Chapter 2: First Civilizations

                In this chapter, we’ve transitioned from the Stone Age of the Paleolithic era into the Neolithic Age, or “New Stone” era, and then finally into the Ancient era.  The primary transition between the ages was the innovation of agriculture, which allowed the gatherers and hunters to settle down from the life of migrating to where the food was at.  Agriculture created the domestications of plants and certain animals to produce an abundance of food, and this solution to regulate the rations brought upon specialization geared towards perfecting different skill sets.  By late Neolithic into early Ancient era, some of these specialized skills that launched forward into civilization were the developments of the written language.  As the other civilizations began creating tools and manufacturing goods, they had also created their writing systems in order to keep track of their trades between the other developing societies.  Continuing developments within the Ancient era appear to flourish in places close to water which regulated their irrigation systems, coupled with the cultivation of security, aesthetics, and spirituality/religion.  Anthropologist Robert Carneiro argues the rapid rate of growth within the colonies could be rooted with the competitive nature of man.  With the continual attempts to out produce, out populate, and expand their territories, Carneiro believes that the neighboring populations would continually participate in wars with each other—the victor would acquire all of the lands and resources, while the conquered inhabitants would succumb into the roles of lower classed people. (p69)

            For me, I felt that this transition into the Ancient cultures was fascinating because it appears that all of the civilizations had approximately the same rate of evolving into this newly organized way of life.  At the same time however, as the picture becomes clearer of how the different countries came to fruition, I do share the remorse over the course of actions that lead to creating inequalities.  Perhaps it would be inevitable anyways considering how people today strongly rely on competition in order to strive for perfection.  While I do believe that a healthy venue for competition is needed in order to evolve, I also draw the line to how the victors generally regard their bested opponent.  The competition also becomes absolutely ridiculous when the discriminations of superior genders, class, race, and religion cost the lives of their rivals as well as the hostility towards their own citizens.  Not only does the inequality enforce slavery and self entitlements, but this behavior has been governed as part of the social norm for thousands of years.  It makes me think that to fight these social and gender inequalities worldwide, it would take much longer than a single lifetime to counteract the generations and millennia of mistreatments.

            Something else I found myself thinking about when reading Strayer’s work regarding how previous historians concentrated on the written texts of the ancient documents and recordings.  On page 77 to be specific, Strayer elaborates how revolutionary the written language became for these developing cultures saying “it was a powerful and transforming innovation, regarded almost everywhere as a gift from the gods, while people without writing often saw it as something magical or supernatural”.  In other words, the people educated in the written language were closer to their gods (or at least regarded higher in class) when compared to the illiterate.  This leads me to speculate on the accuracy of these ancient archives since we are only able to receive the works and perspectives of the elite and divine individuals, rather than hearing the voices of the repressed and conquered individuals.  While learning of the powers the Kings and leaders practiced over their less powerful citizens, we can only contemplate what their lives would truly be like when accounting the consistent oppressions the elite regarded their slaves and poorer class.  I would still believe these ancient texts to be more reliable sources than the speculations of undocumented artifacts found in the Paleolithic Period; however, I am also able to recognize that the primary sources of history taken place within the Ancient era is primarily recorded by the self appointed upper class.  This also makes me curious to know if the future textbooks that depict what life was like for the residents of 2000-2100 C.E. would be accurate on the middle and lower class’s perspective, or if history will erase the voices of the powerless, and only consider the perspectives of the people powerful enough to shape the future as they saw fit.  At this moment in time, I feel the wish for an egalitarian life in today’s society is becoming more and more like a dream—as long as the people in power continue to protect their influences and personal agendas from the less fortunate, we will never find true equality.