The Early History of the Ancient Near East (9000-2000 BC) Page 3

  If this system is located in a larger, cohesive geographical area in which there are no physical barriers, it is theoretically possible to extend the system. This expansion will, however, be frustrated if the maximum size, as determined by the maximum transport radius, is ever exceeded. Hence we must assume that expansion will take place in a manner that takes this limitation into account. Instead of a mere spatial expansion of the simple settlement system, a further system will grow up in the available open space, and the two systems will become immediate neighbors. What happened at the lowest stage therefore repeats itself once individual settlements are established in geographical locations such that it is possible for them to coexist as direct neighbors on the same level.

  This process is of great significance because, just as subordination causes a network of mutual interdependence to grow up among settlements capable of moving away from each other, possibly with the establishment of one settlement as a center, the close proximity of two simple settlement systems will lead to a situation where the centers of the two systems of the first order come into competition with each other. Because of this, new ranking orders are established, which finally end up with the creation of a higher-ranking center. From several systems of the first order, a system of the second order is thus created by close physical proximity in a larger unified area (fig. 11c).

  At this point it must particularly be noted that in this development there is clearly a direct relationship between the size of the area to be settled and the level of organizational settlement. If, for example, a simple system grows up on a plain that it exactly occupies, no expansion—and hence no higher stage of development—is possible.

  This is only possible when larger plains offering space for several parallel simple systems are settled. Incidentally, when suitable areas are available, this process can be repeated several times, resulting in systems of the third or fourth order. We shall see that all these levels can be shown to have existed in the ancient Near East.

  Although it would doubtless be in the interest of accurate definition to speak exclusively of the “center” and the “surrounding area,” the following common terms are also used in this book for the sake of clarity: village (the lowest level of organization), town (a middle-level settlement), city (the level or organization below that of the state), and (regional) state (the unit of organization at the highest level). Local center defines the center of a simple settlement system, regional center the focal point of a larger unit. Any further differentiation will be found to arise naturally out of the respective contexts.

  We ascribe such a high value to the reconstruction of settlement systems because they represent the comprehensive framework around which the social and economic aspects of an important part of any civilization are systematically interwoven. Knowledge about the growth and functioning of settlements, gained by the study of how an area was settled and of the settlement systems and the changes that took place in them, makes it possible for us to gain insight into the opportunities in any particular period for finding suitable forms of organization for the prevailing socioeconomic needs and ideals.

  Obviously, this is all that we can know. Our efforts hardly ever allow us to press ahead and find out all the details of this complex network, details such as the actual ways in which the inhabitants of a settlement lived and worked. Further work is needed to find out more about this.

  In fact there is a whole series of other possibilities for research open to us, since we can definitely assume that changes in archaeological material are reflections of changes in the community at that period. However, in our efforts to establish connections between archaeologically tangible changes and changes in the community, we soon come up against enormous problems, because the scope of our interpretation is often far too great. Even where possibilities exist for narrowing the field, we must still bear in mind that there are great differences in the certainty with which we can designate the causal connection. In this process we have to treat the connection between the appearance of an object, and/or its material, and the technology needed to produce that object, as it appears to us, as the relatively most certain criterion. However, because particular technologies imply specific social preconditions or general patterns of society, or can only be produced under particular forms of economic organization, it is possible, to a limited degree, to draw from such artifacts certain conclusions as to the social conditions under which they were produced. The list of types of finds available for this kind of evaluation can be extended by examples from architecture, or by archaeological connections by which, for example, we can recognize sequences of operations.

  It is quite clear that we can never hope to get anywhere near to completely filling in the picture of all the conditions within the community, or the changes that took place in them, especially as it is not possible to turn the above sentence around: in no way do all the changes in society translate into processes that can be grasped by the archaeologist. The effect of this systematic error of interpretation is increased by the fact that the sort of observations thought necessary by today’s standards were hardly ever carried out during excavations in former times. This book will, however, demonstrate that in spite of all the limitations I have mentioned, there are enough points of reference to justify an attempt at an overall view, precisely from the aspect of the reconstruction of economic and social conditions and the changes that took place in them.

  It is in keeping with the total concept of this book that the method of interpretation does not change with the first appearance of the names of rulers or dynasties. On the contrary, from the moment when it first appears, information from written sources will be regarded as an obvious and very welcome complement to results achieved in other ways. Methods used in the earlier period can still give results for the time for which written evidence is available.

  Here we should point out the difficulties one is confronted with when one decides to include written sources as evidence. The written tradition from Babylonia is dominated by two languages, Sumerian and Akkadian. Although they belong to totally different language groups—and are therefore easy to differentiate and to recognize—they were written with the same system of writing.

