The Emergence of Civilisation: From hunting and gathering to agriculture, cities and the state of the Near East

409 Pages·1993·4.554 MB·English

by  Charles Keith Maisels

THE EMERGENCE OF
CIVILIZATION
From hunting and gathering to
agriculture, cities, and the state in the
Near East
Charles Keith Maisels
LONDON AND NEW YORK
To the remembrance of Hypatia (c. 370–March 415 AD)
and the Museion-Library of Alexandria
First published 1990
First published in paperback by Routledge 1993
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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© 1990, 1993 Charles Keith Maisels
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Maisels, Charles Keith
The emergence of civilization: from hunting and gathering to agriculture,
cities, and the state in the Near East.
1. Sumerian civilization
I. Title 935′.01
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Maisels, Charles Keith.
The emergence of civilization: from hunting and gathering to agriculture,
cities, and the state in the Near East/Charles Keith Maisels.
p. cm.
“Paperback of 1990 hardback”
Includes bibliographical references and index
1. Middle East—Civilization—To 622. I. Title.
DS57.M37 1993 93–7453
939′.4–dc20
ISBN 0-203-45064-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-45661-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-096596 pbk
Contents
List of figures vi
List of maps viii
List of tables ix
Glossary xii
Acknowledgements xiv
Preliminary xv
1 Introduction 1
1 The disciplines of archaeology and anthropology 1
2 Social evolution and anthropology 6
3 Social science and archaeology 12
2 The premisses of social succession 15
1 The relationship of demography and technology to social structure 15
2 Is population pressure an historical constant? 24
3 Is agriculture the outcome of technological discoveries? 29
4 Mutation and succession 37
3 The ecology of the Zagrosian Arc 43
1 Physical geography 43
2 Neothermal conditions 51
3 The advent of Homo sapiens sapiens 53
4 Post-glacial conditions in the Near East 53
5 The cereal revolution 63
6 Cereals as the basis of a self-amplifying system 65
4 The origin and growth of villages 75
iv
1 The Levant 75
2 Tell Mureybet 79
3 The Zagros 90
4 Khuzistan 92
5 The crystallization of the village as a type 111
6 Demography in the Pristine Neolithic 115
5 The heartland of cities 125
1 Periodization and the beginnings of history 125
2 City genesis 128
3 Jemdet Nasr to Dynastic periods 134
4 Subordination and theories of stratification 138
6 The institutions of urbanism 147
1 Ecology and oikos 154
2 Corporate citizenship 161
3 Ensí and lugal as heads of state 162
4 Monarchic initiatives 164
5 Monarchy to proto-empire 168
6 The norms of rulership 172
7 Organization of the economy 175
8 Grain productivity and its stability 182
9 The Old Babylonian period and the end of the ration system 186
7 Theories of the state 191
1 Evolutionary underpinning to theories of the state 192
2 Models of state formation 195
3 Relations of production and the advent of the state in Mesopotamia 210
8 From status to state 212
1 Status as the prerequisite of all social roles and offices 212
2 Intrinsic sources of rank 215
3 Loci of authority in the conditions of reproduction 220
v
4 The ‘Asiatic’ mode of stratification by conical clans 226
5 Divergent Neolithics 244
9 Modelling societies: modes of production 252
The Asiatic mode 256
10 Ideology and political economy of the Mesopotamian state 265
1 Order and law 267
2 The political terrain 274
11 Summary and overview 280
Appendices 300
Notes 316
Bibliography 328
Index 376
List of figures
1 Evolutionary trajectories xvii
1.1 The Hawkes Ladder 5
2.1 The demographic threshold 18
2.2 Malthus’s neutral control system 21
2.3 Technological progression on the Boserup model 30
3.1 A typical river levee in cross-section 48
3.2 Distribution of six major biomes in terms of mean annual temperature 49
and mean annual rainfall
3.3 The Pleistocene succession 52
3.4 Diagram of the history of diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid cultivated 66
wheats
3.5 Flow chart of social evolution from hunter-gathering to city-states in 68
Mesopotamia
3.6 Bone strontium levels in Man and other fauna 72
4.1a Some Tell Mureybet Phase III round-houses and roasting-pits 85
4.1b Tell Mureybet rectilinear houseform 87
4.2 Idealized cross-section of northern Khuzistan 95
4.3 Interdigitation and succession of prehistoric Mesopotamian cultures 110
4.4 Patterns of mobility and land use 114
5.1 Periodization of Mesopotamian history 127
5.2 Distribution of Uruk period site-areas by regions and sub-periods 131
5.3 The prehistoric temple at Eridu 133
