Humans: from the beginning: From the first apes to the first cities by Christopher Seddon

Author:Christopher Seddon [Seddon, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: archaeology, prehistory, human evolution, anthropology, paleoanthropology
ISBN: 9780992762001
Publisher: Glanville Publications
Published: 2014-03-02T11:00:00+00:00

Boom-to-bust

As the PPNB wore on, so the dependency on animal herding grew. The wild gazelle, predominant for so long, was finally supplanted by domesticated sheep and goats143. The period witnessed the laying of the foundations of the later Mesopotamian Halaf and Ubaid periods, leading ultimately to the emergence of the world’s first city-states. The Mesopotamian lowlands, where the Sumerian civilisation later developed, were colonised by Ubaid irrigation farmers around 5900 BC, with an economic and cultural tradition that owed much to the PPNB20,144.

The growth in the size of the human population, the animal population upon which it now depended, and the complexity of the economy required to support this growth came with a downside – the world’s first boom-to-bust. During the Final PPNB, between 6750 and 6500 BC, many sites in the Levant either shrank in size or were abandoned altogether. Abu Hureyra, which had reached 160 ha (400 acres) by the Middle PPNB, shrank to half this size, and the housing became less dense. There was widespread site abandonment in the Balikh Valley of northern Syria, especially in dryer regions. In Jordan, the settlement of Ba’ja, near Petra, was established after nearby Beidha and possibly two other Middle PPNB sites were abandoned. Ba’ja is a much smaller site than Beidha, with an extent of just 6,000 sq. m. (64,500 sq. ft.). It was home to an estimated 400 to 500 people, and might have been a last-ditch attempt at keeping sedentary life going in a region where it was becoming untenable145,146,20.

Kenyon attributed the apparent downturn to “the lights of progress flickering out” as the occupants of Jericho and other settlements lapsed into decadence and were overrun by their less progressive cousins to the north. In the 1950s and 1960s, when similar factors were widely supposed to have brought about the fall of Rome, such a view seemed highly feasible. However, as noted above, there is little evidence for destruction on the scale that could be expected from an invasion by hostile groups. Another possibility is an abrupt period of adverse climatic conditions around 6200 BC. Known as the 8.2ka event, the reduced rainfall and severe aridity might have rendered uninhabitable the already marginal environments in which many PPNB settlements were located147. The effects are recorded in Greenland ice cores, and in stalagmites of Soreq Cave, Israel32. The major problem, though, is that 6200 BC is several centuries too late for the aridity to be associated with the PPNB collapse25.

While less severe climate change preceding the 8.2ka event might well have exacerbated matters20, the most likely cause of the crisis is that the intensive mixed farming economy degraded an already fragile environment, causing a progressive drop in productivity. The effects would have been particularly severe in the southeastern ‘Marginal Zone’, a region of low rainfall that is only marginally suited to agriculture without the use of irrigation. The region includes most of the Jordanian sites, including Jericho, ‘Ain Ghazal, Beidha and Basta. The cultivation of cereals and legumes was at

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