This post has been revised and incorporated in a published book as of August 2015 (link above)
A tendency toward stasis in
tectonically quiescent ancient civilizations
Eric R. Force (eforce@email.arizona.edu)
In other posts I have addressed
different ways to quantify the apparent spatial relation of active tectonic
boundaries with "great ancient civilizations"—i.e. great cultural
complexity. The transect approach brought with it some clues
to the meaning of the spatial relation, as viewed from a continental-scale perspective. There is another way to consider and
quantify this relation and it too carries some clues to the dynamics of the
relation—actually a converse approach, the lack of dynamics for civilizations
in quiescent tectonic settings.
The descriptions of ancient civilizations in previous posts have noted the
static character of some of them. Many authors have commented on this
phenomenon—the ability of some ancient civilizations to maintain essentially
the same character and the same trappings, even the same catch-phrases, for
thousands of years (2). This property of stasis is difficult to quantify
except by this length of time that a civilization remains essentially the same.
In most cases the length of duration of civilizations can be given within a few
hundred years or less. Of course a beginning date is commonly
approximate; all attributes may not emerge at once and we may not know what
each date is. Ending dates are commonly more exact but the result of a
large variety of causes, some internal but some external, with limited
implication on the vitality of the civilization. So the precision of a
civilization’s duration may be greater than the hypothetical accuracy of
measures of its stasis.
Other questions intrude also; some situations might seem ambiguous. For
example, some long-lived ancient civilizations were subject to repeated
invasions from outside, each founding a new ruling dynasty. Egypt, China,
and Mesopotamia are prominent examples. In all three, the invaders did
not cause important cultural discontinuities; matters eventually returned to
normal even while the invaders were still in power. The conventional way
of treating these situations is to bring them under the umbrella of a single
civilization, and for our present purposes this would seem appropriate, as
stasis has been maintained.
Far
more debatable are cases where a new civilization arises where a previous one
had been, especially where the newcomers revere aspects of their predecessors
(as with Mycenaean re later classical Greek civilizations), and cases
where an advanced culture is forced to migrate (as with the Phoenicians and
Carthage). In these cases I’m inclined to separate the entities as most aspects
of stasis are destroyed.
With
these qualifications in mind, let’s ask whether civilization longevity is
related in any way to distance from active tectonic boundaries. The data
form table 1. For this purpose I have retained my 2008 separation of Assyrian
and other ancient Mesopotamian civilizations (3). I have also added four ancient cultures that are very
complex but generally omitted from lists of “great ancient civilizations” in
order to increase the number of cases to seventeen.
The resulting plot (figure 1) strongly suggests some relationship. Since the
distance measurement varies over several orders of magnitude, a logarithmic scale
for distance is plotted (4) against scalar values of duration. Plotted
this way, the points suggest a linear relation, although with considerable
scatter, as might be expected from a proxy variable, especially one subject to
the vagaries of history. The line easily survives tests of statistical
significance, however, (5) and seems to intersect the distance axis at about 10
km. And it’s gratifying to see that all the ancient civilizations can be
treated as a single population with no exceptions.
It appears that civilizations that are little-related to active tectonism have
a tendency to persist as distinctive entities for long time periods. But what
should we conclude about the shorter-lived civilizations? Since they
acquired the characteristics of “great ancient civilizations” in shorter time
periods—in some cases much shorter—we could conclude that they were more
dynamic. But the shorter-lived civilizations most commonly met their end
in being conquered by another great ancient civilization (6), in a sort of
whole-cultural analogue to the game of leapfrog. In other words their whole
cultural environments were more dynamic. Either way, or both ways, we
have an indication of more dynamic cultures in the more active tectonic
environments.
The longer-lived ancient civilizations in more quiescent tectonic environments
commonly acquired their essential character in a relatively short time at their
beginnings, and simply kept that character through a long middle age or a
senescent period. Takeovers were by far less complex cultures that
transferred headquarters to the conquered civilization and eventually acquired
its essential character, permitting cultural stasis. Thus this converse
case of tectonic inactivity is also a cultural phenomenon.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that active tectonic environments serve to
force the pace of change in cultures that find themselves there; it’s as if
they were taking stimulants. This conclusion from this posting is
consistent with entirely independent evidence presented in previous ones.
