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234 The Origin of Civilisation

Whetewer the detail of the actiwating mechanism, what materiał ises is a dynamie system Łhrobbing with excitation. But will this intangible ąuality actually be detectable in the archaeological and historical records? In so far as it seems evident that a ciwilisation genesis should bring together uniquely new conjunctions of ideas and innovations, substant Lal ly involwing ewery one of the five culture subsystems, ewidence to support this notion is not too elusive. Through the ' footlooseness' of people, ideas and innovations can radiate wideły, with sonie measure of copy cat emulation, borrowing or ev/en enhancement of an original idea. Yet the wery first example of any new achiewement, including the first ciwilisation itsełf, would be a key initial break through, where the entire process was a spontaneous, indigenously gener-ated effluorescence. Thus to qualify as a new civ i 1 isat ion, rather than being merely a copy of some earlier amalgam, ewery example must pass this dynamie test.

There will be some exciting, imaginatiwe and uniquely new ideas, innovations and institutions, including innowatiwe conjunctions, radiating extensively across ewery one of the fiwe culture subsystems.

We must now turn from the theoretical to the archaeological and historical considerations, to ascertain how closely the theory explains the known facts, but clearly, we should find this to be a recognisable phenomenon associated with ewery unique ciwilisation that has ewer existed.

Evidence for a Chrilisation Genesis

Ancient Mesopotamia, the "walley of the twin riwers," the Euphrates and the Tigris, was the cradle of ciwilisation in the Near East. Here, with these pioneering Sumer ians, we must surely begin our search. On the probable arriwal of the Sumerians during the second half of the fourth millennium BC, Kramer makes this telling comment:

Wherewer the Sumerians came from and whatewer type of culture they brought with them, this is certain: their arriwal led to an extraordinary fusion, both ethnic and cultural, with the natiwe population and brought about a creatiwe sport fraught with no little significance for the history of civi 1 ization. In the course of the centuries that followed, Sumer reached new heights of political power and economic wealth, and witnessed some of its most significant achiewements in the arta and crafts, in monumental architecture, in religious and ethical thought, and in orał myth. epic, and hymn. Abowe all, the Sumerians, whose language gradually be came the prewailing speech of the land, dewised a system of writing, deweloped it into an effectiwe tool of communication and took the first steps towards the introduction of formal educalion.²⁵

Their brilliant achiewements were, no doubt, linked to the Łransition to a predominantly urban society, a process we examined in chapter 4. As the first true city dwellers, the Sumerians ewolued the concept of the socio-political inatitution, the city-state, with its symbiotic association between the town and the agricułtural hinterland. This interactiwe arrangement proved to be such a successful formula that it was utilised by numerous other societies throughout five thousand years of history. Seueral examples of city-state ciwilisations were discussed in The Seamless Web*²⁶ Robert McC.Adams notes the dramatic population mowements that helped to forge the early Sumerian city-states out of the early scattered settlements:

The formidable fact is that, within the space of no morę than a few centuries, dwellers in smali towns and rural settlements all ouer Southern Mesopotamia owerwhelmingly chose to abandon conditions of rural insecurity with which they could no longer cope or were compelled to do so by the emerging military and administrative elites who were the chief protagonists (and beneficiaries) of the formation of walled city-states. And for this trend at least, Uruk was one of the very largest and earliest examples and hence may serwe as a paradigm or prototype.²⁷

The dynamie aspect of the Sumerian efflorescence rewolwes primarily around the people and their settlement patterns - an abrupt metamorphosis emerging through time. McC.Adams describes the most widely recurring similarity across the region as "an initial rapid, pronounced rise in rural settlement."²⁸ The earlier pattern of widely dispersed sites, continuing through the Ubaid period, was replaced by a much denser, morę highly clustered pattern with large collections of closely grouped smali villages?Subseguently, the city-states in Sumer grew, according to McC,Adams, "through the depopulation of the countryside around them." The complete transformation to an essentially urban society took no morę than a few centuries, (from the Late Uruk period to late Early Dynastie Limes).³⁰ Glyn Daniel wrote:

By the fourth Uruk phase, somewhere between 3200 and 3100 BC, we (are) without doubt dealing with a society that was civilised according to the definitions of ciwilisation which we are adopting in this book. [pp 11-13 in chapter 1 of this wolume has the details]. There were cities, specialized craftsmen, co-operative irngation works, ceremoniał centres, writing - and many morę things which make the proto-literate society of Uruk and Jemdet-Nasr civilized in the meaningful historical and archaeological use of that word. And that civilization, which in terms of archaeological levels and periods is Uruk IV and Jemdet-Nasr, is Sumerian.³¹

The amazing abilities of the Sumerians can readily be seen to extend across the entire rangę of cultural pursuits, from the arts and Sciences to ethical and spiritual ideas. They madę astonishing progress in many technological