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I warmly recommend to anyone interested in this line of thought James Scott's "Against the grain" for oldest evidence of the first agrarian states in the middle
by fsloth 5y ago
I warmly recommend to anyone interested in this line of thought James Scott's "Against the grain" for oldest evidence of the first agrarian states in the middle east.
"Against the grain" points out that it's not obvious as number of people increases everyone wants to live in cities ruled over and taxed by someone else.
"I think it’s pretty clear that sophisticated societies existed long before recorded history."
If you mean beyond 12k years or so I would not say it's "pretty clear". I would go as far and say it's psychologically and biologically feasible, but we have no evidence to back this up.
What archaeological evidence does prove, is that arrival of anything resembling civilization was a shambolic affair lasting thousands of years, composed of waxing and waning city-sized polities that could at maximum control only few tens of square kilometers of area.
What we do have are sites like Göbekli Tepe at max 12 000 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
The arrival of agricultural plants is around the same time during Neolithic Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution
I think you would need to expand on the meaning of "sophisticated". I don't want to presume your intent with the use of this word.
But, a hunter gatherer society looks quite a lot different from an agricultural society.
Of course the people living in a hunter gatherer society could very well be artistically and philosophically very developed. But the likelihood of an "Atlantean supercivilization" would be very small.
I think both options are pretty cool. As a species we have a history of 200 000 years. Either our past is riddled with complex emergent societies that have been ground to dust, forgotten, only for the cycle to start again a new over and over again over thousands of years. And only on our current cycle we've managed to start to reach the full potential of our species.
Or, there have not been "civilizational cycles" which would make our anthropocene epoch with it's industrialization and science something even more mind blowingly astonishing.
Both options are humbling.
- galaxyLogic 5y agoIsn't the theory that agriculture meant some book-keeping was needed, to keep track of the seasons and when to plant. This book-keeping then caused the development of writing in general. And writing caused the birth of inter-generational memory and the ability to accumulate knowledge. Of course oral histories can be cross-generational as well, but writing is much more efficient storage medium than human brain alone. Writing allows human brains to co-operate over vast geographical distances and time-scales.
- fsloth 5y agoOral history seems to be surprisingly robust. As an anecdote Socrates was critical of how writing makes you forget things. https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/socrates-on-the-forgetfulness-that-comes-with-writing https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/socrates-...
- gen220 5y agoI think bookkeeping may be a related catalyst. But it's primary use seems more for inter-societal trade (settling accounts), than intra-societal education. Bookkeeping is not the only prerequisite for written language, e.g. in the new world, sophisticated bookkeeping mechanisms existed for centuries without written language.