A summary of this evidence and suggestions for
further researches indicated by nagging questions are in other posts (7).
Notes
1. April 2, 2014 and Mar. 4, 2014
2. Examples--Fagan
2004 (see especially p. 382, 433, 470), Machinist 1986, Braudel
1998-2001. Fagan points out that differences in tendencies toward stasis
vs. dynamism exists in more-complex cultures of all sorts, and it would be
interesting to see whether this dichotomy corresponds to tectonic environments
generally. I can see that a few examples--the Lapita people, the Maori,
the tribes of the NW coasts of North America--seem promising in this regard.
3. The status of Assyria relative to Mesopotamia
is complex (May 8, 2014), but for this purpose keeping Assyria
separate is desirable as it increases the number of cases, unlike my post of
April 2, 2014 which gives random distribution the benefit of the doubt.
4.
That is, the importance of a 1-km difference decreases with distance. A
good but somewhat curved line results if scalar values are used on both axes.
5.The
relation seems to take the form: civilization duration proportional to
the log of distance (minus10 kilometers) from the pertinent plate
boundary. The plot for 17 sites (fig. 1) has an R-squared variance of
.5877 (fairly large), but an F significance (via the test ANOVA) of 0.00021
(i.e. an association of the variables is statistically supported at much better
than 95% confidence, which would correspond to an F significance of 0.05). I
would not care to suggest, however, that the intersection of the line with the
distance axis at 10 km implies that a civilization built within 10 km of a
plate boundary would last less than a year.
6. The Mycenaeans
and the Indus-Saraswati civilizations may be exceptions, and of course the
Romans being the last ancient civilization are an exception by definition.
7. Aug.
29, May 10, and Apr. 13, 2013 respectively
Table 1.--Distance-duration
data for ancient old-world civilizations, from previous postings. Distances are
from originating sites.
Civilization (or component)
|
Dates
|
Duration (yrs)
|
Approximate distance (km) from plate boundary
|
Carthaginian
|
530-146 BC
|
384
|
10
|
Etruscan
|
800-100 BC
|
700
|
155
|
Roman
|
510 BC-AD 565
|
1075
|
130
|
Mycenaean
|
1600-1150 BC
|
450
|
25
|
Greek
|
800-197 BC
|
603
|
10
|
Minoan
|
2200-1450 BC
|
750
|
60
|
Trojan
|
2300-1200 BC
|
1100
|
20
|
Hittite
|
1750-1200 BC
|
550
|
110
|
Phoenician
|
1400-585 BC
|
815
|
40
|
Hebrew
|
1100-334 BC
|
766
|
15
|
Assyrian
|
1814-612 BC
|
1202
|
100
|
Mesopotamian
|
3200-550 BC
|
2650
|
195
|
Persian (Achaemenid)
|
550-331 BC
|
219
|
33
|
Indus
|
2550-1750 BC
|
800
|
90
|
Aryan
|
1500 BC-AD 414
|
1914
|
100
|
Egyptian
|
3100-31 BC
|
3069
|
400
|
Chinese
|
1500 BC-AD 1800
|
3300
|
1500
|
 |
Figure 1 (from Force 2008)
|
References
Braudel,
F., (written 1969, published in French 1998) 2001, The Mediterranean in the
ancient world: Penguin, London, 408 p. (translated by Sian Reynolds)
Fagan, B.
M., 2004, People of the earth (11th ed.): Prentice-Hall.
Force, E.
R., 2008, Tectonic environments of ancient civilizations in the eastern hemisphere:
Geoarchaeology v. 23, p. 644-653
Machinist,
P, 1986, On self-consciousness in Mesopotamia, In The Origins and
Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, edited by S. N. Eisenstadt, 183-202. SUNY
Press, Albany
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