3 ms·
Even many agricultural societies still had seasonal nomadic tendencies during which they hunted and gathered. Many sedentary societies lived and worked communal
by t-3 4y ago
Even many agricultural societies still had seasonal nomadic tendencies during which they hunted and gathered. Many sedentary societies lived and worked communally without much social stratification. The reason we associate agriculture with centralization is that centralized agricultural societies conquered the others, not that centralization is inherent to agriculture.
- aswanson 4y agoWho did the Sumerians conquer? Seems like they just found a fertile area & stayed there.
- t-3 4y agoDoesn't matter for the point I made. Where does the country of Sumer rule today?
- aswanson 4y agoIt's remanded to the sands of time. That tends to happen to civilizations that started 7000 years ago.
- midoridensha 4y agoThey were destroyed by Gozer the Gozerian.
- aswanson 4y agoLol
- ramblenode 4y agoTo elaborate on this point: without agriculture centralization wasn't advantageous (or possible) but with agriculture centralization is advantageous--so centralized societies outcompete and are "selected for" over non-centralized societies and we end up with a "genotype" of societies having the trait of centralization.