The Emergence of Cities and States

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The Emergence of Cities and States

• Chapter 1.3

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A. Introduction

1. Farming generated more complex societies
2. As settlements grew, people began to see
   themselves as part of communities larger than the
   family, clan, or tribe
3. With increasing surpluses and populations,
   villages grew into the first cities
4. Cities established foundation for the rise of
   states, trade networks, and writing

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B. The Rise of New Technologies

1. Development of metallurgy for farming tools and
   weaponry helped shape the increasingly complex
   societies
2. Soft, easy to work copper was first metal used
   for tools and weapons
3. West Asian metal craftsman created bronze
4. Bronze and iron made better tools but also more
   deadly weapons

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C. Urbanization and the First Cities

1. Settled life, grain, and cows milk shortened
   human birth intervals, increasing populations
2. Catal Huyuk grew into prosperous towns, centers
   of long-distance trade, and then cities- Central
   Turkey, mud-bricked buildings, plastered walls,
   bakery, brewery,
3. Greater wealth and size allowed cities to control
   adjacent farmlands that provided surplus needed
   to sustain city dwellers
4. As farming became more efficient, urbanization
   became the next great transition in human social
   organization-fostered networks of communication
   and trade

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D. The Rise of States, Economies, and
Record-Keeping

1. The need to control surplus-producing farmlands
   and to govern urban populations created the first
   governments
2. Diverse urban societies generated enough wealth
   to permit substantial division of labor and
   social, cultural, and religious
   hierarchies-cities became extensive trade
   networks
3. Increased trade created the need for
   record-keeping, which led to the development of
   writing-literacy usually reserved for the
   privileged
4. Civilization- once used to describe urban-based
   societies
5. Subjectivity of term limits its value in
   understanding WH
6. Misuse and abuse of term

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E. The Rise of Pastoral Nomadism

1. PN is an economy based on breeding, rearing, and
   harvesting livestock
2. Trade and conflict between farmers and herders
   became common, and some PN exercised strong
   influence on societies with much greater
   populations
3. Mostly in grasslands and deserts- lived in small
   dispersed groups generally organized by tribes
   had view possessions
4. Some pastoral societies maintained egalitarian
   social structures-women warriors, others headed
   by chiefs
5. Indo-European- various tribes who all spoke
   related languages deriving from original common
   tongue and who eventually settled Europe, Iran,
   and Northern India-spread their language and
   culture, imposed military power-profound changes
   across Eurasia