THE FIRST URBAN CIVILIZATIONS
by Anne Collins and Margaret Alston
Around the middle of the 4th millennium before Christ in a few areas of the world where agriculture had become intensive, the dispersed villages of Neolithic man gave way to more complex societies and a new phase in world history.
It seems that there arose four independent widely dispersed societies. They developed in the fertile alluvial river basins of major rivers. Agriculture had first begun on the lowlands of the mountains and farming communities spread from the hills to the open plains of the river basins. The four most successful early civilisations were Mesopotamia in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valleys, Egypt in the Nile valley, the Yellow River valley around Anyang in China and the Indus valley around Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, part of the Indian sub continent.
In order to be successful there was a need for a readily available supply of raw materials from neighbouring uplands and a system of irrigation to use the potential of a highly fertile lowland environment to be able to feed the population.
Many features in common were found in these civilisations, arising from the need to organise local production and long distance trade which in turn had brought about smaller regional centres where goods could be gathered.
Writing developed to aid record keeping.
Large public buildings were needed for the administration of city projects.
People who could administer such as priests or secular rulers became important in societies.
Centralised control led to the need for a specialised legal system, a standing army and the emergence of specialised craftsmen. Bureaucracy had begun.
BEGINNING OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION
Men have lived in India since the second interglacial period, from 400,000 BC to 200,000 BC.Hand axes and chopping tools of the Early Stone Age are found in the Punjab foothills and river valleys as far south as Madras.
The more delicately shaped tools of The Middle Stone Age occur mainly in central and peninsular India. There are rock paintings depicting a hunting culture.
5 of the 6 large ethnic groups which make up the population of India today appear to have been well established by the 3rd millennium BC.
