughly 50 years. During Phase I, covering 100 hectares (250 acres), Erlitou was a rapidly growing regional center with estimated population of several thousand but not yet an urban civilization or capital. Urbanization began in Phase II, expanding to 300 ha (740 acres) with a population around 11,000. A palace area of 12 ha (30 acres) was demarcated by four roads. It contained the 150x50 m Palace 3, composed of three courtyards along a 150-meter axis, and Palace 5. A bronze foundry was established to the south of the palatial complex that was controlled by the elite who lived in palaces. The city reached its peak in Phase III, and may have had a population of around 24,000. The palatial complex was surrounded by a two-meter-thick rammed-earth wall, and Palaces 1, 7, 8, 9 were built. The earthwork volume of rammed earth for the base of largest Palace 1 is 20,000 m³ at least. Palaces 3 and 5 were abandoned and replaced by 4,200-square-kilometer (4.5×1010 sq ft) Palace 2 and Palace 4. In Phase IV, the population decreased to around 20,000, but building continued. Palace 6 was built as an extension of Palace 2, and Palaces 10 and 11 were built. Phase IV overlaps with the Lower phase of the Erligang culture (1600–1450  BC). Around 1600 to 1560 BC, about 6 km northeast of Erlitou, Eligang cultural walled city was built at Yanshi,which coincides with an increase in production of arrowheads at Erlitou.This situation might indicate that the Yanshi City was competing for power and dominance with Erlitou.Production of bronzes and other elite goods ceased at the end of Phase IV, at the same time as the Erligang city of Zhengzhou was established 85 km (53 mi) to the east. There is no evidence of destruction by fire or war, but, during the Upper Erligang phase (1450–1300  BC), all the palaces were abandoned, and Erlitou was reduced to a village of 30 ha (74 acres).

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A cradle of civilization is a location where civilization is understood to have independently emerged. According to current thinking, there was no single "cradle" of civilization; instead, several cradles of civilization developed independently. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India and Ancient China are believed to be the earliest in the Old World.The extent to which there was significant influence between the early civilizations of the Near East and India with the Chinese civilization of East Asia (Far East) is disputed. Scholars accept that the civilizations of Mesoamerica, that mainly existed in modern-day Mexico, and the civilization in Norte Chico, a region in the north-central coastal region of Peru which rivals in age the civilizations of the Old World, emerged independently.
Scholars have defined civilization by using various criteria such as the use of writing, cities, a class-based society, agriculture, animal husbandry, public buildings, metallurgy, and monumental architecture.The term cradle of civilization has frequently been applied to a variety of cultures and areas, in particular the Ancient Near Eastern Chalcolithic (Ubaid period) and Fertile Crescent, Ancient India and Ancient China. It has also been applied to ancient Anatolia, the Levant and Iranian plateau, and used to refer to culture predecessors—such as Ancient Greece as the predecessor of Western civilization.

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The earliest signs of a process leading to sedentary culture can be seen in the Levant to as early as 12,000 BC, when the Natufian culture became sedentary; it evolved into an agricultural society by 10,000 BC. The importance of water to safeguard an abundant and stable food supply, due to favourable conditions for hunting, fishing and gathering resources including cereals, provided an initial wide spectrum economy that triggered the creation of permanent villages.
The earliest proto-urban settlements with several thousand inhabitants emerged in the Neolithic. The first cities to house several tens of thousands were Memphis and Uruk, by the 31st century BC (see Historical urban community sizes).
Historic times are marked apart from prehistoric times when "records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations"—in written or oral form. If the rise of civilization is taken to coincide with the development of writing out of proto-writing, the Near Eastern Chalcolithic, the transitional period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age during the 4th millennium BC, and the development of proto-writing in Harappa in the Indus Valley of South Asia around 3300 BC are the earliest incidences, followed by Chinese proto-writing evolving into the oracle bone script, and again by the emergence of Mesoamerican writing systems from about 900 BC.
In the absence of written documents, most aspects of the rise of early civilizations are contained in archaeological assessments that document the development of formal institutions and the material culture. A "civilized" way of life is ultimately linked to conditions coming almost exclusively from intensive agriculture. Gordon Childe defined the development of civilization as the result of two successive revolutions: the Neolithic Revolution, triggering the development of settled communities, and the Urban Revolution, which enhanced tendencies towards dense settlements, specialized occupational groups, social classes, exploitation of surpluses, monumental public buildings and writing. Few of those conditions, however, are unchallenged by the records: dense cities were not attested in Egypt's Old Kingdom and cities had a dispersed population in the Maya area; the Incas lacked writing although they could keep records with Quipus which might also have had literary uses; and often monumental architecture preceded any indication of village settlement. For instance, in present-day Louisiana, researchers have determined that cultures that were primarily nomadic organized over generations to build earthwork mounds at seasonal settlements as early as 3400 BC. Rather than a succession of events and preconditions, the rise of civilization could equally be hypothesized as an accelerated process that started with incipient agriculture and culminated in the Oriental Bronze Age.

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A traditional theory of the spread of civilization is that it began in the Fertile Crescent and spread out from there by influence. Scholars more generally now believe that civilizations arose independently at several locations in both hemispheres. They have observed that sociocultural developments occurred along different timeframes. "Sedentary" and "nomadic" communities continued to interact considerably; they were not strictly divided among widely different cultural groups. The concept of a cradle of civilization has a focus where the inhabitants came to build cities, to create writing systems, to experiment in techniques for making pottery and using metals, to domesticate animals, and to develop complex social structures involving class systems.
Current scholarship generally identifies six sites where civilization emerged independently:
Fertile Crescent
Tigris–Euphrates river system
Nile Valley
Indo-Gangetic Plain
North China Plain
Andean Coast
Mesoamerican Gulf Coast

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Timeline
The following timeline shows a timeline of cultures, with the approximate dates of the emergence of civilization (as discussed in the article) in the featured areas, the primary cultures associated with these early civilizations. It is important to note that the timeline is not indicative of the beginning of human habitation, the start of a specific ethnic group, or the development of Neolithic cultures in the area – any of which often occurred significantly earlier than the emergence of civilization proper. In the case of the Indus Valley Civilizatiin, this was followed by a period od of de-urbanization and regionalisation, and the co-existence of indigenous local agricultural cultures and the pastoral Indo-Aryans, who came from Central Asia.



