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What was gained and lost for humankind in the development of the First Civilizations?
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The development of the first civilizations brought significant gains including population growth, reliable food supplies, technological advancements, and cultural developments such as arts and written language. These advancements arose from urbanization, labor specialization, and agriculture. However, these civilizations also led to losses such as increased social inequality, reduced personal freedoms, and environmental degradation. The emergence of organized governments and religions created social stratification, fundamentally altering human society from its hunter-gatherer origins.
In forming the first civilizations, we lost a distinctly different future. Without a government, there is no bureaucracy. Without taxation, there is no army. Without social stratification, there is no clergy. Without advanced language, there is no philosophy. These things, and the things that emerged from them, happened because of permanent settlement. In many ways, the first civilizations made us human.
Hunter-gatherer societies led peripatetic lives. They followed the natural rhythms of the land, moving as animals do. If there was a source of food and water, they stayed. Otherwise, they migrated. Most lived in natural shelters, but some later hunter-gatherer societies developed man-made structures. Over time, the tools and weapons they used became more specialized to their various environments. Some societies classified as hunter-gatherer societies were able to remain for years in areas of particular abundance, even creating rudimentary structures to store food.
Even the most advanced of these...
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societies had trouble sustaining more than a few dozen people. It took coordinated efforts to hunt large animals and to forage for edible plants, and it’s likely that members of these tribes experienced strong bonds with one another. Although historical evidence suggests that women likely foraged while men hunted, there were too few people for social stratification to go much further. That was not the case once the first civilizations emerged.
Regions with dependable water and food sources gave rise to permanent settlements. Agricultural surpluses and the domestication of animals allowed for population growth both internally and from the unification of neighboring tribes. It was no longer necessary for everyone to work toward maintaining the food supply, which allowed for the diversification of labor. Governments and religions were formed to ensure social order, including the emerging class system. State functions required the development of an accounting system for taxation and trade. Written language advanced with the need for keeping record of financial exchanges. From these advancements came others, such as the sciences of navigation and medicine and the arts of history and myth, until humankind was capable enough to analyze even their own origins.
The term “first civilizations” is normally applied to the earliest
communities which displayed the simultaneous characteristics of urbanization,
specialization of labour, pottery-making, and agriculture.
The obvious gains were in population, reliable food supplies, technology
(brought about in part by specialization of labour), defensibility, and the
arts.
Compared to hunter-gather communities, the early civilizations may have seen
increasing inequality, both between rich and poor and between genders. Greater
organization would also lead to greater mechanisms of social control, and thus
some diminution of personal freedom. Finally, population growth combined with
fixed locations of population dense urban areas led to degradation of the
natural environment and possibly desertification.