Chapter 3
The first link
Once societies passed through the agricultural revolution, some began a
process of transition toward social, political, and economic complexity that
ultimately made them qualitatively and quantitatively different from earlier
societies. Historians no longer draw a hard distinction between societies
officially labeled as“civilizations”and others that do not quite meet the set
of criteria that were once rigidly in place. But the word“civilization”is still
convenient to apply to societies that went through this process, if we recog-
nize that it represents a very ambiguous concept. With this in mind, the
earliest civilization is considered to have emerged in Sumer, the southern
part of Mesopotamia, a large plain lying between the Euphrates and Tigris
rivers during the fourth millenniumBCE.
The soil of Sumer was alluvial and very rich, allowing cultivators to pro-
duce a surplus of wheat and barley. Communities coalesced into city states
such as Uruk, which undertook large construction projects that included
temples and other forms of monumental architecture requiring vast amounts
of building materials. Once built, these establishments needed to be furn-
ished, indeed adorned. At the same time, the elite classes of priests and
officials who directed and managed these societies did not hesitate to reward
themselves with the luxury and prestige items they felt they so justly
deserved. Armies needed to be equipped, ships built, infrastructure main-
tained, and other practical matters addressed. Once again trade increased
enormously.
The trade of the early civilizations must be kept in perspective. Most
people lived out their lives farming, herding, orfishing and consuming food,
clothing, and other goods they produced themselves or obtained from their
immediate locale. The Sumerian economy was never primarily directed
toward export production, and the common people that comprised its base
got no direct benefit from long-distance trade. Nevertheless, the importance
of trade was disproportionate to its scale. Trade became an engine in driving
socio-political complexity.
If the Sumerians wanted to build great cities and allow their elite classes
to maintain a privileged lifestyle, they had to be great traders since Sumer