Proto-city

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A proto-city, or a proto-town, is a large village or town of the Neolithic such as Jericho and Çatalhöyük, and also any prehistoric settlement which has both rural and urban features. A proto-city is distinguished from a true city in that it lacks planning and centralized rule. For example, Jericho evidently had a class system, but no roads, while Çatalhöyük apparently lacked social stratification. This is what distinguishes them from the first city-states of the early Mesopotamian cities in the 4th millennium B.C.
Prehistoric Egypt and the Ubaid period of Sumer featured what some call proto-cities. The break from these later mentioned settlements and urban settlements is the emergence of Eridu, the first Sumerian city, in the Uruk period around 4000 BC. A European example of this would be the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of eastern Europe and north of the Black Sea, and which dates back to the fourth millennium BC.

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Kerma was the capital city of the Kerma culture, which was located in present-day Sudan at least 5500 years ago. Kerma is one of the largest archaeological sites in ancient Nubia. It has produced decades of extensive excavations and research, including thousands of graves and tombs and the residential quarters of the main city surrounding the Western/Lower Deffufa.


Around 3000 BC, a cultural tradition began around Kerma. It was a large urban center that was built around a large adobe temple known as the Western Deffufa.

As a capital city and location of royal burials, it sheds light on the complex social structure present in this society.

Settlement periods
Pre-Kerma (c. 3500–2500 BC) No C-Group culture Phase
Early Kerma (c. 2500–2050 BC) C-Group Phase Ia–Ib
Middle Kerma (c. 2050–1750 BC) C-Group Phase Ib–IIa
Classic Kerma (c. 1750–1580 BC) C-Group Phase IIb–III
Final Kerma (c. 1580–1500 BC) C-Group Phase IIb–III
Late Kerma – 'New Kingdom' (c.1500–1100? BC) 'New Kingdom'

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Upper Nubia
The poorly known "pre-Kerma" culture existed in Upper (Southern) Nubia on a stretch of fertile farmland just south of the Third Cataract.

Lower Nubia
Nubia has one of the oldest civilizations in the world. This history is often intertwined with Egypt to the north. Around 3500 BC, the second "Nubian" culture, termed the Early A-Group, arose in Lower (Northern) Nubia. They were sedentary agriculturalists, traded with the Egyptians, and exported gold. This trade is supported archaeologically by large amounts of Egyptian commodities deposited in the A-Group graves. The imports consisted of gold objects, copper tools, faience amulets and beads, seals, slate palettes, stone vessels, and a variety of pots. During this time, the Nubians began creating distinctive black topped, red pottery.

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Upper Nubia

The poorly known "pre-Kerma" culture existed in Upper (Southern) Nubia on a stretch of fertile farmland just south of the Third Cataract.

Lower Nubia
Nubia has one of the oldest civilizations in the world. This history is often intertwined with Egypt to the north. Around 3500 BC, the second "Nubian" culture, termed the Early A-Group, arose in Lower (Northern) Nubia. They were sedentary agriculturalists,traded with the Egyptians, and exported gold. This trade is supported archaeologically by large amounts of Egyptian commodities deposited in the A-Group graves. The imports consisted of gold objects, copper tools, faience amulets and beads, seals, slate palettes, stone vessels, and a variety of pots. During this time, the Nubians began creating distinctive black topped, red pottery.

Around 3100 BC the A-group transitioned from the Early to Classical phases. "Arguably royal burials are known only at Qustul and possibly Sayala. During this period, the wealth of A-group kings rivaled Egyptian kings. Royal A-group graves contained gold and richly decorated pottery. Some scholars believe Nubian A-Group rulers and early Egyptian pharaohs used related royal symbols; similarities in A-Group Nubia and Upper Egypt rock art support this position. Scholars from the University of Chicago Oriental Institute excavated at Qustul (near Abu Simbel – Modern Sudan), in 1960–64, and found artifacts which incorporated images associated with Egyptian pharaohs. Archeologist Bruce Williams studied the artifacts and concluded that "Egypt and Nubia A-Group culture shared the same official culture", "participated in the most complex dynastic developments", and "Nubia and Egypt were both part of the great East African substratum". Williams also wrote that Qustul "could well have been the seat of Egypt's founding dynasty". David O'Connor wrote that the Qustul incense burner provides evidence that the A-group Nubian culture in Qustul marked the "pivotal change" from predynastic to dynastic "Egyptian monumental art". However, "most scholars do not agree with this hypothesis", as more recent finds in Egypt indicate that this iconography originated in Egypt instead of Nubia, and that the Qustul rulers adopted or emulated the symbols of Egyptian pharaohs.

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The earliest known hieroglyphs date back to the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called "Scorpion I" (Naqada IIIA period, c. 32nd century BC) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 or the Narmer Palette, dating to c. 3100 BC, and several recent discoveries that may be slightly older, though these glyphs were based on a much older artistic rather than written tradition. The hieroglyphic script was logographic with phonetic adjuncts that included an effective alphabet. The world's oldest deciphered sentence was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa'ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000.

Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple, pharaonic, and military authorities, resulting in only 1 percent of the population that could write. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn, but in later centuries was purposely made even more so, as this preserved the scribes' status.

The world's oldest known alphabet appears to have been developed by Canaanite turquoise miners in the Sinai desert around the mid-19th century BC. Around 30 crude inscriptions have been found at a mountainous Egyptian mining site known as Serabit el-Khadem. This site was also home to a temple of Hathor, the "Mistress of turquoise". A later, two line inscription has also been found at Wadi el-Hol in Central Egypt. Based on hieroglyphic prototypes, but also including entirely new symbols, each sign apparently stood for a consonant rather than a word: the basis of an alphabetic system. It was not until the 12th to 9th centuries, however, that the alphabet took hold and became widely used.

