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228 The Origin of Civillsation

growth for industrialisation ower the last two centuries, (see figurę 4.7 on page 192). This schematic representation can also be used to show the rise and fali of competing Near Eastern civilisations during the first millennium 8C. They emerged after the major collapse of the Bronze Age world around 1100 BC. The Phoenician city-states were able to Capitalise on this seuere inter-regnum,⁵ while other groups were consolidating. Assyria became the first key State to recover in power and imperial aspirations,⁶ but these proved to be somewhat short-liued, and her success was eclipsed in rapid succession by the BabyInnians, the Persians, the Greeks and then the Romans.⁷

Figurę 5.1 Schematic lllustration of the Sequence of Iron Age Civilisations and Empires

This Iron Age sequence reflects the rise and fali of empires. Helpfully, use of the culture system structure now enables us to differentiate between the two separate concepts - imperialism and civilisation. Imperialism is an expression of a dominant culture organised around the military or maritime supremacy of one powerful State; it is essentially an expression of strength exerted primarily through the social subsystem. A civilisation is the total interacting culture system, which has undergone an explosive genesis that accelerates it above the trajectory of its original 'high culture' State. Each individoal civilisation variant may either abort prematurely, adapt successfully along a stepped ascent, or move through the stages of a gradual cycle, to face decline and regression once its actual peak or zenith has be en

attained. Euidence suggests that sometimes, the consolidation of power around an imperial regime led to an explosion of cultural creatiuity, even when no truły new ciuilieation was generated. System thinking implies that a massiue concentrat ion of power in strong central administrations produced a raeasure of stability - a rare quality in open non-equilibrium Systems, Yet stability may be an essential ingredient for creating a favourable cultural climate, conduciy/e to innouatiue creatiuity. Paradoxically, then, even under the most militant or cruel regimes, many people in antiquity enjoyed a higher level of cultural attainment than occurred during the interminable warring interludes.

A ragged, fragmented political localism prewailed during the Iron Age, before Roman domination achieued an incipient imperial unification. The re-latiue power exerted by a number of competing empires only introduced an element of greater political stability as each successful state neared its peak. Under the momentum of positive feedback loops a successful imperial power could generate suitable conditions for enhanced success, feeding on itself, until internal conflicts and upstart competitors, expenencing the fuli thrust of a yigorous 'log¹ growth phase, could wrest the dominance from the power at its peak. The aggressiue localism of the first millennium BC preuented any one empire from retaining the long-term initiatiue against the continuous emergence of upstart newcomers. The success of each ciwilisation was inevitably linked to the strength of the empires attempting to resist successiue enuironmental attacks. Similar imperial struggles for supremacy litter the record of the early modern European era, and for precisely similar reasons. A ciuilisation may stagnate and decline, or inaduertently over-reach itself, just at the time when an arch rival is accelerating towards a major forward surge. Then the latter's rise helps to hastenmg the former's fali.

Evidence for ‘High Cultures’

Several grey areas arise from the notion of exploding ciuilisation events. These include the possible distinctions that differentiate between high cultures, cultural dissipative structures and fully fledged ciuilisations. As noted earlier, many cultures, dating from the eighth to the sixth millennium BC, reached an urban stage of development but failed to make the explosive leap to fuli ciuilisation status. The neolithic towns of the Near East fali into this 'high culture' category. An interesting example is the society that deueloped in the region of the uast Iranian Plateau. As Sumer to its west and the Indus to its east were forging new civilisations, this area evidently gained from its fortunate unique geographical situation as a bridge between the two. Between the eighth to the fourth millennium BC, a similar euolution of urban stratification occurred for settlements on the Susiana Plain. Here again, a consistent pattern of urban deuelopment emerged, with a hierarchical arrangement of settlement sites, as we saw for Uruk,® Nippur, Monte Alban and Thessaly. Settlement patterns mimie social stratification of the population,