5.4 Distribution of Early Dynastic I site areas by region 135
5.5 Reconstruction of the temple oval at Khafaje 139
5.6 Site plan of Uruk, showing the Anu and E-Anna precincts 140
6.1 Family relationships and their ranking according to the Maništušu 150
Obelisk A
l
6.2 The La-mu-sa oikos 152
6.3 Plan of Building A, level II, at Tell Abada 153
6.4 Building plans of three periods at Tell es-Sawwan 155
6.5 Tell Qalinj Agha 157
6.6 Kheit Qasim III 158
6.7 Kheit Qasim III: the main residence and the multi-purpose building 160
6.8 Relative amounts of grain (in kur) expended by Bazi for various 177
purposes
vii
6.9 A production and distribution flow chart 178
6.10 Pictorial signs of the Sumerian, Egyptian, Hittite, and Chinese writing 185
systems
7.1 Sketch of villages in area of diversified resources 197
7.2 Service’s model of the evolution of the state 199
7.3 Models for the operation of control hierarchies 202
7.4 A managerial theory of state origins (Wittfogel 1957) 203
7.5 An external conflict theory of state origins (Carneiro 1970) 206
7.6 An internal conflict theory of state origins (Diakonoff 1969) 209
8.1 Segmentary kinship structure 222
8.2 ‘Genealogical map’ of a Tiv compound 224
8.3 Scheme of ranking of chiefly ramage 226
8.4 ‘Ordinary Jinghpaw’ system 230
8.5 The political economy of the minimal segment 232
8.6 The hierarchy of nats (spirits) 233
8.7 Gumsa incorporation of village nats 233
8.8 Gumsa domain: structure and marriage relations 236
8.9 Internal expansion of the gumsa domain and its contradictions 240
8.10 The long cycle of declining productivity 241
8.11 Topological transformation, Kachin-Chin 243
8.12 Shang economic classes in agricultural production 251
8.13 Archaeological cultures and evolutionary stages in China and 251
Mesopotamia
9.1 Forces of production 253
9.2 Relations of production 253
9.3 Model of mode of production for foraging societies 254
9.4 The mode of production of a chiefdom 255
9.5 The Asiatic mode of production 257
9.6 Relations of ownership in the pyramidal state 258
9.7 Relations of production, subordination, and stratification in 261
Mesopotamia
10.1 Typical inscription from an oracle bone 268
10.2 Cosmic order 272
10.3 The political dialectic of the state 274
10.4 The arena of contest-exchanges 275
11.1 Variations in the discharge of the Tigris and the Euphrates, 1925–47 286
11.2 The differentiation of old world farming systems 288
11.3 Disposition of production by ruling class and the state 290
List of maps
0.1 Topography of the Ancient Near East x
3.1 Some prehistoric and early historic sites in the Near East 44
3.2 The reliable 200 mm isohyet in Mesopotamia 47
3.3 Natural or climax vegetation of the eastern Mediterranean region 50
3.4 Zones of natural state or climax vegetation in Iraq 54
3.5 Natural distribution of wild barley 55
3.6 Natural distribution of wild einkorn 56
3.7 Natural distribution of wild emmer 56
3.8 Natural distribution of Bos primigenius 58
3.9 Distribution of Capra hircus 59
3.10 Distribution of Ovis ammon 60
3.11 Probable distributions of four main progenitors of domestic 61
livestock
4.1 The site and situation of Tell Mureybet on the Euphrates 81
4.2a Khuzistan, showing topographic detail 93
4.2b The Plain of Deh Luran in Khuzistan 94
5.1 Jemdet Nasr period settlement patterns 136
5.2 Watercourses and settlement in Early Dynastic Sumer 145
6.1 Approximate limits of the ‘dimorphic zone’ 181
8.1 The hill peoples of the Burma frontier 228
11.1 Regional conditions during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene in 281
the Near East
11.2 Sites of the earliest finds of domesticated animals 283
11.3 The centres and routes of transmission of early scripts 295
List of tables
3.1 Temperature and precipitation 46
3.2 Comparative productivity of some North American ecosystems 57
3.3 Nutritional values of wild and domesticated wheats 66
4.1 Approximate ages of the phases in Deh Luran and their relation to 103
periods designated in other areas
4.2 Calculation of the population of the Near East at 1,000-year intervals 118
for various rates of increase, assuming a base population of 100,000
4.3 Calculation of the population of the Near East at 1,000-year intervals 119
for various rates of increase, assuming a base population of 50,000
4.4 Changing characteristics of late prehistoric and protohistoric 120
settlement enclaves
4.5 Primary subsistence source by latitude 122
5.1 Gross regional trends in Uruk period settlement 130
5.2 Urban and non-urban settlement by region in successive Uruk sub- 132
periods
6.1 Profile of a household archive, Gasur 161
6.2 The rulers and the Ur-dNanše Dynasty and its successors 165
6.3 Rations 187
6.4 The allocation of state land 188