  Sumerian is an agglutinative language that so far still cannot be linked to any other language in the world. Apart from Eblaitic (see chap. 5), Akkadian is the oldest of the great family of Semitic languages to be fixed by writing. Akkadian, with its various dialects and linguistic stages, was the main language of Babylonian civilization up to and including the late period. It was recognized fairly early on that in the later period Sumerian was only used in cult literature and had already died out as a living language.

  As progress was made in research into more ancient periods, it became clear that Sumerian was spoken in lower Mesopotamia at a time when Akkadian speakers had not yet settled there, or at least had not yet begun to express themselves in writing, and that there must have been a period when both languages were spoken. In this context, it seemed as though the texts of the Early Dynastic III period were in Sumerian, the ones of the Akkad Dynasty were in Akkadian, and the ones of the following period, that of the Third Dynasty of Ur, were again—for the last time—composed in Sumerian.

  Hence, though there were local differences, Sumerian was recognized to be the language of the early period until the end of the Early Dynastic period; it was replaced by Akkadian at the time of the Akkad Dynasty, but used again as the general language of (written) communication among its successors, the rulers of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The Early Dynastic III and Akkad phases were the first ones in which the potential of writing to reproduce complex relations in language was fully exploited—at a time, moreover, when Babylonian civilization already had a long blooming behind it. This distinction calls for an explanation, since writing had, of course, already appeared at the end of the fourth millennium B.C.—that is, about six hundred years before the period we have just referred to.

  Writing was developed at the en
d of the fourth millennium B.C. by a mixed language group in which Sumerian was apparently the main component. For centuries, writing was hardly ever used except for recording economic procedures, until it was finally used to make short votive inscriptions. It was only in the middle of the third millennium B.C. that, owing to changes in the system of writing, writing evolved into an instrument that made possible the reproduction of complicated texts, as we shall see in chapter 5.

  Because language in all its details was first fixed in writing at this point in time, this is the earliest stage from which it is possible for us to carry out linguistic research. These earliest detailed texts can still not be understood in every part, and the sometimes clumsy way in which, for example, grammatical categories were reproduced has sometimes produced the feeling that the preceding period as a whole indeed was but an early stage in the development of higher civilization.

  However, this book will in any case show that this phase in the development of writing can already be regarded in many respects as a later period in the development of complicated higher forms of organization. For a period that, regarded from the overall historical point of view, demonstrates complexity—as the result of many centuries of political, economic, and social development—we find ourselves confronted with the most primitive difficulties in vocabulary and grammar. Nonetheless, even these considerations hardly justify changing the whole method of presentation when the first historically interpretable texts make their appearance.

  Chronologically, this book follows the development of Mesopotamian civilization from the beginnings of the original settlements down to the establishment of fixed forms of supra-local regulated coexistence which is first evident in the states of the Akkad Dynasty and the Third Dynasty of Ur. Expressed in figures, this covers the period from approximately 9000 to approximately 2000 B.C.

  The date 2000 B.C. is, of course, not a historical caesura. It merely signifies the end of a long span of time that, in spite of many diversions and occasional periods of regression, saw steady progress toward more complex organizational structures. At the same time, it signifies the beginning of a phase of consolidating what had been achieved, especially a refining of administrative structures. A new dimension was only reached more than a thousand years later with the formation of empires.

  TWO

  The Time of Settlement (ca. 9000–6000 B.C.)

  Just as in other parts of the world, traces of human existence are known to us in this region from as early as the Palaeolithic period. Habitation layers and the remains of skeletons from the Neanderthal (i.e., Mousterian or Middle Palaeolithic) period have been found in different areas of the Near East in caves, for example, at Shanidar in Iraq, in northeastern Iran, and on Mount Carmel in Palestine (fig. 2).

  In such caves deposits from different cultures can frequently be separated out into a great number of different levels of usage, each of which bears witness to a different period of human occupation. However, these periods are distributed over thousands of years, embracing the Neanderthal period, for example, and we have no means of specifying the total length of time, or the periods of time that elapsed between each phase of occupation.

  Judging by the material that has been found, there can be no doubt that the caves were only in use during particular seasons of the year. Although it is true that early humans seem often to have returned to such places, since caves undoubtedly offered welcome protection from the elements, there is no evidence to prove that this took place regularly every year. It is probable that during his or her lifetime a person would seldom have returned to such a place for a second time, and certainly not more often than two or three times.

  Basic subsistence was provided by hunting, fishing, or gathering plants and fruit to eat. We are not in a position to say anything about the respective size of the groups of early settlers. Sites on open ground, which must have served as campsites during the warmer seasons, have not yet been found, although they, too, can definitely be expected in the Near East, as they have been found to have existed at this time in Europe, where research has been much more intensive.

