Origins of Cities and States Flashcards
(82 cards)
When did the most ancient civilizations arise in the near east, northwestern india, northern china, the new world, and tropical africa?
Near east - 3500 BC
Northwestern india - 2500 BC
Northern China - 1750 BC
New World - 2000 years ago
Tropical africa - sometime later
What is an egalitarian society?
Society where all people of a given age-sex category have equal access to economic resources, power, and prestige
What evidence points to a society with high status assigned at birth?
Noticeable differences in children’s tombs - if they were filled with statues or ornaments
Explain how archaeologists infer that a particular people in the past had social classes, cities, or a centralised government, and states. (what is the key criteria)
Archaeologists rather than historians have studied the most ancient civilizations because those civilizations evolved before the advent of writing
They generally assume that burial finds reflecting inequality in death reflect inequality in life, at least in status and perhaps also in wealth and power
house size and furnishings can confirm that the society had different socio-economic classes of people
hierarchical and centralised decision making that affects a substantial population = key criteria
Most states have cities with public buildings, full-time craft and religious specialists, an official art style, and a hierarchical social structure topped by an elite class from which the leaders are drawn
Most states maintain power with a monopoly on the use of force. The state uses force or the threat of force to tax its population and to draft people for work or war
How can archaeologists infer a political hierarchy existed in a particular society?
Political hierarchy was defined with at least three levels of administration
How can this be determined?
The way settlement sites differ in size in an indication of the number of levels of administration
- Ex. Early Uruk period - 45 small villages, 3 or 4 towns, and one large centre
- More evidence - clay seal used in trading (commodity selaings) - suggests the large centre of Susa administered the regional movement of goods and the Susa was the capital of the state
Describe the emergence of cities and states in Sumer
The earliest state societies are found in Mesopotamia - what is now southern Iraq
During the formative era, burial sites reveal differences in social status. Villages specialised in the production of particular goods, and temples may have been centres of political and religious authority for several communities
These centres may have developed into chiefdoms that had authority over several villages
The state of Sumer was unified under a single government around 3000 BC
It had writing, urban centres, imposing temples, codified laws, a standing army, wide trade networks, complex irrigation, and a high degree of craft specialisation
Some anthropologists think that chiefdoms had developed by this time
What are chiefdoms?
A political unit, with a chief at its head, integrating more than one community but not necessarily the whole society or language group
What are some of the earliest examples of Sumerian writing?
Around 3000 BC
Form of ledgers containing inventories of items stored in the temples and records of livestock
Had wedge shaped characters, or cuneiforms - formed by pressing a stylus against a damp clay tablet
Contracts and other important documents - the tablet would be fired to create a virtually permanent record
Describe the emergence of cities and states in Mesoamerica
Emerged later than in the Near East, likely because of the later emergence of agriculture in the new world
During the formative period, small, autonomous farming villages shifted from the hills to the bottom of the Teotihuacan Valley and likely used irrigation.
Small “elite” centres emerged, each with a raised platform where temples and residences were built
The later state of Teotihuacan in the valley of Mexico had a city laid out in a well-planned grid pattern. It influenced much of Mesoamerica; its style of pottery and architecture are found extensively and graves include many foreign goods
The earliest city-state developed in the valley of Oaxaca with a capital at Monte Alban.
Originally, the city many have been a neutral centre where different political units in the valley coordinated activities affecting the entire valley
Mayan state societies were densely populated and depended on intensive agriculture. New research shows that Mayan societies may have been more urban and complex than previously thought
What did Monte Alban not do?
Monopolize craft production
What evidence indicates that people in Teotihuacan were engaged in long-distance trade?
25% of the city’s population worked in specialised crafts
City close to major deposits of obsidian which was in demand over much of Mesoamerica - used to produce many items that were distributed very far away
Materials found in graves indicate an enormous flow of foreign goods into the city
What does it mean for a state to arise independently?
Emerges without colonisation or conquest by other states
Describe the first cities and states in Africa
Earliest state was in the Nile Valley in Egypt by 3000 BC
Supported by a population that mainly lived in self-sufficient villages
The strong unified state of the old kingdom built the pyramids as tombs for pharaohs - their diving kings
The later Axum state in Ethiopia was the centre of a trade, with multi storey stone residences
Decribe the first cities and states in Central Asia
Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley controlled an enormous territory
major cities were built on a similar pattern and had municipal water and sewage systems
The Shang dynasty in China was a stratified and specialised intraregional state society with religious, economic, and administrative unification and a distinctive art style
Evaluate the major theories about the origin of the state.
The irrigation theory - suggests that the administrative needs of maintaining an extensive irrigation network caused state formation
- May have given rise to border and other disputes between adjacent groups, prompting people to concentrate in cities
- Intensified production, indirectly developing craft specialisation, trade, and administrative bureaucracy
The circumscription theory - suggests that states emerge when competition and warfare in a circumscribed area lead to the subordination of defeated groups, which are then obliged to submit to the control of the most powerful group
- One unanswered question to this theory: why wouldn’t the victors exterminate the defeated and occupy the land themselves?
Theories involving trade - suggest that the organisational requirements of producing exportable items, redistributing imported ones, and defending trading parties foster state formation
Describe the first cities and states in South America
State societies in Peru had cities, plazas, and large pyramids
those in the Andes had complex agricultural systems with irrigation, a widespread system of religious beliefs and symbols and art
Describe the first cities and states in North America
Cahokia, developed near present-day St. Louis, Missouri
Centre of a large and powerful chiefdom
Controversial as to weather is achieved a state level organisation or not
Clear social stratification and religious and craft specialists, but, unclear whether the leaders were able to govern by force
What was perhaps the first officially Christian state in the world?
Axum, Africa (present-day ethiopia)
How might irrigation systems have resulted in stratified societies (what are stratified societies)?
Resulted in unequal access to productive land
Stratified society = divided into social classes → upper class, middle class, lower class
Identify and explain consequences of state formation.
Populations grow and become concentrated in cities
More efficient agriculture allows many people to stop farming; as a result: art, music, literature, and organised religion can develop and flourish
Can coordinate information
Allow many people to be relieved of food production
Military expansion and conquest often occurs and leaders have power over their own population ,which for the first time includes an underclass of poor and unhealthy people
Epidemic disease and periodic famine affect the population, often resulting from dense population and problems with food production and storage
Organised religion often develops
People become governed by force and can’t say no to their leaders
______ is part of the nature of states.
Belligerence
What positive effects and negative issues can arise in cities unsuited to agriculture?
Can’t have coercive authority emerge
People living in places unsuited to agriculture might tolerate the coercive authority of a state because they would suffer a sharp drop in living standards if they moved away
May not be suited to agriculture but could be suited for trade (on rivers)
Discuss explanations for the decline and collapse of states.
Environmental degradation → declining soil productivity, persistent drought
Human behaviour –> increases disease, depletion of resources, and internal conflict from mismanagement by leaders or mistreatment of people
Overextension → extending to an area too large to administer
What factors might account for the decline of the Roman Empire?
Overextension
Expanded into such a huge area
Their “barbarian” incursions on the peripheries of the empire went unchecked because it was too difficult and too costly to reinforce those far-flung frontiers → it withered away to nothing
