Background.
Holocene.
Language.
Farming.
Specialisation.
Trade.
Value.
Ownership.
Heredity.
Leadership.
Battles.
Army.
Tax.
Countries.
Science and technology.
Stone age.
History as a inter-related system.
The history of homo sapiens is about 200 thousand years old.
Most of this time, homo sapiens were closer to animals,
then what we know as civilised human beings.
When did we become civilised?
Most history books, would discuss the history of civilisation,
starting around 4000 or 3000 BCE.
This makes sense, because, this is when we have clear evidence,
of civilised life.
Early Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisation started around this time.
The transition did not happen suddenly.
The seeds of civilised life were sown thousands of years earlier.
We will discuss some of the factors, which favoured the process of civilisation,
of human beings.
Dramatic climate changes, happened during the history of the Earth.
There were periods, of extremely cold climate.
This is broadly called as the ice ages.
Ice age refers to a very long period of time.
Within a ice age, there are several periods, known as glacial periods.
This was really the cold period, of an ice age.
Glacial periods was the time, when Earth was severely cold.
During these times, most of Earth, was covered with ice.
Glacial periods were a time, where it was very difficult for living organisms,
including homo sapiens, to thrive and grow.
The periods between glacial periods, is called as inter glacial periods.
The inter glacial periods, are much warmer,
and conducive for living organisms, to thrive and grow.
Theoretically, we are in a ice age.
This ice age started 2.6 million years ago,
at the beginning of the Pleistocene epoch.
But fortunately we are in a interglacial period.
This warm interglacial period , is called the holocene.
This period started, about 10 thousand years ago.
The conducive climate, of the interglacial period,
was one of the factors, that favoured civilised life.
During this period, ice melted.
Glaciers recede, and carve out rivers and lakes.
The Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Yellow river are some of the major rivers which were formed.
Early civilisation made a beginning along these river banks.
Vast snow covered areas, now became habitable.
Vegetation and animals started to thrive.
The environment was ideal for human beings, who had highly developed brains,
to dominate the environment, and colonise the planet.
The sea levels also rose.
Human had earlier migrated to the American and Australia continents, via land routes.
Rising sea levels isolated those people.
A civilised life, requires communication, of intent and ideas,
between human beings.
Language started out as primitive grunts, and other sounds,
that animals make.
Human beings refined and developed these sounds,
into a formal language.
Now a particular combination of sounds,
was associated with a particular object, emotion, idea or concept.
Importantly every one in the group, understood this in the same way.
This would have played a dramatic role,
in the evolution of thought of human beings.
We can imagine, early humans living in a cave,
sitting around the fire, and discussing say, how to hunt,
a particular animal, find a particular food, or make a particular tool.
This exchange of ideas, no doubt favoured more rapid development,
of thinking capability.
Early languages were limited in scope.
They could communicate only a limited number of ideas.
For example, people could communicate the idea of the number one, two and three.
Anything more than that, they communicated by the word "many".
When ideas are exchanged, the probability of generating new and better ideas,
increase dramatically.
Language facilitated this.
Human beings who could develop better ideas, had a greater advantage.
Development of a known and sophisticated language,
itself was facilitated by the existence of a primitive language.
Having a common language, we can imagine, motivated humans to stay together.
Language can be considered as one of the factors,
that facilitated civilised life.
Earlier human beings were hunter-gatherers.
They did not know the concept, that plants grew from seeds.
Somewhere, somehow they discovered, that plants grew from seeds.
We can imagine that they planted seeds, and grew crops.
Maize, millets, corn, barley, rice, were some of the earliest food grains,
that humans ate.
These plants grew in wild grass lands.
This was normally gathered from wild grass plants.
Some observant ancestor discovered that they could plant seeds,
and harvest the grain.
This idea developed slowly, into planting whole fields, with grains.
Now they could cultivate and grow it, and harvest the crop.
Humans who used to keep moving, in search of food,
now had motivation to stay in one place,
and wait to harvest the crop.
This was probably one of the factors,
which motivated societies to develop.
Even this did not motivate people to stay in one place for long.
The soil used to lose its fertility, and it could no longer grow crops.
People then moved on to new places.
Early farmers used to burn down, a patch of the forest,
and grow crops in it.
When the soil lost its fertility, they used to move on, to other places.
People had not yet, "settled down" in one place.
Some societies grew crops on the banks of rivers.
One obvious advantage of this, was the easy availability of water,
to irrigate the crops.
