Chapter 4: Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation (History)

Farming made life both easier and more challenging. On balance it made life more secure, which is why it is called the Neolithic revolution.

Easier:

• Assured food and surplus: domesticated crops (wheat, barley, millets, rice) and animals (sheep, goats, cattle) gave a steady food supply; surplus grain could be stored in granaries, as at Mehrgarh.
• Settled life: people built permanent villages and houses, made pottery and crafts, and had time for new skills; this laid the foundation for towns and civilisation.

More challenging:

• Hard work and dependence on weather: farming needed long hours of clearing land, sowing, watering and guarding crops; floods or droughts could destroy a whole year's harvest.
• New problems of settled life: larger populations lived close together, leading to diseases, disputes over land and water, and the need for rules and leaders.

Both: farming gave a reliable food supply, surplus and settled villages (easier), but demanded hard labour and made people dependent on weather, land and water, with new social problems (more challenging).

Early societies used these opportunities and met the challenges by learning to irrigate, store grain, make calendars from flood cycles (Egypt), build dams and tanks (Dholavira) and organise trade.

Rivers and fertile plains gave food, water, transport and raw materials (opportunities), but also brought floods, droughts and scarcity, which societies overcame through irrigation, storage, cooperation and trade.

Why: for the period before writing, there are no written records with dates, so historians use material evidence, mainly the tools and materials people used. Dividing history by the main material of tools (stone, then copper and bronze, then iron) gives a clear, measurable way to arrange cultures in order.

What it tells us:

• Humans moved from simple to more complex technology: crude Palaeolithic hand axes, then tiny Mesolithic microliths, then polished Neolithic tools, then metal tools (copper, bronze, iron).
• Each new technology changed the way people lived: from hunting-gathering to farming and settled villages (Neolithic), to towns, trade and civilisations (Bronze Age), to stronger tools, larger farms and states (Iron Age).
• Progress was gradual and happened at different times in different regions (for example, iron came to China around 600 BCE).

Because, before writing, tools are the main evidence; classifying by tool material (stone, bronze, iron) shows the gradual growth of technology and how each advance changed people's way of life.

A day in my life (Mehrgarh, about 6000 BCE): I wake at dawn in my sun-dried mud-brick house. After a meal of barley gruel, I take our goats and sheep to graze near the Bolan river. My family and I weed and water our wheat and barley fields using polished stone tools. At midday we grind grain on a grinding stone. In the afternoon I repair the granary and help make clay pots. In the evening we bring the animals back, guard the stored grain and share news with neighbours in the village.

Challenges a hunter-gatherer did not face:

• Dependence on one place and one harvest: a flood, drought or pest attack could ruin the crop, while a hunter-gatherer could simply move to another area.
• Hard, regular labour: clearing land, sowing, weeding, harvesting and herding every day.
• Protecting stores and animals from thieves and wild animals.
• Living closely with many people and animals: more disease and more disputes over land and water.

A Neolithic farmer's day revolved around fields, animals, grinding grain and making pots in a settled village; unlike hunter-gatherers, farmers faced crop failure, hard regular labour, the need to guard stores and animals, and the problems of crowded settled life.

At present we understand the Harappans only from material remains. If the script (Sindhu lipi) were read, we might learn:

• Their language and how it relates to later languages of India.
• Names of rulers, merchants, cities and gods.
• Government: who ruled, how the planned cities were managed, and whether there were kings or councils.
• Trade: what the seals recorded (owners, goods, weights, places), and details of trade with Mesopotamia (Meluhha), Dilmun and Magan.
• Religion and beliefs: names of deities, rituals and the meaning of signs and animals on seals.
• Society and daily life: laws, occupations, the role of women, education and festivals.
• Dates and events: why the cities declined after about 1900 BCE.

Historians might learn the Harappans' language, names of people, places and gods, how they were governed, details of trade, their beliefs, laws and daily life, and why their cities declined.

Palaeolithic: large stone tools, nomadic, hunting-gathering; Mesolithic: microliths, rock shelters, fishing and small game, flourishing rock art; Neolithic: polished tools and pottery, villages, farming and herding.

Developed independently: the Harappan (Sindhu-Sarasvatī), Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Chinese civilisations grew in different regions from their own local Neolithic and Chalcolithic roots (Mehrgarh in India, the Fertile Crescent, the Nile valley, the Huang He valley), at different times. Each had its own script (Sindhu lipi, cuneiform, hieroglyphs, Chinese characters), beliefs and styles. Only Mesopotamia and the Harappans had strong direct contact (trade with Meluhha).

Common features:

• All grew in fertile river valleys: the Indus and Ghaggar-Sarasvatī, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, and the Huang He.
• Use of bronze (copper and tin) for tools and weapons, which raised productivity.
• Agricultural surplus supporting cities, crafts and a class of non-farmers (priests, traders, artisans, rulers).
• Water management: irrigation canals, dams and tanks (Sumerian canals, Harappan gabarbands and Dholavira reservoirs, Egyptian ditches).
• Writing systems for records.
• Social hierarchy: rulers, priests and nobles at the top, farmers and labourers below (e.g. Egypt's social pyramid, Sumerian priests).
• Trade and standard weights and measures.
• Monumental buildings: ziggurats, pyramids, planned Harappan citadels, palaces.

So the statement is correct: similar conditions (river plains, metal technology, surplus) led to similar developments in separate places.

Each civilisation grew separately from its own roots, yet all shared river-valley farming, bronze technology, surplus-supported cities, writing, irrigation, social hierarchy and trade, so the statement is valid.