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While neolithic writing is a current research topic, conventional history assumes that the writing process first evolved from economic necessity in the ancient Near East. Writing most likely began as a consequence of political expansion in ancient cultures, which needed reliable means for transmitting information, maintaining financial accounts, keeping historical records, and similar activities. Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form.

The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age of the late 4th millennium BC. The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400 to 3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of cultural diffusion.

Archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat determined the link between previously uncategorized clay "tokens", the oldest of which have been found in the Zagros region of Iran, and the first known writing, Mesopotamian cuneiform. In approximately 8000 BC, the Mesopotamians began using clay tokens to count their agricultural and manufactured goods. Later they began placing these tokens inside large, hollow clay containers (bulla, or globular envelopes) which were then sealed. The quantity of tokens in each container came to be expressed by impressing, on the container's surface, one picture for each instance of the token inside. They next dispensed with the tokens, relying solely on symbols for the tokens, drawn on clay surfaces. To avoid making a picture for each instance of the same object (for example: 100 pictures of a hat to represent 100 hats), they 'counted' the objects by using various small marks. In this way the Sumerians added "a system for enumerating objects to their incipient system of symbols".

The original Mesopotamian writing system was derived around 3200 BC from this method of keeping accounts. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, the Mesopotamians were using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay to record numbers. This system was gradually augmented with using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted by means of pictographs. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but by the 29th century BC also for phonetic elements. Around 2700 BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of spoken Sumerian. About that time, Mesopotamian cuneiform became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. This script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, the East Semitic Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) around 2600 BC, and then to others such as Elamite, Hattian, Hurrian and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian. With the adoption of Aramaic as the 'lingua franca' of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC), Old Aramaic was also adapted to Mesopotamian cuneiform. The last cuneiform scripts in Akkadian discovered thus far date from the 1st century AD.

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The Caral Civilization (also Norte Chico civilization or Caral-Supe civilization)was a complex pre-Columbian-era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Norte Chico region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BC, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area. It is from 3100 BC onward that large-scale human settlement and communal construction become clearly apparent, which lasted until a period of decline around 1800 BC. Since the early 21st century, it has been established as the oldest-known civilization in the Americas.

This civilization flourished along three rivers, the Fortaleza, the Pativilca, and the Supe. These river valleys each have large clusters of sites. Further south, there are several associated sites along the Huaura River.The alternative name, Caral-Supe, is derived from the city of Caral in the Supe Valley, a large and well-studied Norte Chico site. Complex society in Norte Chico arose a millennium after Sumer in Mesopotamia, was contemporaneous with the Egyptian pyramids, and predated the Mesoamerican Olmec by nearly two millennia.

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Huaricanga is the earliest city of the Norte Chico civilization, called Caral or Caral-Supe in Peru and Spanish language sources. "It existed around 3500 BC and was the oldest city in the Americas and one of the earliest cities in the world." This Late Archaic site is located in the arid Fortaleza Valley on Peru’s north central coast. It is 14 mi (23 km) inland from the Pacific Ocean. The site covers a total area of 100 hectares, and is the largest Late Archaic construction in the Norte Chico region.

The three earthwork mounds on the large site are believed to be remains of pyramidal-shaped structures. Two standing stones, known as huancas, also survive. Excavation in 2007 revealed a structure believed to be a temple, of a design similar to, but predating, the Mito architectural tradition seen in the Peruvian highlands.

In addition, later research in the Fortaleza and Pativilca valleys has found evidence of maize cultivation, as well as fourteen other domesticated species of fruits and vegetables. This suggests that agriculture may have been more important to the development of Caral-Supe civilization than previously thought, as it was for other independent civilizations of the world, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India.

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Caral Civilization

Map of Norte Chico sites showing their locations in Peru

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The Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, together with the southeastern region of Turkey and the western fringes of Iran. Some authors also include Cyprus.

The region is one of the cradles of civilization because it is one location where settled farming first emerged as people started the process of clearance and modification of natural vegetation in order to grow newly domesticated plants as crops. Early human civilizations such as Sumer in Mesopotamia flourished as a result. Technological advances in the region include the development of agriculture and the use of irrigation, of writing, the wheel, and glass, most emerging first in Mesopotamia.

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In current usage, the Fertile Crescent includes Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, as well as the surrounding portions of Turkey and Iran. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, riverwater sources include the Jordan River. The inner boundary is delimited by the dry climate of the Syrian Desert to the south. Around the outer boundary are the Anatolian and Armenian highlands to the north, the Sahara Desert to the west, Sudan to the south, and the Iranian Plateau to the east.

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As crucial as rivers and marshlands were to the rise of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, they were not the only factor. The area is geographically important as the "bridge" between North Africa and Eurasia, which has allowed it to retain a greater amount of biodiversity than either Europe or North Africa, where climate changes during the Ice Age led to repeated extinction events when ecosystems became squeezed against the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Saharan pump theory posits that this Middle Eastern land bridge was extremely important to the modern distribution of Old World flora and fauna, including the spread of humanity.

The area has borne the brunt of the tectonic divergence between the African and Arabian plates and the converging Arabian and Eurasian plates, which has made the region a very diverse zone of high snow-covered mountains.

The Fertile Crescent had many diverse climates, and major climatic changes encouraged the evolution of many "r" type annual plants, which produce more edible seeds than "K" type perennial plants. The region's dramatic variety in elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cultivation. Most importantly, the Fertile Crescent was home to the eight Neolithic founder crops important in early agriculture (i.e., wild progenitors to emmer wheat, einkorn, barley, flax, chick pea, pea, lentil, bitter vetch), and four of the five most important species of domesticated animals—cows, goats, sheep, and pigs; the fifth species, the horse, lived nearby. The Fertile Crescent flora comprises a high percentage of plants that can self-pollinate, but may also be cross-pollinated. These plants, called "selfers", were one of the geographical advantages of the area because they did not depend on other plants for reproduction.