There was another undiscovered advantage.
Many rivers used to flood annually.
During the flood season, the river used to carry fertile silt,
and deposit it in the soil.
This naturally re-fertilised the soil every year.
Now there was no need, for people to move from one place to another,
seeking fertile soil.
It is not surprising, that early civilisation developed on the banks of rivers.
The Mesopotamian civilisation, developed on the banks of rivers,
Tigris, and Euphrates.
The Egyptian civilisation, developed on the banks of the river nile.
The yellow river civilisation, in China, and the Indus valley civilisation in India,
are examples of river bank based civilisation.
This was the beginning of farming.
People stayed in one place, and started the occupation of farming.
Farming is a significant landmark, and important factor,
in the history of civilisation.
Villages in small town developed, near the farms.
Human beings finally started to "settle down".
When humans were hunter gatherers, each human being,
needed about 10 square miles to feed himself.
With farming they could survive on one tenth of this area.
There was a powerful economic reason to undertake farming.
Much of humans population growth, can be attributed to farming.
Using animals were the first industrial revolution, of civilisation.
Animal domestication and breeding was one of the earliest skills,
developed by human beings.
They performed the work that machines do for us today.
In farming they were used to plough the field, and irrigate it.
They were also our first transport machines.
They were used to transport goods from one place to another.
More excitingly, they were used to transport people.
Animals provided a very significant leverage, on the amount of work,
that humans could do.
It also helped them to travel longer distances.
Some animals were domesticated to provide milk, eggs,
and sometimes meat.
This helped supplement the diet of human beings.
Some of the animals that were domesticated,
were cows, mules, horses, camels, elephants, chicken,
goats, sheep, dogs, etc..
A society which could domesticate and use the services,
of animals had a significant advantage.
We could say that domesticated animals, played a significant role,
in civilised life.
Early human beings had all round skills.
These skills were mostly living skills.
In order to survive all of them had to acquire all these skills.
As civilisation progressed, people settled down as societies.
They discovered the advantages, of specialisation.
One person could concentrate on advancing his skills in one area.
He could then exchange, the fruits of his labour, with another specialist.
For example, a potter could specialise in making pots,
and exchange pots, for food grains with a farmer.
The need to exchange of goods, led to the concept of trade.
Trading goods was an essential element, of civilised society.
In the course of time, many professions evolved,
to perform many specialised tasks.
This promoted the development of trade, for many goods and services.
Trading itself became a profession.
Specialisation made people interdependent.
Specialisation and trading helped to knit society together.
Value is an abstract concept.
We can measure the absolute weight of some goods,
but value of it is relative.
To trade goods, human beings had to develop the abstract concept of value.
How many pots, is a bag of grain worth?
There was no currency at that time.
Trade was based on barter.
Relative value of the goods, was determined by supply, demand and other factors, like perception.
Through out history value changed with place and time.
A commodity which is present, in abundance in one place,
would not be valuable in that place,
but would be very valuable in another place, where it was scarce.
This motivated traders to transport goods from one place to another.
Trade not only helped to knit together, people living in the same place,
but also helped to create links between isolated settlements of society.
When humans were hunter gathers,
the concept of land ownership did not exist.
Even when farming started, people cultivated land,
till it was fertile.
Once the soil lost its fertility, people abandoned it,
and moved on.
When human started settlements, like in the bank of rivers,
we can imagine, the concept of ownership, crept in.
In the course of time, ownership got formalised.
Some people owned the land, and were land owners.
Other people worked on the land.
They were probably paid with grains, for their labour.
Early humans probably had a sense of ownership, of their tools,
their weapons, their cattle, their ornaments, etc..
When this was integrated into ownership of land and buildings,
the concept of wealth developed.
Society started to get stratified according to wealth.
With wealth came power.
The concept of wealth has a close relationship with to heredity.
Parents passed on there wealth to children.
Wealth started to perpetuate with families.
Children born in wealthy families, were likely to remain wealthy.
Children born in poor families, were more likely to remain poor.
The stratification of society implanted wealth across generations.
It is not surprising that wealthy families acquired power,
and strived to retain it.
Ancient human tribes, likely to have had a natural leader.
The leader probably had a mix of qualities,
like strength, wisdom, and social skills.
Most of these leaders, were possibly content to manage,
their own tribes.
When civilisation began to take root, groups of people formed a settlement.
Leaders emerged for these settlements.