  Unfortunately, as it happens, the few places where remains from the Palaeolithic period have been found in the Near East were discovered by chance. Even small areas have hardly ever been systematically investigated for remains from this period. No far-reaching conclusions should therefore be drawn from the fact that so far all our finds came from caves located on the middle slopes of the different mountain ranges of the Near East.

  This picture changes with the beginning of the Neolithic period. In addition to deposits indicating short stays with long intervals of time in between, just like those of the previous period, we now come across traces of human existence that, even if they do not point to a stay lasting a whole year, at least suggest a very extended period of residence in the area. Statements about the position of the settlements and campsites for this period can now be made with a good deal more certainty because the number of places found is much greater. They are usually far apart from one another, and are situated for the most part in more or less strongly differentiated terrain, chiefly in mountainous regions and never on the great alluvial plains the Near East possesses in southern Iraq (ancient Babylonia) and Khuzistan (ancient Susiana).

  Figure 2. Entrance and cross section of the cave of Shanidar (Iraq). From R. Solecki, Shanidar: The First Flower People (New York, 1971), pl. 8 and fig. 1.

  Perhaps this phenomenon can be explained by the assumption that the site for a settlement—whether permanent or temporary—was not chosen at random, but that consideration was also given—or perhaps this was the prime consideration—to whether the environment would afford people good opportunities to utilize it. The optimal situation would have been felt to have been afforded by places where varied sustenance was available close to the campsite in sufficient quantity for as long, and as regularly, as possible.

  Figure 3. Neolithic sites in the Near East. After J. Mellaart, The Neolithic of the Near East (New York, 1975), map 1.

  Nature provides such sites in only limited numbers, and because there is a varying supply of plants and animals that can be used as nourishment depending on the season, we may rule out the possibility that situations existed where a constant supply of food would have been available for the whole year. This made it all the more necessary for man to settle down in places whose external conditions—even if only temporarily—came as near as possible to those considered desirable. Even if it were not available over the whole year, the food supply should at least be available for as long as possible. If not available in every conceivable form, there should at least be sufficient variety. And even if the food could not only be gathered right next to the settlement site, it should at least be within easy reach.

  Sites that fulfill all these conditions are actually not so rare in the Near East. They can be found wherever small-scale ecotopes lie very close to each other, and where, in addition, there is optimal access to animals and plants that can be used for subsistence. The difference between ecological units is, as a rule, shown in the differences between land formations, the types of wild animals inhabiting an area, and the types of plants that grow there, with their varying times of ripening.

  A camp that sprang up on the borderline between such ecological units would have made it possible to use all the resources the different areas had to offer, either simultaneously or consecutively. The distances to be covered could be minimized, while at the same time maximizing the variety of food and the length of time that the food supply was available.

  Sites in which as many small ecological units as possible lie close to one another tend to go hand in hand with differences in relief and/or differences in the composition of the soil. For this reason, they are more likely to be found on a terrain that is externally strongly differentiated—that is, above all, in hilly or mountainous terrain. It is surely no accident that traces of early permanent or temporary human settlements in the Near East are found almost exclusively
in areas with differentiated structures in the landscape, and there at sites from which there is the easiest possible access to as many different ecological units as possible (fig. 4).

  However, for the earliest phase, during which guaranteeing subsistence consisted almost exclusively in gathering what food there was to be had—that is, through hunting, fishing, and gathering plants and fruit—these considerations must remain hypothetical because, as already mentioned, such sites are not known to us in sufficient numbers.

  Nonetheless, a detailed investigation of the region around the Kamarband cave in the mountain region southeast of the Caspian Sea has revealed that this cave was in a situation that was nearly optimal, at the focal point of an area with substantially varied food yields. The site, halfway up mountains rising relatively steeply from the coastal plain, allowed the inhabitants freely to exploit animals and plants from the coastal plain, from the slopes of the mountains, and from the higher mountainous regions, as well as from the high plateaus.

  For the period of permanent settlements that was now beginning, the examples are once again more numerous. The principle described above can here be recognized with even greater reliability. Thus, for example, the little settlement of Qalʾe Rostam from the pottery Neolithic period lay at the edge of a small plain surrounded by high mountains in the Zagros range, providing easy access both to the bodies of water and marshy areas in the middle of this undrained plain and to the gently rising verges and scree slopes at the foot of the mountains, which—on account of their good natural drainage—were, and still are, the natural habitat of many plants. There was also easy access to the different mountain levels, which are home to a variety of wild animals.