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Egypt–Mesopotamia relations were the relations between the civilisations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, in the Middle East. They seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia (circa 4000-3100 BCE) and the half a millennium younger Gerzean culture of Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500–3200 BCE). Influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in imported products, and also in the possible transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt and generated "deep-seated" parallels in the early stages of both cultures.

Designs and objects

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Distinctly foreign objects and art forms entered Egypt during this period, indicating contacts with several parts of Western Asia. The designs that were emulated by Egyptian artists are numerous: the Uruk "priest-king" with his tunic and brimmed hat in the posture of the Master of animals, the serpopards , winged griffins, snakes around rosettes, boats with high prows, all characteristic of Mesopotamian art of the Late Uruk (Uruk IV, c. 3350–3200 BCE) period. The same "Priest-King" is visible in several Mesopotamian works of art of the end of the Uruk period, such as the Blau Monuments, cylinder seals and statues. Objects such as the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, which has patently Mesopotamian relief carvings on it, have been found in Egypt, and the silver which appears in this period can only have been obtained from Asia Minor.

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It is generally thought that cylinder seals were introduced from Mesopotamia to Egypt during the Naqada II period. Cylinder seals, some coming from Mesopotamia and also Elam in Ancient Iran, and some made locally in Egypt following Mesopotamian designs in a stylized manner, have been discovered in the tombs of Upper Egypt dating to Naqada II and III, particularly in Hierakonpolis. Mesopotamian cylinder seals have been found in the Gerzean context of Naqada II, in Naqada and Hiw, attesting to the expansion of the Mesopotamian Jemdet Nasr culture as far as Egypt at the end of the 4th millennium BCE.

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Egyptian architecture also was influenced, as it adopted various elements of earlier Mesopotamian Temple and civic architecture.

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The route of this trade is difficult to determine, but direct Egyptian contact with Canaan does not predate the early dynastic era, so it is usually assumed to have been by sea trade. During the time when the Dynastic Race Theory was still popular, it was theorized that Mesopotamian sailors circumnavigated Arabia, but a Mediterranean route, probably by middlemen through the Canaanite port of Byblos, is more likely, as evidenced by the presence of Canaanite Byblian objects in Egypt. Glyptic art also seems to have played a key role, through the circulation of decorated cylinder seals across the Levant, a common hinterland of both empires, particularly Mesopotamia.

The intensity of the exchanges suggest however that the contacts between Egypt and Mesopotamia were often direct, rather than merely through middlemen or through trade. Uruk had known colonial outposts of as far as Habuba Kabira, in modern Syria, insuring their presence in the Levant. Numerous Uruk cylinder seals have also been uncovered there. There have been suggestions that Uruk may have had an outpost and a form of Colonial presence in northern Egypt. The site of Buto in particular was suggested, but it has been rejected as a possible candidate.

The fact that so many Gerzean sites are at the mouths of wadis which lead to the Red Sea may indicate some amount of trade via the Red Sea (though Byblian trade potentially could have crossed the Sinai and then be taken to the Red Sea). Also, it is considered unlikely that something as complicated as recessed panel architecture could have worked its way into Egypt by proxy, and at least a small contingent of Mesopotamian migrants is often suspected.

These early contacts probably acted as a sort of catalyst for the development of Egyptian culture, particularly in respect to the inception of writing, and the codification of royal and vernacular imagery.

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While there is clear evidence the Naqada II culture borrowed abundantly from Mesopotamia, the most commonly held view today is that many of the achievements of the later First Dynasty were the result of a long period of indigenous cultural and political development. Such developments are much older than the Naqada II period, the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period, and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time.

Although there are many examples of Mesopotamian influence in Egypt in the 4th millennium BCE, the reverse is not true, and there are no traces of Egyptian influence in Mesopotamia at any time.Only very few Egyptian Naqada period object have been found beyond Egypt, and generally in its vicinity, such as a rare Naqada III Egyptian Cosmetic palette in the shape of a fish, of the end of 4th millennium BCE, found in Ashkelon or Gaza.

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It is generally thought that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably [were], invented under the influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia".The two writing systems are in fact quite similar in their initial stages, relying heavily on pictographic forms and then evolving a parallel system for the expression of phonetic sounds.

Standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter.

There is however a lack of direct evidence, and "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt". Instead, it is pointed out and held that "the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy” and that “a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt..." Since the 1990s, the discovery of glyphs on clay tags at Abydos, dated to between 3400 and 3200 BCE, may challenge the classical notion according to which the Mesopotamian symbol system predates the Egyptian one, although perhaps tellingly, Egyptian writing does make a sudden apparition at that time, while on the contrary Mesopotamia already had a long evolutionary history of sign usage in tokens dating back to circa 8000 BCE. Also, the Abydos clay tags are virtually identical to both earlier and contemporary clay tags from Uruk, Mesopotamia.

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Standard reconstruction of the development of writing, with position of cuneiform.There is a possibility that the Egyptian script was invented independently from the Mesopotamian script.


Egyptian influence on Mesopotamian art

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After this early period of exchange, and the direct introduction of Mesopotamia components in Egyptian culture, Egypt soon started to assert its own style from the Early Dynastic Period (3150–2686 BCE), the Narmer palette being seen as a turning point.

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On the African continent, three areas have been identified as independently developing agriculture: the Ethiopian highlands, the Sahel and West Africa. By contrast, Agriculture in the Nile River Valley is thought to have developed from the original Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent. Many grinding stones are found with the early Egyptian Sebilian and Mechian cultures and evidence has been found of a neolithic domesticated crop-based economy dating around 7,000 BP. Unlike the Middle East, this evidence appears as a "false dawn" to agriculture, as the sites were later abandoned, and permanent farming then was delayed until 6,500 BP with the Tasian culture and Badarian culture and the arrival of crops and animals from the Near East.

