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230 The Origin of Civilisation

with a hierarchy of sites mirroring the hierarchy of social roles. The region around Susa grew along a recognisably familiar path, rising from a simple scatter of modest villages to a four-tiered social network Following the generał patterns of central place theory. Susa was the centre of a thriving 'one. At ifes height, the plain supported twenty-five thousand inhabitants, łiwing in over fifty settlements of four graded sizes. The region engaged in active trade with the incipient civilisations to east and west.

Clearly, as traders and middlemen straddling the main trade routes between Mesopotamia and India, these people were ideally placed to exploit their geographical position. Recent excavations have shown that Susa suffered a major setback, perhaps through mxlitary conflict, between 3300 and 3100 BC. The initiative passed to Choga Hish, a smaller rival nearby. While Susa¹s importance waned, (reflected in the reduction of its size from 60 to 22 acres), Choga Mish grew from 25 to 45 acres. Simultaneously, Uruk began to experience its implosive phase, (increasing from 250 to 1000 acres), possibly swelling with immigrants fleeing the conflicts to the east.¹ Although morę detailed research needs to be done on this region, it may be that the people of the Iranian Plateau were never able to achieve the innovative explosive burst that generates the type of civilisation that actually emerged both in the Indus and in Mesopotamia. Additional information about these prime Susiana sites may prove this judgement ill-founded but it may be that the Iranean Plateau region created a high culture that aborted before it had time to achieue the heic^ts of excellence reached by its neighbours on both sides.

Evidence For Dissipative Structures

Prigogine saw complex Systems as being in a state of flux, quivering with fluctuation. The description fits remarkably well with the long-run behawiour of man's culture system, despite any short-term impressions of an ephemeral stability. His 'dissipatiwe structures* describe the creation of a higher level, morę differentiated structure, emerging from the break down of an old equilibrium. In some cases they survive the apparent destruction of the old order to generate a morę aduanced, morę complex system. His concept focuses mainly on physical and Chemical reactions, bot I believe there is ewidence for dlssipatiue structures in human cultures. Morę specifically, they are often associated with highly elaborate ciwilisations rather than with lower level indigenous cultures.

Some of the early Eurasian civilisations show a prolonged span of existence with bursts of cultural advance and excellence across many fields punctuated by periods of stasis or regression, as they mowed along the classical, or typical curve we noted in chapter 3. There are numerous examples of rapidly erupting hyper-aetive states. These are often described by archaeologists as an *efflorescence', a sudden 'flowering *, a 'supernova' - all evocative terms

for an exponential explosion when a culture Chain reaction goes critical. Such cases depict a civilisation genesis, but are not necessarily examples of dissipatiue structures. The expression in common use which most ciosały fits with Prigogine'3 concept is a renaissance or rebirth. Uuintessentially, that implies a formerly flourishing civilisation, emerging from the retrenchment of a dark age or interregnum. Although the potential exists for a breakdown of an old equilibrium, this does not occur. Instead, a dramatic coalescence takes shape, to generate the fuli subsystem preconditions of balanced mter-actions, allowing a higher order civilisation to erupt.

Renaissance is a widely used term. It is applied to the recent rise of the Italian city-states of fifteenth century ltaly, to the revival of Sumerian ciuilisation coincident with the Third Dynasty of Ur,¹¹ and is also freguently used to denote the emergence of Classical Greece after the Greek Dark Age of the first millennium BC. Seueral other examples can be added to the list. The Old Kingdom of Babylon was a thriving ciyllisation centre around 1700 BC. Its kings included the famed Hammurabi, but Babylon was ov/errun by Amator i te im/aders, and suffered a prolonged eclipse. Yet under Nebuchadnezzar, morę than a thousand years later, the New Kingdom managed to snatch another brief moment of glory,¹⁴ long enough to build the famous hanging gardens, one of the renowned wonders of the ancient world. Egyptian history offers another case, with a rapid renaissance in the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. The Old Kingdom Pharoahs were sufficiently wealthy and enlightened to erect huge pyramids for mortuary monuments as early as 2600 BC, but this early vigour was lost, with a series of setbacks and Egypt failed to recower the initial moment urn, even during the Middłe Kingdom. However, the inuąsión of Egypt by foreigners, the Hyksos, may have spurred the ensuing renaissance. A proper standing army was created in order to euict the foreign rulers.¹⁶ The army, once installed, became a regal instrument, not simply for overthrowing the foreign yoke, but for territorial aggrandisement in true imperial fashion. The Egyptian Empire coincided with a resurgence after the Hyksos interregnum, but it also marked a period of great revitalisation in the four thousand year long history of ancient Egyptian civilisation.

The uniquely innovatiue society of Minoan Crete offers another example. Archaeological evidence has revealed that Crete suffered at least two major earthquake disruptions during the Bronze Age, and yet nothing can be morę stark than the contrast in the fate which befell the islanders after the two similar disasters.¹⁸ The first pałace period marked a highly successful phase thnving between 1900-1700 BC, before a massive earthquake struck. It caused extensive damage to a11 four of the island palaces, at Knossos, Phaistos, MaIlia and Zakros. While Zakros was never rebuilt, the other three palaces were reconstructed almost immediately on the same sites. The entire island ciuilisation rapidly went on to experience an even morę superlatiue level of cultural brilliance. Between 1700 and 1500 BC, colonies were established, and Minoan influence radiated widely around the Aegean. The second pałace period