These leaders were among other qualities were also wealthy.
A strong association developed between wealth and power.
Leaders acted as a binding force for society.
They helped the group to strive for common goals.
Today we call this leader, as kings.
Many societies considered the king as God, or an incarnation of God.
Kings were the leaders of the people,
in both peace time and war time.
They laid down the rules, for the society.
This typically included the tax, the people had to pay to the king.
The taxes were used to cover the cost of administrating the people,
to maintain an army, etc..
The king made a living, from the taxes paid by the people.
They usually administered justice, to the people.
During war time, they led the people, to fight battles.
Most early societies, revolved around the leader or the king.
The king was the most prominent person of the society.
Typically much more is known about the king, rather than the common man,
in the society.
Due to this history has a normal bias, in favour of kings.
Sometimes history sounds like, the history of kings.
Real history however, is much more complex and interesting,
and the resultant of many interactions of the factors, we are discussing.
Very often a king would subdue less powerful leaders.
When the less powerful leader realised, that the king was superior to him,
he would submit himself to the authority of the king.
He will rule his own small group, but be loyal to the king.
Very often the lesser leaders would pay a tribute to the king.
This evolved into a hierarchy of leaders, with the king at the apex,
with lesser leaders owing loyalty to him.
This structure of leadership proved successful,
and would evolve and stay for a very long period,
in the history of civilisation.
When people settled down, in different regions,
they began to have distinct cultural flavours.
Each culture developed it own language, its rituals,
its laws, and in general, a way of living.
Very often groups got into conflicts with each other.
There was a tendency for one group, to try and subjugate,
possibly to gain wealth and power.
Frequently battles were fought, to gain control over the other group.
This introduced an important element of competitiveness in human society.
This led to a unfortunate bloodshed and loss of lives.
We had discussed the co-evolution of specialisation,
along with the evolution of civilisation.
The farmer and the trader were examples of early specialists.
With the formation of groups of societies,
came the need for one group defending itself from another group.
Groups tried to acquire more power, but subjugating another group.
Early battles between groups, we can imagine was quite disorganised.
Ordinary people armed with sticks, clubs and stones,
probably took part in early scuffles.
The people who took part in these battles, were probably part time people,
who otherwise would have been a farmer or a trader.
The need to perform better in battles, let to the formal profession,
of a soldier.
Soldier's specialised in fighting battles.
They were trained to use specialised weapons, specially made for them.
They wore special clothing, or armour to protect themselves.
The soldiers owed their allegiance to the king.
They were full time professionals.
The king in turn had to feed and pay the soldier,
so that he could make a living, for his soldiering service.
To become more powerful, a king needed better soldiers.
He also needed more soldiers.
The concept of having an army of full time professional soldiers,
evolved along with civilisation.
More powerful kings, had a more powerful army.
The king who had the more powerful army, won more battles.
This provided a strong motivation for kings to build more powerful armies.
To fight effective battles, armies had to be organised.
Some of the earliest formal organisation of people,
happened in armies.
The armies were typically organised into small specialised groups,
with their own leaders.
These secondary leaders later evolved to be generals of the army.
Battles also required tactics and strategies.
Planning of strategies to win battles, determined the quality of leadership,
of kings and generals.
The king had to feed and take care of the army.
The larger the army, the more resources the king needed,
to maintain the army.
The king needed resources for the day to day administration of his country.
He needed substantial resources, to maintain the army.
The larger the army, the more resources the king needed.
These resources were obtained by taxing the people.
Initially there was no concept of money.
A portion of the produce, like grain was given to the king.
This was used to maintain the army,
and for other expenses.
This system established a link between economics, wealth and power.
If due to a drought, farmers were not able to pay tax,
the king would not be able to maintain the army.
This will reduce his power, resulting in some other king,
winning over in battle.
The state of even primitive economies, was dependent on production,
mainly agricultural production.
Later the king and his family, started acquiring wealth in other forms,
such as land, precious metals, currency etc..
Early societies did not have a concept of a country.
Over time people living in a particular region,
and who were ruled by a king, considered themselves to belong to a country.
Initially there were no clear boundaries between countries.
The boundaries between countries was porous.
Common people could usually cross boundaries.
It is possible to imagine that some common people did not know,
which country they belong to.
The boundaries of countries, were also fluid.
Frequent battles were fought between kings.
When a king lost a battle, he might concede some territory,
to the victorious king.
He might win some other battle, and gain some territory.
