This posting has been revised and incorporated in a published book as of August 2015 (link above)
Transects:
Viewing the comparative complexity of ancient cultures at a continental scale
Eric
R. Force (eforce@email.arizona.edu)
Previous postings of this weblog, and related
publications (see references) have described the remarkably active tectonic
environments of ancient civilizations, and quantified the apparent spatial
relationship. An additional way to verify the significance of this
relation between ancient civilizations and active tectonic boundaries is to
back away, to view it as if from afar, comparing the complexity of cultures in
tectonically quiescent cratonic interiors with those we have described on
tectonically active plate margins (1). This could be done along
“transects” ideally crossing plate margins at right angles for particular times
in antiquity, as a way of dealing with the huge number of cultures that have
come and gone in the entire eastern hemisphere. Figure 1 quantifies the
results in terms of the listed criteria of Childe (1950) for civilization
normalized to plate-boundary location. An extended discussion of the
validity of these criteria is below in a note (2).
My introduction in this weblog to the quandary
posed by the spatial distribution of civilizations (3) is itself a transect of
sorts across the southern margin of the Eurasian plate, from Greece to Etruria
to southern Gaul in about 600-300 B.C. It was noted that cultural
accomplishment varied with tectonic activity; both accomplishment and tectonism
were great in Greece, both more moderate in Etruria, both very modest in
pre-Roman Gaul (4). As a transect this assemblage is somewhat
compromised, as it crosses tectonic boundaries in a composite way and is
discontinuous. It of course was only meant to provoke thought, but we can
keep it in mind as better sample transects come along. It is linked with
one of these in figure 1.
Good transect possibilities are actually hard to
find. Many are inherently one-sided due to intervening seaways or
nearly-impassible deserts or mountain ranges. The looped shape of plate
boundaries make some of them impractical to cross with straight lines (fig.
2). So, a few of those I’ll describe start in a quiescent cratonic
interior and approach an active margin, but end when we get there, i.e. they
are one-sided transects.
A western Asia transect.—One exception to these
difficulties would extend from modern Jordan through northern Mesopotamia into
the land between the Black and Caspian seas and on to the Caucasus
Mountains. If we look in on the area in the interval 900-700 B.C. we find
the SW end inhabited by Aramean-speaking nomads. The country is dry, of
course, but not so useless that Nabatean farmers and builders could not inhabit
it some centuries later. Far to the west were principalities of Moab and
Edom, but another plate boundary lies just beyond them.
At the Euphrates plain we abruptly enter the
Assyrian civilization and empire, which seemingly could have written
Childe’s criteria as self-description. This culture and its
capitals Ninevah and Assur are well-described as exceedingly complex (5) .
The convergent boundary between the Arabian and Eurasian plates is only about
120 km to the northeast. It is somewhat distributed, with different motion
types on different faults (6).
Across this zone was the Urartu kingdom,
centered around Lake Van. These people, successors to Bronze-age Hurrians
and ancestors to Armenians, were renowned for their metal (especially bronze)
work, complex dams and canals, temples, fortresses, and inscribed stele, and
they left behind epigraphy suggesting a national consciousness.
They had their own religion, and their language, though commonly written in
Assyrian, is still poorly understood.
Past Urartu toward the Caucasus Mountains were
nomadic Cimmerians, and at times the Scythians, for which there will be more
description later. Portable art, trade, and occasional concerted effort
of these cultures seem the only assets that Childe would appreciate (7).
Figure 1 shows this transect in terms of Childe’s criteria for the
cultures described. Note that he
greatest cultural complexities plot nearest the plate boundary.
