Why Did Ancient Civilizations Fail?

359 Pages·2016·4.26 MB·English

by  Scott A.J. Johnson

WHY DID ANCIENT
CIVILIZATIONS FAIL?
Ideas abound as to why certain complex societies collapsed in the past, including
environmental change, subsistence failure, fluctuating social structure and lack
of adaptability. Why Did Ancient Civilizations Fail? evaluates the current
theories in this important topic and discusses why they offer only partial
explanations of the failure of past civilizations. This engaging book offers a new
theory of collapse, that of social hubris. Through an examination of
Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Roman, Maya, Inca, and Aztec societies, Johnson
persuasively argues that hubris blinded many ancient peoples to evidence that
would allow them to adapt, and he further considers how this has implications
for contemporary societies. Comprehensive and well written, this volume serves
as an ideal text for undergraduate courses on ancient complex societies, as well
as appealing to the scholar interested in societal collapse.
Scott A. J. Johnson is a Maya archaeologist who also studies ancient writing
and subsistence. Since receiving his Ph.D. in anthropology from Tulane
University in 2012, he has taught at various colleges and universities in the
United States and Canada. Johnson writes extensively on archaeological
methods and the Maya, authoring Translating Maya Hieroglyphs. He is currently
the director of the Emal Archaeological Project in Yucatan and a Research
Associate at Washington University in Saint Louis.
WHY DID ANCIENT
CIVILIZATIONS FAIL?
Scott A. J. Johnson
First published 2017
by Routledge
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© 2017 Taylor & Francis
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN 978-1-62958-282-5 (hbk)
ISBN 978-1-62958-283-2 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-315-51289-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
For Aldo Leopold, Arne Naess, and everybody who has worked for the
cause.
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: Social Hubris
2 Why Agriculture?
3 The Environment
4 Case Study: The Maya
5 Agricultural Systems
6 Case Study: Mesopotamia
7 Trade Systems
8 Case Study: Rome
9 Social Organization
10 Case Study: Egypt
11 Unexpected Catastrophes
12 Case Study: Aztecs and Incas
13 Where We Are Today
References
Index
FIGURES
2.1 System Map
3.1 Earth’s Tilt and Orbit
3.2 Atmospheric and Ocean “Conveyor Belts”
3.3 The Carbon Cycle
3.4 Global Precipitation, Temperature, and Complex Culture
4.1 Maya Sites and Waterways
4.2 Maya Area Precipitation and Elevation
4.3 Maya Cultural Timeline
4.4 Social Cycle
5.1 Water-Lifting Devices
6.1 Mesopotamian Sites and Waterways
6.2 Mesopotamian Area Precipitation and Elevation
6.3 Mesopotamian Cultural Timeline
7.1 Types of Trade
8.1 Roman Sites and Waterways
8.2 Roman Area Precipitation and Elevation
8.3 Roman Cultural Timeline
8.4 Trade Routes
10.1 Egyptian Sites and Waterways
10.2 Egyptian Area Precipitation and Elevation
10.3 Egyptian Cultural Timeline
11.1 Resilience and Stability
12.1 Aztec Sites and Waterways
12.2 Aztec Area Precipitation and Elevation
12.3 Aztec Cultural Timeline
12.4 Inca Sites and Waterways
12.5 Inca Area Precipitation and Elevation
12.6 Inca Cultural Timeline
13.1 Global Vegetation Zones and Climate Change
13.2 Solar Radiation by Latitude
13.3 Nutrient Cycles
PREFACE
This book was inspired by a few specific events that brought the problems facing
our world to the forefront of my attention. First, I taught two classes while living
in northern Alberta, Canada, just south of the tar-sands “oil patch.” One class
was a survey of circumpolar traditional peoples. In preparation for that course I
caught up on the climate science concerning the Arctic. That was in 2012, when
the Arctic ice cap set yet another record for melt-off. I learned that permafrost
acreage had reduced drastically over the last century. When things warm up,
bands of climate-dependent vegetation move toward the poles. As things stand
now, the Arctic environment cannot retreat any farther to the north, and the
Arctic as we know it is disappearing. In that class, I had a student quip that she
did not care if polar bears died out because she did not eat polar bears. I
answered with some facts about other effects of global warming, but, as usual, I
only came up with a good rejoinder later: if you do not care about a dead canary
in the mine because you are not a canary, you are going to be a dead miner1. It
was at the time that this student expressed her indifference to polar bears that I
began writing this book.
The second class I taught that semester was world prehistory. In it, I traced the
rise and fall of the world’s ancient complex societies. It was during a class
discussion that I first hit upon the idea of social hubris as the causal link in the
decline of every civilization. Part of the reason societies develop hubris is that
they cannot see that the systems supporting their way of life are linked together.
Today, many people see global problems in isolation (e.g., global warming,
poverty, violence, famine), when in fact they are all connected. For example, if
one hears that the earth’s average temperature rose 0.6º C in the last century, and
may rise another 1–4º C (1.8–7.2° F) in the next century (Meehl et al. 2005; Le
Treut et al. 2007), it is not really that scary, as we can easily turn up our air
conditioning to compensate for a few hot days. If, however, one understands the
links between rising temperatures, variable rainfall, changing ecological zones,