Advantages:

• Fertile alluvial soil renewed by floods (the Nile's "kemet", the black soil), giving good harvests.
• Water for drinking, cattle and irrigation.
• Rivers as routes for transport and trade.
• Fish, clay for pots and bricks, and reeds (papyrus) for writing material and boats.
• Annual floods helped people make calendars (Egypt) and plan farming.

Disadvantages:

• Devastating floods destroyed homes and crops (e.g. the Huang He's floods).
• Rivers changed their course or dried up (the Sarasvatī), forcing people to leave.
• Diseases spread more easily in wet, crowded settlements.
• Controlling water (dams, canals, embankments) needed hard collective labour, organisation and rules.
• Rich river valleys attracted invaders and conflict.

Rivers gave fertile soil, water, food, transport and trade, but also floods, shifting or drying channels, disease and conflict, which forced societies to organise water management and defence.

About the Code: King Hammurabi of Babylon (he came to power in 1792 BCE) compiled a set of about 282 laws on civil and social conduct. They were inscribed in cuneiform on a stone stele (pillar); the top of the stele shows Hammurabi receiving the laws from Shamash, the god of justice. The laws covered trade, property, wages, family, theft and injuries.

Why it was important:

• It was one of the earliest written law codes: laws were written down and displayed publicly, so people could know the rules.
• It applied throughout his empire and helped unite many city-states under one system of justice.
• It served as a model for many later legal systems.

Was it fair to all? Not fully.

• Unequal punishments: the penalty depended on the social class of the victim and the offender (nobles, free commoners, slaves). Harming a noble brought harsher punishment than harming a commoner or a slave.
• Harsh punishments: many laws followed "an eye for an eye", with severe physical punishments and death.
• Women and slaves had fewer rights than free men.
• But it did protect some weaker people, e.g. rules on fair wages, prices and property and some protection for widows and orphans.

The Code of Hammurabi was one of the first written law codes, uniting the empire under public rules and influencing later law; but it was not fair to all, because punishments depended on social class and women and slaves had fewer rights.

Sample answer: writing (the Sumerian cuneiform, about 3200 BCE).

• It allowed people to keep records of trade, taxes, crops and laws (e.g. the Code of Hammurabi), making large states and economies possible.
• Knowledge (stories, science, medicine, religious ideas) could be preserved and passed on to later generations, instead of being lost.
• It marks the beginning of the historical period: we know about civilisations with deciphered scripts in much greater detail.
• Almost everything today, from education and books to computers, depends on writing.

(Other strong choices, with reasons: the wheel and wheeled cart, used for transport and pottery; bronze metallurgy; irrigation; the base-60 number system behind our 60-minute hour and 360° circle; standard weights and measures of the Harappans.)

For example, writing: it made record-keeping, laws, administration and the passing on of knowledge possible, and began recorded history (other choices like the wheel or irrigation can also be justified).

Comparison of Egypt and Mesopotamia:

Similarities: both were pyramid-shaped hierarchies with a ruler and priests at the top and slaves at the bottom; religion and temples dominated life; most people were farmers depending on river water.

Differences: the Pharaoh was treated as divine, while Mesopotamian power lay with city-state kings and temple priests; Egyptians focused on life after death (pyramids, mummies), Mesopotamians on city temples (ziggurats); Egyptian women had more rights.

(In China, the Zhou kings were both kings and priests, "appointees of heaven", but could be dismissed if the people did not prosper, and officials were chosen by examination in archery, horsemanship, calculation, writing and music.)

Both had a ruler and priests at the top, farmers in the middle and slaves at the bottom, with religion central to daily life; but Egypt's god-like Pharaoh, focus on the afterlife and greater rights for women differed from Mesopotamia's temple-centred city-states.

How to do it on an outline map of the world (Afro-Eurasia):

• Sindhu-Sarasvatī: mark the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra (Sarasvatī) rivers; sites Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Dholavira and Lothal (dockyard).
• Mesopotamia: mark the Tigris and Euphrates (present-day Iraq); cities Ur, Uruk, Akkad, Babylon and Assur.
• Egypt: mark the Nile, flowing north into the Mediterranean; Memphis, Giza and Saqqara.
• China: mark the Huang He (Yellow River) and the Yangtze.
• Trade links: draw arrows from Lothal and Dholavira by sea along the Arabian Sea coast to Magan (Oman), Dilmun (Bahrain) and on up the Persian Gulf to Ur; also an overland route from Harappa through Baluchistan and Iran to Mesopotamia. Mark Mesopotamia–Egypt links across the Fertile Crescent. Show China separately (little direct contact with the Harappans; much later, the Silk Route linked China westwards).
• Add a key: rivers, cities, sea routes, land routes. Note the goods traded: semi-precious stone beads (carnelian), ivory, timber, gold dust and copper.

Mark the Indus–Sarasvatī, Tigris–Euphrates, Nile and Huang He with their main cities, and show the Harappan sea route via Magan and Dilmun to Mesopotamia, plus overland routes, with a key.

A sample plan for Egypt:

(For Mesopotamia: wheel, sailboat, canals, cuneiform, ziggurats, base-60 numbers, Code of Hammurabi. For China: bronze vessels, jade craft, oracle bones and logographic script, silk, the Great Wall.)

Pick one civilisation and present its tools, writing, art and architecture with pictures and short notes on why each innovation mattered (e.g. Egypt: irrigation, hieroglyphs and papyrus, calendar, paintings, pyramids).