The result of this transect would have been
roughly the same if our path had crossed the Tigris-Euphrates valley anywhere
along its length. What if the time period had been different? If we
adopt the same path and look at the late Bronze-Age cultures along it, in
Jordan there would have been nomads; in place of Iron-age Assyrians we would
have a so-called Old Assyria, the northern half of the previous Akkadian empire
of Mesopotamia (but lacking the famous art and architecture of its descendent);
in place of Urartu we would have the Hurrian-Mittani culture, famous for its
ceramics, metallurgy, music, religion, and thriving cities; and the nomads to
the north were not yet as accomplished as the Scythians would be. Figure
1 shows (dotted) that we have replicated the same curve as for the later period
but at a lower level and with narrower distribution.
South and central Asia.—Another
nearly-symmetrical transect begins in peninsular India, crosses the Ganges
plain, then the Himalayas onto the Tibetan plateau and into central Asia.
Let’s look at this for about A.D. 400-600 when complex cultures are most
evident and numerous for this region (8).
The south end begins in ancient Kalinga, roughly
the Bihar of today, then under the thumb of the rulers of the Ganges plain to
the north. It contained rich cities along the coast carrying on a
flourishing trade with Burma (and already boasting some notable temples) but very
few sizeable settlements to the south and west. The culture was based on
tribal feudalism, though Kalingans had previously united sufficiently to battle
invaders from the Ganges. Kalingans had their own Dravidian script.
The religion was mostly Jain, already ancient, though the area has a rich
history of religious transitions involving Hinduism and Buddhism.
Northward into the Ganges plain we enter at this
period the Guptan empire and its culture. It was one of the world’s
greatest, already showing all the essential characteristics we associate with
Indian culture as still revered by countless devotees the world over (9). North of the Ganges plain only 150 km we
pass across the plate boundary into the Himalayas, and we’ll have to excuse
areas at very high elevations for a lack of great civilizations, but remarkably
soon we pass into a part of the Tibetan plateau where an empire was
emerging. Many palace-fortresses that subsequently became monastic
cities included barley-granaries, military armories, and factories for trade
goods (10). Chinese records show the militaristic nature of this culture,
later minimized as Buddhism took over its records.
Moving north again onto the northern Tibetan
plateau we would encounter only Altaic-speaking nomadic cultures that seem
embodiments of a contrast with Childe’s criteria. Still farther north
come the Hsiung-Nu nomads against whom China built its great wall. Figure
1 thus shows a definite relation between cultural complexity and distance from
tectonic plate boundaries.
Southeastern Europe.—A one-sided transect could
go from Greece northward into eastern Europe. Ancient Greek civilization
(11) must be what Childe had in mind when he proposed his criteria, and as
we’ve seen, several of its originating sites are practically on major tectonic
boundaries. Several time periods including the Mycenaean era would be
suitable for our transect, but if we choose that for 600-300 B.C., classical
Greek civilization is at its height. Its northern margin is with a tribal
mostly-agricultural culture called the Thracians by Herodotus, a major source
of information about them. In the later part of our time interval it was
united into a so-called Odrysian kingdom that was in the process of becoming
Hellenized, speaking Greek in court, etc. and styling its capital village of
Seuthopolis a city. Then at about the Danube River the
dominant culture becomes that of the Scythians, a semi-nomadic tribal culture
about which Herodotus was particularly intrigued. Their portable arts, especially
in gold and mostly preserved in their burial mounds, are widely admired. Their
language and religion are vaguely Iranic, and reportedly their economy
benefitted from trade in slaves they captured in raids. The Scythians
were the end point of our south and central Asia transect also; as a loose
confederation they occupied an enormous area of central Asia.
This transect, along with the composite transect
of my introduction (12), pivots at
ancient Greece as a common point and using the same time interval. As
with the other two transects (of figure 1), cultural complexity falls off
markedly away from tectonic plate boundaries. And clearly, the same
transect taken in the late Bronze Age would have the same general character,
with lower Childe-scores and with narrower geographic spread (13).
Two African half-transects.—Transects of ancient
cultures do not have to run through great civilizations; they just have to
present contrasts in both cultural complexity and tectonic environments.
In Africa, two possible transects are limited by seaways and deserts to being
one-sided, but are nevertheless illustrative.
