pened around 3800 b.c.e., a drought drove people from the
countryside into the cities.
While cities were a viable solution to minor drought, ma-
jor droughts were too much for them. Around 2200 b.c.e. a
major drought affl icted all of Mesopotamia. Th e cities could
no longer feed their residents, and the people dispersed, leav-
ing their former homes to sink into ruin. When the rains re-
turned about 1900 b.c.e., the people returned as well, though
to diff erent sites; the rivers had changed course, and some of
the former city sites were no longer habitable. Cities contin-
ued to be the dominant settlement form in the region.
Th roughout the Middle East people followed similar
patterns, gathering around rare water sources. In the Levant
people settled near rivers, lakes, and other sources of water.
Th e Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee were major popula-
tion centers from early times. Th e coastline was also valuable
to fi shermen and sea traders. In Arabia there was so little wa-
ter that very few people lived there. Th e ones who did manage
to settle there permanently built towns on the coasts of the
Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
In Anatolia most people lived along the Black Sea and Ae-
gean coastlines, which had fertile land and a healthy climate.
People had settled the coast of the Black Sea (at that time called
the Euxine Sea) by the seventh century b.c.e. When the weather
grew warm and wet around 5800 b.c.e. the population on the
shores of the sea increased as more farmers took advantage of
the fertile soil. Also around 5800 b.c.e. the waters of the sea
began rising, and the entire area fl ooded, forcing residents to
abandon their homes and fl ee to higher ground. Many of t hem
moved into eastern Europe. Th e central part of the Anatolian
peninsula was mountainous and heavily forested, which made
living conditions diffi cult, though some hardy souls lived in
caves in the rocks. By the time of the Greek and Roman em-
pires, the western and northern coasts of Anatolia were heav-
ily populated with towns, large cities, and farmsteads.
In Persia the most fertile area was the coastline of the Cas-
pian Sea, which received more rain than any other part of thecountry. Human settlements were concentrated in this region.
Settlements also clustered along the trade route that led be-
tween India to the east and Mesopotamia to the west. Persian
rulers built cities throughout their realm; major cities were
Susa, near Babylon, and the Seleucid capital of Persepolis.ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Most paleontologists believe that early humans spread east-
ward from Africa along the southern coast of Asia. Many of
their settlements would now be underwater. Th ey would have
chosen to settle where the fi shing was good, spreading inland
only where the hunting and gathering were easy and probably
not establishing villages inland until population pressures
forced them to move. Th eir villages would have been far apart
and their overall population would have been thinly spread
over the landscape.
Humans reached the southeastern edge of Asia long be-
fore the beginning of the last ice age. From Southeast Asia
people moved slowly to outlying islands. In about 30,000
b.c.e. people began to settle Australia, probably inhabiting
its northwestern coast, where they could establish fi shing vil-
lages. Th ey spread slowly through what was then a mostly wet
continent, arriving at Tasmania in about 29,000 b.c.e. and
reaching the far southern edge of Australia in about 22,000
b.c.e. By 10,000 b.c.e. they were a thinly spread population of
about 300,000 people whose villages tended to be near shel-
tering rocks and forests, where they could escape direct sun-
light in what was becoming a mostly dry, hot land.
Th e earliest-known Indian culture is the Harappan civi-
lization (ca. 2600–ca. 1500 b.c.e.) of the Indus River valley in
northwestern India and Pakistan. Th e fi rst major cities dis-
covered by archaeologists were Harappa and Mohenjo Daro.
Both of these cities were near the Indus River, which for a
long time had archaeologists believing that the Indus River
was the focus of Harappan settlements. Yet the Vedas tell of
a major river, the Sarasvati, that was the focus of important
events. Th e Vedas are sacred works of Hindus that were the
oral tradition of the Vedic peoples who invaded India in about
1500 b.c.e. and which were written down sometime between
the 500s and 300s b.c.e.
It turns out that the Sarasvati had existed but dried up
between 2000 and 1000 b.c.e. It was east of the Indus River,
and it appears to have had far more Harappan settlements
along it than did the Indus. Th e Harappans were farmers and
traders. Most of their population lived near rivers, and they
used irrigation canals to water their farmlands. In general,
they used every bit of arable land for growing crops and built
their homes on land that was more rocky than the land they
farmed. Although most of their settlements were along the
Indus and Sarasvati rivers, every river in the valley had at
least one village along it. Th ey also had many villages in wet
lowlands near the Gulf of Kachchh and the Gulf of Khambhat
on the coast of the Arabian Sea and at least a few villages wellRelief fragment showing Assyrian soldiers towing a boat through
shallow water (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago)settlement patterns: Asia and the Pacific 9670895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i967 967 10/10/07 2:30:36 PM