This way the boundaries of countries kept waxing and waning.
When a country was totally overwhelmed, it may disappear altogether.
Most early countries in history, do not exist today.
When a king died, he was succeeded by his sons,
or close male relatives.
In many cases, the country would be divided among his sons.
So, what was one country, would now become two or three countries.
In some cases, when a king won a battle,
he would demand a regular tribute, from the losing king.
In return he would allow the defeated king,
to rule his country.
This in some cases led to hierarchy of kings.
Some kings emerged as the king of kings.
We now know them as emperors.
A emperor might have many kings, who paid tribute to him,
and were under his control.
The kings under his control were called vassals.
During times of war the vassals, were obliged to supply their army,
to augment their emperors army.
The emperor thus built an empire, which incorporated the territories of other kings.
The boundaries of the empire, was also fluid depending on battles won and lost.
History has witnessed the rise and fall of many empires.
From a very early age, human beings had a instinct,
for the existence of supernatural powers.
The concept of God and Gods, evolved from this.
Initially natural phenomena, like thunder, lightning,
and forest fires, were associated with Gods.
The sun and the moon were also associated with Gods.
Later, when planets were identified, they were associated with Gods.
Many civilisation had a pantheon of Gods.
Each God was associated with some natural phenomena.
Temples were built for Gods.
Most of early human beings architectural skills,
was deployed in building temples.
Some people specialised in the skills of communicating with the Gods.
These people evolved into the priest class.
Priest gained respect, popularity, and even power.
They became an integral part, of civilised society.
Many societies developed various rituals, to worship the Gods.
Each society developed there own concept of Gods, and rituals.
This practice became homogenised within a society,
sometimes willingly and sometimes by force.
The rituals often included some kind of sacrifice to appease the Gods,
or ask for some favour.
The sacrifice sometimes included animals, and even human beings.
A society could be identified by its Gods and its rituals.
Even kings subjected themselves to the influence of Gods.
Some kings projected themselves as Gods,
while others projected themselves as incarnation of Gods.
The practice of rituals and religion continued throughout History.
It evolved into different forms, and continuous till today.
Throughout history, religion has been a great unifier and divider, of society.
There was not formal education in early civilisations.
Yet science and technology evolved, in its own way in early civilisations.
For understanding this we need to take a broader view of science and technology.
Every new discovery or invention, should be considered as a progress,
in science and technology.
In those times conceiving of a calendar, with a solar year,
are the invention of the wheel, should be considered as a major leap,
in science and technology.
Many current common day to day items, were not available in these times.
For example, salt was a precious commodity and transported over long distances.
Pots made out of clay, using a potters wheel, should be considered,
as a technological breakthrough.
Pots were very useful for storing food and water.
It had direct impact on the quality of life, in those times.
In this manner, society progressed by discovering and inventing,
many things which were essential for day to day life.
There were no scientists at that time.
Sometime religion contributed to the progress of science.
For example, celestial observations were made by priests, in charge of temples.
The cycles of the Sun and the Moon, were recognised by these priests.
Some communities recognised the significance of summer and winter equinox and solstice.
Festivals were often celebrated around celestial events.
The birth of science, however primitive can be related partly to religion.
The stone age is generally considered as a period starting about 2.4 million years ago,
and ending somewhere in between 9000 BCE, and 2000 BCE.
The date of ending of the stone age, having a large range, of 9000 BCE ,
to 2000 BCE , is not surprising.
When we discuss civilisation, we mean pockets of civilisation,
spread over a wide geographical area.
Progress in science and technology, could be dramatically different,
in different pockets of civilisation.
Even today there are tribal people, in the amazon forest, african forests,
and in many other parts of the world.
They lead a way of life similar to the stone ages.
This will probably help us understand that there are no clear-cut dates,
in early history.
Through out our discussion, we should bear this in mind, when dates are mentioned.
Dates however, are more precise, in more recent history.
We have discussed many factors, which influenced the development of civilisation.
The list is not exhaustive, but representative of important factors,
that shapes civilisation.
There are other factors, like earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and other natural disaster,
which played a role.
Disease, specially when it was a epidemic also played a role.
We should perceive history as a resultant of the interplay of many factors.
This interaction of the factors, leads to a new set of events,
which in turn interacts, giving rise to another set of events.
This should be viewed as a continuous process.
Trying to understanding history in this manner, makes it much more interesting, and exciting,
than knowing dates, events, kings, and other mere facts.