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Map of the world showing approximate centers of origin of agriculture and its spread in prehistory: the Fertile Crescent (11,000 BP), the Yangtze and Yellow River basins (9,000 BP) and the Papua New Guinea Highlands (9,000–6,000 BP), Central Mexico (5,000–4,000 BP), Northern South America (5,000–4,000 BP), sub-Saharan Africa (5,000–4,000 BP, exact location unknown), eastern North America (4,000–3,000 BP).

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Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history, including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops, and the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy, and agriculture". It has been known as one of the earliest civilizations to ever exist in the world.

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Irrigated agriculture spread southwards from the Zagros foothills with the Samara and Hadji Muhammed culture, from about 5,000 BC.

In the early period down to Ur III temples owned up to one third of the available land, declining over time as royal and other private holdings increased in frequency. The word Ensi was used[by whom?] to describe the official who organized the work of all facets of temple agriculture. Villeins are known to have worked most frequently within agriculture, especially in the grounds of temples or palaces.

The geography of southern Mesopotamia is such that agriculture is possible only with irrigation and with good drainage, a fact which had a profound effect on the evolution of early Mesopotamian civilization. The need for irrigation led the Sumerians, and later the Akkadians, to build their cities along the Tigris and Euphrates and the branches of these rivers. Major cities, such as Ur and Uruk, took root on tributaries of the Euphrates, while others, notably Lagash, were built on branches of the Tigris. The rivers provided the further benefits of fish (used both for food and fertilizer), reeds, and clay (for building materials). With irrigation, the food supply in Mesopotamia was comparable to that of the Canadian prairies.

The Tigris and Euphrates River valleys form the northeastern portion of the Fertile Crescent, which also included the Jordan River valley and that of the Nile. Although land nearer to the rivers was fertile and good for crops, portions of land farther from the water were dry and largely uninhabitable. Thus the development of irrigation became very important for settlers of Mesopotamia. Other Mesopotamian innovations include the control of water by dams and the use of aqueducts. Early settlers of fertile land in Mesopotamia used wooden plows to soften the soil before planting crops such as barley, onions, grapes, turnips, and apples. Mesopotamian settlers were some of the first people to make beer and wine. As a result of the skill involved in farming in the Mesopotamian region, farmers did not generally depend on slaves to complete farm work for them, but there were some exceptions. There were too many risks involved to make slavery practical (i.e. the escape/mutiny of the slaves). Although the rivers sustained life, they also destroyed it by frequent floods that ravaged entire cities. The unpredictable Mesopotamian weather was often hard on farmers; crops were often ruined so backup sources of food such as cows and lambs were also kept[by whom?]. Over time the southernmost parts of Sumerian Mesopotamia suffered from increased salinity of the soils, leading to a slow urban decline and a centring of power in Akkad, further north.

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On the cusp of prehistory and history, the Uruk period can be considered 'revolutionary' and foundational in many ways. Many of the innovations which it produced were turning points in the history of Mesopotamia and indeed of the world.It is in this period that one sees the general appearance of the potter's wheel, writing, the city, and the state. There is new progress in the development of state-societies, such that specialists see fit to label them as 'complex' (in comparison with earlier societies which are said to be 'simple').

Scholarship is therefore interested in this period as a crucial step in the evolution of society—a long and cumulative process whose roots could be seen at the beginning of the Neolithic more than 6000 years earlier and which had picked up steam in the preceding Ubayd period in Mesopotamia. This is especially the case in English-language scholarship, in which the theoretical approaches have been largely inspired by anthropology since the 1970s, and which has studied the Uruk period from the angle of 'complexity' in analysing the appearance of early states, an expanding social hierarchy, intensification of long-distance trade, etc.

In order to discern the key developments which make this period a crucial step in the history of the ancient Near East, research focusses mainly on the centre, Lower Mesopotamia, and on sites in neighbouring regions which are clearly integrated into the civilization which originated there (especially the 'colonies' of the middle Euphrates). The aspects traced here are mostly those of the Late Uruk period, which is the best known and undoubtedly the period in which the most rapid change took place—it is the moment when the characteristic traits of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization were established.

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Egypt

Possible Mesopotamia-Egypt trade routes from the 4th millennium BCE.

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Egypt-Mesopotamia relations seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia and in the pre-literate Gerzean culture for Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500-3200 BCE). Influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in imported products, and also in the possible transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and generated "deep-seated" parallels in the early stages of both cultures.

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Uruk period


Geographical range Mesopotamia

Dates
ca. 4000–3100 BC

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The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period.Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. The late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age; it has also been described as the "Protoliterate period".

It was during this period that pottery painting declined as copper started to become popular, along with cylinder seals.

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The Uruk period saw some settlements achieve a new importance and population density, as well as the development of monumental civic architecture. They reached a level where they can properly be called cities. This was accompanied by a number of social changes resulting in what can fairly be called an 'urban' society as distinct from the 'rural' society which provided food for the growing portion of the population that did not feed itself, although the relationship between the two groups and the views of the people of the time about this distinction remain difficult to discern. This phenomenon was characterised by Gordon Childe at the beginning of the 1950s as an 'urban revolution', linked to the 'Neolithic revolution' and inseparable from the appearance of the first states. This model, which is based on material evidence, has been heavily debated ever since. The causes of the appearance of cities have been discussed a great deal. Some scholars explain the development of the first cities by their role as ceremonial religious centres, others by their role as hubs for long-distance trade, but the most widespread theory is that developed largely by Robert McCormick Adams which considers the appearance of cities to be a result of the appearance of the state and its institutions, which attracted wealth and people to central settlements, and encouraged residents to become increasingly specialised. This theory thus leads the problem of the origin of cities back to the problem of origin of the state and of inequality.