First, if we start anywhere on the Punic coast
of present-day Tunisia and venture southward, it is over 400 kilometers before
we reach country too dry for settlement, partly because of the coastal
embayment of the Gulf of Gabes. The boundary between the African and
Eurasian plates swings gently in the other direction, however, giving a range
of distance from plate boundaries from about 100 km for ancient Carthage,
Utica, etc. to 500 km at the south end of the Gulf where Phoenicians never
settled but nomads roamed until late in Carthage’s history (14). Thus any
such transect taken from at least 1000 B.C. to about 200 B.C. would show
cultural complexity approaching the Childe maximum at the end nearest the plate
boundary to the Childe minimum at the other end.
Transects that cross the Nile where it traverses
desert landscapes would show complex cultures only along the river. But
farther south, the ancient kingdom of Axum (Aksum) was adjacent to the Afar
triangle, where the African-Arabian plate boundary is in the adjacent narrows
of the Red Sea and where the East African Rift begins. The highlands at this
latitude are vegetated across Ethiopia to the Sudan. By A.D. 200 and for
about 500 years thereafter, Axum might be considered a great ancient
civilization (15) if we knew enough about it . But to the west were like
Neolithic tribes, except for Egyptian refugees that formed a kingdom of Meroe
on the river—which Axum eventually conquered. Again, an exceedingly
complex culture about 200 km from a plate boundary contrasts with a
comparatively simple one at about 900 km.
These two half-transects each consist of only
two points, and are hardly worth plotting as their geometries seem
obvious. Added to figure 1, they would support the array showing maxima
of cultural complexity along active tectonic boundaries.
Other possible transects.—These five transects
present a remarkably orderly variation of cultural complexity with tectonic
position in antiquity (fig. 1). The reader is bound to wonder how the
outcome was determined by my positioning of transects. For all of them,
the path could be varied significantly without changing the overall
result—indeed in most cases the peaks at tectonic boundaries would be sharper,
with fewer shoulder-cultures. And choosing an earlier time interval in
antiquity would generally sharpen the peaks also, as there would be fewer
outlying complex cultures, whereas predecessors of the most accomplished civilization
would already be complex.
Many transect possibilities are ruled out by the
distribution of major seaways and deserts. One additional one in south
Asia could be added for the specific period of the Indus-Saraswati
civilization, extending from peninsular India across the Indus into the
mountains of Baluchistan. This would be analogous to the south
Asian transect already plotted (fig. 1) and would resemble it closely.
Ancient Egypt shows no convincing association of
ancient civilizations with tectonism; a transect passing through Egypt would
show its mode at least 300 km from a plate boundary. In SE Asia,
civilizations that would score high marks on Childe’s scale had not yet arrived
in antiquity as treated here, but by about A.D. 900 they had, and Pagan and
Borobodur would plot on the boundary between the Eurasian and Indo-Australian
plate, but the Khmer empire would not, making this hypothetical plot
bimodal. No transect has been shown through ancient China because of the
semantic ambiguity of plate boundaries nearby (16). But these are the only
complex considerations I’m aware of; all the ten-pointers derived from Childe’s
list in the eastern hemisphere of antiquity have been considered and plotted in
figure 2.
Conclusions.—The transects show that criteria
for cultural complexity as listed by Childe (1950) and repeated in modified
form by many subsequent authors tends to show a maximum along active tectonic
boundaries in antiquity. This of course is consistent with figure 2,
which shows the originating sites of “great ancient civilizations” arrayed
along tectonic plate boundaries almost like beads on a string. But the
transect approach not only verifies this distribution, it also gives us the
beginnings of a converse case—a “what’s wrong with other places and other
cultures” approach, one that will be extensively explored in another post. It looks like other cultures that occupied the broad quiescent
margins of tectonic boundaries were there all along but did not become as
accomplished, at least as scored by Childe’s criteria.
