In my last posting, I spoke of cooperation as a key element in mankind's social and civilizational development. Hunting, in earliest times, illustrates one aspect of such cooperation for natural advantage. Animals that lived in herds were the prey; and a group of men would cooperatively encircle and surround such a herd and drive some or all of its members off a cliff. Cruel as this sounds, it was nevertheless an illustration of group cooperation to solve a common problem: i.e., hunger on the part of the participants and their dependants.
As droughts, storms, and temperature changes naturally occurred, people were impelled to change locations; and thus meet up with, and sometimes join with, each other. These limited combinations of different peoples, and of their varied habits or ways of doing things, constituted the beginnings of what would one day be called "civilization."
Of course, in the earliest days, these agglomerations werre yet small, and extremely limited. For many years, neither persons nor ideas could travel distances greater than perhaps thirty miles a day. This resulted in segments of the now somewhat more civilized world, although consisting of people living in comparatively larger groups, remaining quite local in character--pockets of territory, each possessing its own customs, way of life, manner of elementary speech; and each looking inward upon itself. Moreover, most of these groups were hardly aware of the existence of other groups like their own.
Then, as awareness of one another slowly grew, members of some, if not all, groups viewed the people and possessions of the other assemblages as potential conquests and prizes. The raids and other types of predatory behavior that resulted therefrom were the earliest forms of intergroup conflict (or, if you will, primitive warfare). This in turn led to the earliest forms of organizaqtion, for offensive and defensive purposes; and perhaps the birth of rudimentary forms of political power.
Hunting as a means of meeting the groups' nutritional needs was followed by the development of agriculture. The blessing that consisted of the cultivation of food in the ground created an assured food supply, and even surpluses, giving settlements more solidity. The result was growth of larger and larger populations within these early groups, coupled with a requirement for smaller and smaller areas on which to live and range. Thereby, actual villages began to appear.
Plant cultivation came to be accompanied by animal husbandry. The presence and availability of animals for assistance in the growth of foodstuffs, and as victuals themselves, made possible sedentary year-round settlements. This led to the growth of larger, more dense populations, and of the urban, stratified, politically organized societies that came to be more and more worthy of the term "civilization." This further demonstrates natural progress toward greater and greater degrees of joinder and consolidation, toward and into united societal entities. A dramatic and convincing example of this inclination is to be seen in approximately 7000B.C., when a substantial walled town arose at Jericho Oasis in the Middle East.
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As centuries rolled on, man discovered and developed the use of metals. The need for metallic raw materials caused by his new pursuits prompted new and increasingly complex inter-regional and longer-distance trade relations among men, lending a certain tenor of unity to regions of the ancient world yet six thousand years before the birth of Christ.
As time continued onward, a giant and noteworthy aggregation of man took root in what we now refer to as Egypt. We are told that this region was the stage of centuries of struggle among competing rulers who sought to consolidate their power over larger and larger groups of people. The culmination of this took place, in approximately 3200B.C., with the commencement of rule over a giant kingdom by succeeding dynasties of Pharoahs. And the Pharoahs as well saw fit in turn to resort to purposeful consolidation--of their peoples' prevailing religious cults--for the furtherance of their own poolitifcal ends.
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Time marches on: and in the fourth and third millennia before Christ, in ancient Mesopotamia, men of numerous villages cooperated collectively to drain watery marshland and build walled towns, whereby protection from potential invaders, as well as the floodwaters common to this area, would be had. Agriculture flourished, thanks in part to the use of implements that employed flint and obsidian. We are told that these materials had to be imported from distant places--implying that by now there existed "a widespread network of contacts abroad...huge distances away." (J. M. Roberts, History of the World). Thus, we see more very early evidences and advantages of cooperative effort, as well as the benefits of reaching far beyond one's own backyard for what is needed in order to achieve it. And cooperation apparently did pay off, as these villages grew into cities, some of which contained as many, by early accounts, as thirty six thousand males (and, of course, a probable corresponding number of women). Uruk, for example, built around 2700 B.C., had walls eighteen feet thick, which encircled an area having a circumference of approximately six miles.
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The tendency of larger and larger assemblages of people residing together becomes more and more recognizable as history marches forward. The period between 2750 and 2500 B.C. has been described as "the first international age for the Near East." (J. Garraty and P. Gay, Columbia History of the World). Correspondence between courts was in a single language (Babylonian); and, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, various people's relationships with, and consequent conformity to, each other continued to expand and to proliferate.
Next, in the middle of the twenty-fourth century B.C., an Akkadian named Sargon I led a force that subjugated a number of the Sumerian cities hereinabove described, and thus conceived the earliest empire known to history. This collection of cities into what can be termed an empire seems to constitute a still higher level of organization, and a still further extension of an ongoing process of assemblage which I am attempting to identify.
Moving ahead to the first millennium before Christ, we see more and more of our world sharing in the same accomplishments--a unity of achievement, if you will--in literature, government, technology, organized religion, and urban life--as civilization grew and flourished in numerous places.
Around this time, in early India, a Gupta civilization thrived. Among its achievements was a standardization and systemization of Sanskrit grammar, which was able to be understood and resorted to within the entire subcontinent. This was a source of unity among the people of that region. Moreover, we are told, archeological evidence discloses other forms of common practice within this area, including worship of a Mother Goddess, and a number of sacred animals. Later (in the third century before Christ), during the reign of Asoka, a social philosophy known as Dhamma arose here. Dhamma, being a Sanskrit word meaning "Universal Law," prescribed respect, tolerance, and non-violence toward one's fellow man. It suggested the overlooking of differences, and the unity of all. One early inscription of the wisdom of Asoka simply states: "All men are my children."
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