In the Late Uruk period, the urban site of Uruk far exceeded all others. Its surface area, the scale of its monuments and the importance of the administrative tools unearthed there indicate that it was a key centre of power. It is often therefore referred to as the 'first city', but it was the outcome of a process that began many centuries earlier and is largely attested outside Lower Mesopotamia (aside from the monumental aspect of Eridu). The emergence of important proto-urban centres began at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC in southwest Iran (Chogha Mish, Susa), and especially in the Jazirah (Tell Brak, Hamoukar, Tell al-Hawa, Grai Resh). Excavations in the latter region tend to contradict the idea that urbanisation began in Mesopotamia and then spread to neighbouring regions; the appearance of an urban centre at Tell Brak appears to have resulted from a local process with the progressive aggregation of village communities that had previously lived separately, and without the influence of any strong central power (unlike what seems to have been the case at Uruk). Early urbanisation should therefore be thought of as a phenomenon which took place simultaneously in several regions of the Near East in the 4th millennium BC, though further research and excavation is still required in order to make this process clearer to us.


Examples of urbanism in this period are still rare, and in Lower Mesopotamia, the only residential area which has been excavated is at Abu Salabikh, a settlement of limited size. It is necessary to turn to Syria and the neighbouring sites of Habuba Kabira and Jebel Aruda for an example of urbanism that is relatively well-known. Habuba Kabira consisted of 22 hectares, surrounded by a wall and organised around some important buildings, major streets and narrow alleys, and a group of residences of similar shape organised around a courtyard. It was clearly a planned city created ex nihilo and not an agglomeration that developed passively from village to city. The planners of this period were thus capable of creating a complete urban plan and thus had an idea of what a city was, including its internal organisation and principal monuments. Urbanisation is not found everywhere in the sphere of influence of the Uruk culture; at its extreme northern edge, the site of Arslantepe had a palace of notable size but it was not surrounded by any kind of urban area.

The study of houses at the sites of Habuba Kabira and Jebel Aruda has revealed the social evolution which accompanied the appearance of urban society. The former site, which is the better known, has houses of different sizes, which cover an average area of 400 m2, while the largest have a footprint of more than 1000 m2. The 'temples' of the monumental group of Tell Qanas may have been residences for the leaders of the city. These are thus very hierarchical habitats, indicating the social differentiation that existed in the urban centres of the Late Uruk period (much more than in the preceding period). Another trait of the nascent urban society is revealed by the organisation of domestic space. The houses seem to fold in on themselves, with a new floor plan developed from the tripartite plan current in the Ubayd period, but augmented by a reception area and by a central space (perhaps open to the sky), around which the other rooms were arranged. These houses thus had a private space separated from a public space where guests could be received. In an urban society with a community so much larger than village societies, the relations with people outside the household became more distant, leading to this separation of the house. Thus the old rural house was adapted to the realities of urban society. This model of a house with a central space remained very widespread in the cities of Mesopotamia in the following periods, although it must be kept in mind that the floor plans of residences were very diverse and depended on the development of urbanism in different sites.

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Sumer was humanity's first great civilization. Even in today’s society you can still find traces of Sumerian inventions in agriculture, language, mathematics, religion and astronomy.

The ancient Sumerians created one of humanity’s first great civilizations. Their homeland in Mesopotamia, called Sumer, emerged roughly 6,000 years ago along the floodplains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq and Syria.

The Sumerians learned to farm on a grand scale in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a thin, crescent-shaped sliver of Mesopotamia often tied to the dawn of farming, writing, mathematics and astronomy.

And while the arid, ancient landscapes of the Middle East may not seem like the most likely location for an agricultural breakthrough, Sumer actually had a massive advantage. By settling between two large rivers, the Sumerians benefited from rich floodplain soil and ample water to irrigate crops. Their success was accelerated by Sumerian technological innovations like canals and plows. With time, Sumer got so good at growing food that they started to have enough resources left over to focus on building the cities and temples.

Emergence of Sumerian Cities
Roughly 10,000 years ago, villages started popping up across Mesopotamia. The people who lived in the region raised animals and grew grains, even as they continued to hunt and gather. Over time, those villages expanded and their people became increasingly dependent on farming.

Archaeologists still aren’t sure exactly what life was like for these early cultures. However, similarities in pottery styles and stamp seals placed on a variety of containers suggests some level of administrative control emerged between 6,000 and 7,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, people started constructing a series of temples using mud bricks at a site called Eridu. The city seems to have been founded around 5400 B.C. and it was occupied for thousands of years until it was finally abandoned for good around 600 B.C.

Eridu’s status was legendary even in ancient times. Babylonians actually believed that Eridu was the oldest city on Earth, having been created by the gods themselves. That kind of reverence attracted modern researchers, too. Even before archaeologists discovered Eridu, they had read about its existence in ancient texts.

"After kinship had descended from heaven, Eridu became (the seat) of kingship," one Sumerian tablet reads.

The area around Eridu was excavated a handful of times between the mid-19th century and the mid-20th century, turning up the remains of a once-sprawling metropolis that saw successive buildings constructed on the remains of temples and other structures that had come before.

Those digs did confirm Eridu as a real and truly ancient metropolis. At around 7,400 years old, Eridu is among humanity’s oldest cities, but nowhere near the oldest. The current favorite contender for Earth’s first city is Çatalhöyük, which sat just north of the commonly accepted edge of the Fertile Crescent in modern-day Turkey. Çatalhöyük was founded 9,600 years ago and also survived for millennia, disappearing just centuries before Eridu was founded.

However, Eridu was just the beginning of Sumer. The civilization quickly grew to include dozens of cities, like Ur, Kish and Uruk. As Sumerian cities exploded in size, Sumer emerged as one of the world’s first great agricultural societies. In time, Eridu would fade in influence and Uruk would take on an outsized role. At its height some 4,800 years ago, Uruk was the largest city in the world. Some estimates suggest the city held as many as 80,000 people at a time when the total human population was somewhere around 15 million.

Sumerian Technological Innovations
Innovation was one of the key factors in the Sumerians’ efforts to turn the desert into an oasis. And one of their most beneficial innovations was also among the simplest: the plow.