The presence and shape of shoulders adjacent to peaks near tectonic boundaries on figure 1 is intriguing. They give the curves a continent-scale dimension and also suggest that tectonic boundaries have some primary influence--if their influence were secondary to some “real” controlling factor there would be reversals. The width of the shoulders is greater than expected seismic impact, suggesting possible spread effects.
The presence and shape of shoulders adjacent to peaks near tectonic boundaries on figure 1 is intriguing. They give the curves a continent-scale dimension and also suggest that tectonic boundaries have some primary influence--if their influence were secondary to some “real” controlling factor there would be reversals. The width of the shoulders is greater than expected seismic impact, suggesting possible spread effects.
The transects also give us some very strong
clues to the meaning of the distribution. For the Childe criteria are all
cultural criteria, and figure 1 thus suggests that tectonism has an impact on
cultural development per se. We’ve seen some examples of close
culture-tectonism relations in descriptions of individual ancient civilizations
(18). Of course tectonic impacts could be indirect, and we’ll look into
several possible indirect linkages (19). Many important variables such as
spring distribution that influence cultures are far more fine-grained than
either figures 1 or 2 can show. The possibility of multiple factors is also
consistent with our data so far--as long as a cultural factor is
included. Indeed we’ll focus on water supply as one such factor in a
future blog-post (20). But as we’ll see, there are a number of
seemingly-possible explanations that are inconsistent with the transect data
(21). In the meantime, we have several indications including this very
powerful transect information that cultural development in antiquity was
somehow related to active tectonism.
Despite
my participation in several publications on tectonic environments of ancient
complex cultures (see references), these transect data are still
unpublished. I will look for
opportunities to remedy that situation.
Notes
1. This approach first suggested to me by the
late John Dohrenwend. I have used conventional descriptive surveys
(Barraclough 1978, Wood 1985, Starr 1991; Scarre and Fagan 2007, supplemented
where necessary for obscure cultures by internet encyclopedias) for my brief
descriptions except where noted.
2. Feb. 14, 2012
3. The criteria for great ancient civilizations
listed by Childe (1950) are 1 cities, 2 occupational specialties, 3
concentrated food surpluses, 4 monumental public architecture, 5 capabilities
for planning and organization, 6 record-keeping and writing, 7 practical
science, 8 arts, 9 trade, and 10 some sort of ideological solidarity.
This list has been much modified and re-interpreted (perhaps most recently by
Scarre and Fagan 2007) but basically accepted by authorities that put any stock
in the term ancient civilization. Some anthropologists do not, for reasons
discussed on August 20. For example, historian Fernandez-Armesto (2001)
says “all such lists are bunk,” and this would be so from his point of
view--that cultural complexity should be judged on the transformation of the
environment a culture inherits (an extremely valuable point of view but one
that I would not associate with the term civilization, which derives from the
concept of city). It appears to me that anthropologic interest in
cultures has shifted away from their “greatness” to individual interesting
features.
Given the conventional view of “great ancient
civilizations” that was already extant in Childe’s day, I think his list is a
rather common-sense way to describe the components of the concept.
Certainly Childe’s list is useful for my question, i.e. that the apparent
spatial correspondence of active tectonic boundaries with conventionally
defined great ancient civilizations needs quantification where possible. Such criteria have been used
quantitatively by bona fide anthropologists (cf. Morris 2010). I think it would
be scientifically irresponsible not to try out a relation between Childe’s list
and tectonic position. Don’t you?
It would be possible for someone better versed
than me in the ancient cultures involved to assign partial scores for each Childe-item.
I have not attempted to do this, simply adding whole integers for the cultural
attributes for which I have found documentation.
4. See Woolf (2000). A more generous
treatment is given by Tacitus, who may himself have been from the region of
southern Gaul.
5. May 8, 2014
6. See for example McClusky 2000
7. Concerted effort was tribe-by-tribe, so
I did not give the Scythians #5.
8. This transect too would illustrate the same
general conclusion at any period of antiquity after about 1100 B.C., and any
plate-boundary intersection in the entire Ganges drainage would serve.
