Environment and frameworks

Something we have not focused much on in the first weeks of this course is the environment in which the state arose. By this I mean, both the physical nature of the localities in which early complex societies in Mesopotamia were developing, and the nature of the settlements and social organizations that predate the state and potentially developed into states (if we accept an evolutionary approach, in Yoffee’s sense of the term). In trying to ground myself in the course material, I have been looking back to a class I took two years ago on the Archaeology of Old World Cities, taught by Mark Kenoyer, whom we see being cited often in comparisons to the Harappan Civilization of the Indus Valley. While his specialty is the Indus Valley, he has, I think, very usefully applied his experience in one region to look at others from different theoretical perspectives. The course was designed to be a comparative analysis of the emergence and nature of cities in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China. Like we are struggling with in this class, this necessitated the use of a certain set of terms in order to effectively talk about different phenomena in different places. The course also focused on the diverse nature of development in the various regions and thus stressed that the goal should not be to fit everything into an overarching framework or definition of “the state,” but rather to describe them individually, and make comparisons based on similar characteristics.

In order to talk about these things comparatively, Kenoyer broke the development and decline of early states into four stages: the early food producing era: the beginnings of the long-term processes that provide the stable foundation of a state level society; regionalization era: the beginning of the short term changes that define the nature of integration and the dominant communities who maintain social order; integration era: the period of state level control and stratification, where there are major changes in social organization, and diverse populations being brought together in cities or large settlements; and localization era: breakdown of initial phase of integration and a period of restructuring of social relations. I think this framework is useful in that, while it makes distinctions and has a generally evolutionary track, it does so without setting up a strict progression from one specific type of society to another (i.e. tribe to chiefdom to state). It focuses on the types of things going on rather than the types of societies. Kenoyer also stresses that the origins of the state are by no means uniform in all of the regions we discussed in class and that there is no single causal factor for the emergence of the state.

We also discussed four major preconditions for the development of state level society and urbanism: 1) diversity of the subsistence base and resource variability which have the potential for production of surplus; 2) the development of social and economic interaction networks between major ecosystems and resource areas; 3) technological capability to fill specific needs of urban and state-level society; 4) differentiation in status on the basis of access to essential resources and the ability to control distribution of essential resources. It is important here to note that these are not presented as characteristics of “the state” which we’ve found to be so problematic. These preconditions are valid, at least in that they can be applied to the old world states of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China.

Getting back to the environments in which early states arose, the focus would be on the first two of the stages above. Specifically the regionalization era, in which preconditions for the emergence of state-level society were met. At any rate, while this is nothing original, I think it might be helpful see the environments and conditions from which the Mesopotamian state emerged. The importance of geographical and climatic setting for the emergence of states and urbanism becomes readily apparent when considering the preconditions for state level society. Considering the first, any environmental information, be it climatic or topographic, is of concern when dealing with the emergence of an early state. Matthews discusses four main environmental zones which exist in the region of Mesopotamia: foothills and upper plains, highlands, alluvial plains, and desert. The most important topographical features are, of course, the rivers themselves, the Tigris and Euphrates. The northern and southern alluviums between the two were the sites of the emergence of the earliest urban centers of power in Mesopotamia. Matthews points out that by around 6000 BC irrigation technology allowed for the exploitation of the rivers and for agriculture to occur on an unprecedented scale, allowing for the production of significant surplus there. In the mountains and highlands, mineral deposits allowed for trade to compensate for the less arable land. Pollock is careful to point out that the environmental conditions are highly debatable, but the concentration of settlement in the Southern Alluvial Lowlands in the Ubaid period (5500-4200BC) and the beginning of the Uruk Period (4200-3100BC) suggests that this was the most conducive environment for the emergence of early states.

Here and in other early states, we can see the significant role environment played in determining the development of civilizations and the state. It would be interesting to look more into the characteristics of the pre-state settlements and societies in Mesopotamia to explore how the other major preconditions of state-level societies were fulfilled, but I think that would be the topic of another paper.

I would also like to hear anyone’s feedback about the concepts I’ve gotten from Professor Kenoyer’s class above. I think, as you can tell, that they are very useful in their potential for broad application and non-specificity. I’d be interested to know if others think the same or if it is just another problematic system of classification.

Citations:

Kenoyer, J.M. “The Archaeology of Old World Cities.” Taught in Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall Semester 2005.

Matthews, R. 2005. The Rise of Civilization in Southwest Asia. In The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies, edited by C. Scarre, pp. 432-471. London, Thames & Hudson Ltd.

Pollock, S. 1999. Ancient Mesopotamia: The Eden that Never Was. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Chap. 3. Settlement Patterns.