The first plow appeared about 3500 B.C. And by 1500 B.C., the Sumerians had also invented a seeder plow, which let farmers use beasts of burden to till and plant at the same time. The devices even came with instructions, courtesy of the Sumerian Farmer’s Almanac, which told farmers how to boost their crop yields thanks to tilling and irrigation.

All the efficiencies helped support a growing population, as well as a growing system of rulers and religion. And as their cities grew, so did their efforts in writing, math and religion. As far back as 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians had developed cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing. Sumerian inscriptions on clay and stone tracked the trade and movement of grain and other goods, recorded Sumerian history, and even included cooking recipes and pornography. Thousands of Sumerian tablets still sit awaiting translation in museums around the world. The Sumerians also invented or utilized a wide-array of other more modern seeming innovations like wheeled chariots, the 60-minute hour, and even possibly the first written work of literature — The Epic of Gilgamesh.

One clay tablet discovered at Eridu, as well as others found elsewhere in Sumer, also tells a flood story about a deluge that mirrors the one found in the Bible’s Old Testament. Biblical historians call it “The Eridu Genesis” story. According to the tablets, it was the gods who first told humans to take up living in cities in Sumer. But eventually, the gods decided to wipe out the human race with a deluge. According to the myth, one particular god, Enki, tipped off a Sumerian king named Ziusudra that he should build a boat to save his people.

The idea that the flood story would’ve been passed down from the Sumerians makes sense for other reasons, too. In modern times, Sumer has captivated everyone from archaeologists to ancient alien conspiracy theorists. But the fascination with Sumerian society goes back much further in human history. Both the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, which rose to control parts of the Middle East as Sumer faded away, continued using the Sumerian language in their religious rituals for millennia. Excavations of Babylonian homes have uncovered tablets inscribed with the Sumerian language from long after the civilization itself was gone.

And the Babylonians, who created the first star maps, seem to have inherited some of their knowledge of astronomy from the Sumerians as well. The Babylonian people had two sets of constellations — one for tracking farming dates and another to recognize the gods. The latter was passed onto us today thanks to the Greeks and formed the foundations for the 12 zodiac constellations. And the star names that they used seem to date back to the Sumerian people, implying this ancient civilization had a seriously sophisticated knowledge of much more than the Earth below their feet.

So, while the Sumerians may have disappeared thousands of years ago, their influence and intrigue has continued on into the present, shaping aspects of modern society we all take for granted today.

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Egyptologist Prof. Dr. Ludwig D. Morenz from the University of Bonn, said: This ruler called Scorpion was a prominent figure in the phase of the emergence of the first territorial state in world history.

Morenz continued to explain that Scorpion lived around 3070BC, but the team has yet to determine the dates and length of his reign.

He told DailyMail.com in an email: Around 3100 there started something completely new in the Nile Valley: the first territorial state (one political power reigning of a territory of more than 800km north-south).

The Scorpion I am talking about played an important role in this process (as the first territorial state in world history I think it is of high importance even for our understanding of global history).

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A proto-city, or a proto-town, is a large village or town of the Neolithic such as Jericho and Çatalhöyük, and also any prehistoric settlement which has both rural and urban features. A proto-city is distinguished from a true city in that it lacks planning and centralized rule. For example, Jericho evidently had a class system, but no roads, while Çatalhöyük apparently lacked social stratification. This is what distinguishes them from the first city-states of the early Mesopotamian cities in the 4th millennium B.C.

Prehistoric Egypt and the Ubaid period of Sumer featured what some call proto-cities. The break from these later mentioned settlements and urban settlements is the emergence of Eridu, the first Sumerian city, in the Uruk period around 4000 BC. A European example of this would be the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of eastern Europe and north of the Black Sea, and which dates back to the fourth millennium BC.

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Originally posted by Firewall:
Of course culture in africa will be older then any place else.
Humans came from africa but just because culture/s started there first that does not mean civilization started in africa.

Anyway the first true city was in sumer and the first civilization started in sumer.

Proto-city

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A proto-city, or a proto-town, is a large village or town of the Neolithic such as Jericho and Çatalhöyük, and also any prehistoric settlement which has both rural and urban features. A proto-city is distinguished from a true city in that it lacks planning and centralized rule. For example, Jericho evidently had a class system, but no roads, while Çatalhöyük apparently lacked social stratification. This is what distinguishes them from the first city-states of the early Mesopotamian cities in the 4th millennium B.C.

Prehistoric Egypt and the Ubaid period of Sumer featured what some call proto-cities. The break from these later mentioned settlements and urban settlements is the emergence of Eridu, the first Sumerian city, in the Uruk period around 4000 BC. A European example of this would be the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of eastern Europe and north of the Black Sea, and which dates back to the fourth millennium BC.

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The first city was in sumer.
Anyway look on the bright side.
Civilization in egypt and the nubian region outlasted sumerian civilization and became more advanced overtime then sumerian civilization.

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Originally posted by Firewall:
The first city was in sumer.
Anyway look on the bright side.
Civilization in egypt and the nubian region outlasted sumerian civilization and became more advanced overtime then sumerian civilization.

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Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by mike rozier:
mesopotania? india? or egypt?and how do you prove it?

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Posts: 7080 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Firewall:
Of course culture in africa will be older then any place else.
Humans came from africa but just because culture/s started there first that does not mean civilization started in africa.

Anyway the first true city was in sumer and the first civilization started in sumer.

Proto-city

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A proto-city, or a proto-town, is a large village or town of the Neolithic such as Jericho and Çatalhöyük, and also any prehistoric settlement which has both rural and urban features. A proto-city is distinguished from a true city in that it lacks planning and centralized rule. For example, Jericho evidently had a class system, but no roads, while Çatalhöyük apparently lacked social stratification. This is what distinguishes them from the first city-states of the early Mesopotamian cities in the 4th millennium B.C.

Prehistoric Egypt and the Ubaid period of Sumer featured what some call proto-cities. The break from these later mentioned settlements and urban settlements is the emergence of Eridu, the first Sumerian city, in the Uruk period around 4000 BC. A European example of this would be the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of eastern Europe and north of the Black Sea, and which dates back to the fourth millennium BC.