9. May 8, 2014
10. Perhaps best described by Fernandez-Armesto
2001.
11. June 27, 2014
12. Feb. 14, 2012
13. The transect that pivots at Greece would in
the Bronze Age still have to pivot somewhere in that peninsula, Crete, or the
southern Aegean.
14. Markoe 2000
15. Fernandez-Armesto 2001.
16. May 8, 2014
17. Feb. 1, 2014
18. June 27, 2014, June 16, 2014, and May 8, 2014
19. July 17, 2013
20. June 3, 2013
21. Aug. 29 and May 10, 2013
References
Barraclough, G., 1978, The Times atlas of world
history: Times Books, London
Childe, V. G., 1950, The urban revolution: The
town planning review, v. 21, p. 3-17
Fernandez-Armesto, F., 2001,
Civilizations—culture, ambition, and the transformation of nature: Free
Press, New York
Force, E. R. 2008, Tectonic environments of
ancient civilizations in the eastern hemisphere: Geoarchaeology v. 23 p.
644-653.
Force, E. R., and McFadgen, B. G., 2010,
Tectonic environments of ancient civilizations: opportunities for
archaeoseismological and anthropological studies, in Ancient Earthquakes, M.
Sintubin, I. S. Stewart, T. M. Niemi, and E. Altunel, eds.: Geological
Society of America Special Paper 471, p. 21-28.
-----, 2012, Influences of active tectonism on
human development—a review and Neolithic example, in Climates, Landscapes, and
Civilizations, L. Giosan, D. Q. Fuller, K. Nicoll, R. K. Flad, and P. D. Clift,
eds: American Geophysical Union
Monograph 198, p. 195-202
Markoe, G. E., 2000, Phoenicians: University of
California Press
McClusky, S. and others, 2000, Global
positioning system constraints on plate kinematics and dynamics in the eastern
Mediterranean and Caucasus: Journal of Geophysical Research v. 105 B3,
5695-5719.
Morris, I., 2010, Why the west rules—for
now: Ferrar, Strauss, and Giroux,
New York.
Scarre, C. and Fagan, B. M., 2007, Ancient civilizations
(3rd ed.): Longman, New York.
Starr, C. G., 1991, A history of the ancient
world: Oxford University Press
Wood, M., 1985, The world atlas of archaeology:
Portland House, New York
Woolf, G., 2000, Becoming Roman—the origins of
provincial civilization in Gaul: Cambridge
Figure 1. Two examples of continental-scale transects across
some plate-tectonic boundaries showing cultural complexity in antiquity as
quantified in terms listed by Childe (1950). Superposed transects are normalized to approximate locations
of plate boundaries; measurement relative to tectonic boundary is to
originating site of each culture where known. Solid line is for western Asia in the 900-700 B.C. time
period; dotted line is the same transect in the late Bronze Age. Lettered localities for that transect
are A Ninevah, B Urartu, and C Cimmerians and Scythians. The dashed transect is south Asia in
the AD 400-600 period, with D Kalinga, E Patna area of Guptan empire, and F the
Brahmaputra-Llasa valley of Tibet.
Figure
2.--Locations of originating sites of 13 prominent
ancient civilizations relative to various aspects of the southern boundary of
the Eurasian plate (after Force, 2008; Force and McFadgen 2010). Civilizations
(and sites) shown are 1—Roman (Rome), 2—Etruscan (Tarquinii-Veii), 3—Greek
(Corinth) and Mycenaean (Mycenae), 4—Minoan (Knossos-Phaestos), 5 and 6—West
Asian (Tyre and Jerusalem), 7—Assyrian (Ninevah), 8—Mesopotamian (Ur-Uruk),
9—Persian (Susa-Pasargadae), 10—Indus (Mohenjodaro), 11—Aryan India
(Hastinapura), 12—Egyptian (Memphis), and 13—Chinese (Zhengzhou).