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The first city was in sumer.
Anyway look on the bright side.
Civilization in egypt and the nubian region outlasted sumerian civilization and became more advanced overtime then sumerian civilization.

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Egypt's Answer to Urbanization

Urbanization spread from Mesopotamia to Egypt and, from there, to Greece and it seems, early on, that the lesson of the city of Ur, and others, was heeded by later urban centers. In Egypt, especially, great care was taken with the land to prevent the less desirable consequences of urbanization from toppling the great cities of Pharaoh so that focus could remain steady on cultural aspects such as the development of writing, architecture, laws, administration, sanitation, trade, and craftsmanship (all thought to have originated in Mesopotamia at Uruk). Professor George Modelski, of the University of Washington, writes:

Some students of the ancient era have been known to argue that, unlike Mesopotamia, Egypt lacked anything that could be regarded as cities in modern terms. That great country did have temples, palaces, and cemeteries, often of monumental proportions, as early as the fourth and third millennia, but its capitals seem to have lacked remarkable size and have left little evidence either of intellectual life or of commercial activity. As John A. Wilson put it: `For nearly three thousand years, until the founding of Alexandria, Ancient Egypt was a civilization without a single major city'.

This claim, however, is countered by Professor M.E. Smith of Arizona State University who claims that:

Because archaeologists have failed to find large cities in Egypt prior to Akhenaten's capital at Amarna in the New Kingdom period (1350 BCE) Egypt has sometimes been contrasted to Mesopotamia as a `civilization without cities'. This label masks a distinctive form of urbanism, however…Egypt did not lack cities; rather its urban systems were structured differently from the more familiar form of Mesopotamian cities (The Sage Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, 26).

Egypt, it seems, understood both the benefits and the costs of urbanization and opted for “dispersed urbanization characterized by smaller, more specialized urban settlements” (26). This same paradigm holds true for the urban centers of the Maya, at least in their planning, but the seemingly universal progression of urbanization led to the depletion of natural resources and, as Smith notes,

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A decline in the Nile flood discharge and an increase in demands for trade goods by expanding urban dwellers, beginning from around 3500 to 3300 BC, led to the integration of neighboring communities into larger political units, with territorial chiefdoms and petty kingdoms. This also led to some sporadic warfare and therefore, fortified walled cities. Each of these became associated with a territorial standard representing the tribal or ethnic groups. In Mesopotamia, this evolution led to the emergence of city states, but perhaps because of the linear arrangement and limitations of the Nile Valley, this did not happen in Egypt. Instead, the course of the Nile Valley urbanization followed a political transformation that we believe, around 3200 BC, led to the emergence of some sub-national unity.

Abydos, north of Naqada and Hierakonpolis, existed as a locus of proto-national power that even controlled parts of the Delta some two centuries before the emergence of the 1st Dynasty. The royal necropolis of Abydos continued as a significant religious establishment well after the emergence of Memphis.

By 3000 BC, the unification of all the administrative districts under a single theocratic dynasty was accomplished, we are told, by Menes. Memphis was a result of this unification. The fist kings of Egypt's 1st Dynasty, by consolidating their power at Memphis, diminished the possibility of the rise of rival urban centers. These early kings display considerable brilliance in their consolidation of power at Memphis, developing a royal ideology that bonded all the districts to the person of the ruler, rather than to any given territory. Furthermore, some of the most powerful local deities were included in a cosmogony at Memphis that removed them from their local political districts. Unfortunately, we know very little about ancient Memphis itself. Though it remained an important population center throughout pharaonic history, Memphis remains mostly a mystery, though recent investigations using new technologies are beginning to provide some enlightenment. For example we now know that the city, over its vast history of some three millenniums, shifted eastward in response to the invasion of sand dunes and a shift in the course of the Nile.

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Archaeological discoveries reveal that these prehistoric peoples led livelihoods seemingly at a higher level of organization than their contemporaries who lived closer to the Nile Valley.[2] The people of Nabta Playa had above-ground and below-ground stone construction, villages designed in pre-planned arrangements, and deep wells that held water throughout the year.

Findings also indicate that the region was occupied only seasonally, most likely only in the summer period, when the local lake filled with water for grazing cattle.[2] Comparative research indicated that the indigenous inhabitants may have a significantly more advanced knowledge of astronomy and mathematics than previously thought possible.

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The relative chronology of the era preceding state formation in Egypt is traditionally divided into the Badarian and Naqada (or Predynastic) periods, based on the archaeology of cemeteries in Upper Egypt (UE, the Nile Valley south of Cairo to Aswan). The Naqada period is further subdivided by means of the relative dating of pottery into IA–IC, IIA–IID and IIIA–IIID [7,8]. This system can only be fully applied to Lower Egypt (LE, the Nile Delta and Cairo region) after UE funerary practices are attested in that region, beginning in the latter part of Naqada II. The Egyptian state is normally defined to start with the First Dynasty, which was established during the Naqada IIIC cultural period. For this study, we take the foundation date to refer to the accession of king Aha of the First Dynasty, although his predecessor, Narmer, most probably held political control over the whole state [9]. Historical foundation dates vary widely and recent estimates range from 3400 to 2900 BCE [10–13].

An absolute chronology for the Predynastic would allow for new insights into this influential period in human history. Egypt was the first manifestation of the territorial state, in many respects the forerunner of all modern countries. The rate and direction of the changes that led to this political centralization can only be traced by absolute chronology. Furthermore, the formation of Egypt was accompanied by profound economic and cultural developments, epitomized by the spread of intensive agriculture and the invention of writing [14]. The latter is thought to have occurred independently in both Egypt and Mesopotamia, but more dating information is still required to establish exactly when and how this innovation took place. One of the most effective approaches to absolute chronology currently available uses Bayesian statistical modelling [15,16]. The wealth of relative dating evidence available for Early Egypt makes it highly suitable for this sort of analysis. Here, we use such evidence to refine radiocarbon dates within Bayesian statistical models.

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