The Development of Agriculture in Mesopotamia - Essay Example

The development of agriculture in Mesopotamia and the comparison to other agricultural hearths Agriculture in the Fertile Crescent developed far earlier than in most other regions of the world with China following shortly after the Mesopotamian areas. In creating an understanding of how the regions developed their agriculture, it is interesting to look at Africa as it had the opportunities but not the same incentives to develop agriculture through the use of more sophisticated tools. Where China followed Mesopotamia in the development of agriculture, the agriculture in Egypt can be seen as a result of trade with China so that they adapted the techniques of others. While India can be understood for similar beginnings for their agriculture, South-Asian influences instigating the rise of an agricultural economy, they also have a history of innovation that they can call their own. Still, Mesopotamian influences, along with those of China, provided the structure through which the agriculture of India was developed. The rise of agriculture in Mesoamerica was developed through an independent set of inventions. It is clearly, however, Mesopotamia that has the earliest development of agriculture in the world. The primary reasons for the Fertile Crescent to be the first to develope agriculture were due to time, environment, and increased populations that formed city-states. In discussing the nature of the development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, it is important to understand the way in which time is a factor in producing commodities for a civilization. In order to feed the people of the region, hunting gathering would have been the first form of communal food resourcing that would have been attempted. Because of the nature of the geography of the area, this was not an efficient system for gathering food and creating enough nourishment for the people. As more people gathered in concentric areas, it became clear that a different method of food production would be needed to satisfy the needs of so many people that had become a growing population. The problem in the geography was that the areas were mostly mountainous, covered with vast forests and brushwood.1 It was a better choice to create resources of food in more central areas, farms that could feed people rather than requiring them to go out into the world to find their food. The time required to hunt and gather was inefficient. Time is also relevant in relationship to the climate, the rains of the region more frequent and in a better balance for agriculture than they currently are for the area. It is likely, according to climatology history, that between the Ice Age and about 4000BCE the monsoon rains extended farther West, providing for a more moisture rich environment than currently exists.2 The environment was more conducive to planting, the land more rich in nutrients and the way in which growing needs were met. The world has changed a great deal and the answers to the reasons for questions of history often lie in greater conveniences available during those times in contrast to the way in which circumstances exist presently. Time period is relevant to the developments that existed as the collision of fertile circumstances provide for opportunities to develop. As the rains created a rich environment, the development of harnessing the rain through irrigation increased the level of farming that could be accomplished. The other way in which time is relevant is through the time it took for the agricultural culture to develop. Agriculture did not spring up during a period of a few hundred years. The development of agriculture was reflective of a period of more than a thousand years, the development emerging through a long period of time where single farmers moved to villages, which moved to towns, then moving and arranging themselves into city-states. This took a millennia of time for the processes of agriculture to begin to develop, the populations put into place, and solutions to the problems of resource allocation to be focused on growing and harvesting. Time saw the emergence of city-states with approximately two dozen cities emerging during the period from about 7300 BCE to the 2000s BCE. These cities forged conflicts concerned with the acquisition of land, presumably to acquire the resources that they provided. Through the development of regions and the resulting conflicts, the importance of establishing dominance for the purpose of resources became a valuable bit of knowledge. Resources equal power, thus the conflicts that occurred were based upon acquiring regions that could add power to the ruling authority. In China, however, the development of agriculture suggests that the centralized governing principles were in place and the way in which civilization emerged was almost in step with the Mesopotamian regions. China, in contrast to Mesopotamia, likely had larger centralized governments before the emergence of a developed agricultural system. The result of the emergence of agriculture in China was that it filtered down into the land of Egypt, the larger populations of the time period requiring the emergence of a system of agriculture. Through trade with China and Asian states, the Egyptians found foreign crops and domesticated animals become a part of the economy.3 Through influences from both China and Mesopotamia, India created an agricultural culture. Here it is clearly evident that the advances moved from wet areas to more challenging dry areas, moving from the west to the east. Kirk suggests that those ideas that came from other cultures were subject to modification quickly after being implemented, improving and customizing them for the needs of the regions in India that would use those concepts in agriculture. It is clear that here, just as in Mesopotamia, the use of climate and geography as a factor in the development of agriculture influenced the nature of that emergence.4 The American development of agriculture began in the Mesoamerican regions of Mexico to Costa Rica, with the development of the maize crop providing a spread of the agricultural culture through South and eventually North America. While maize can be traced back to 5000 BCE, stratification with consistent leadership that contributed to centers of agriculture did not occur until the 2000s BCE when trade relationships began to emerge. The development of a trade culture meant that regions with access to both trade routes and environmentally attractive resources were the cores of the emergence of societies. Hirth discusses the need for dendritic market networks in which access to resources, such as agricultural products, would be in proximity to trade ports. The functioning of the Mesoamerican regional trade was defined by the proximity to its resources, including its agricultural centers.5 Thus, similar to the need for population and the development of a city, the Mesoamerican agricultural development was similar to Mesopotamia in that it was independent and based upon local development of the gathering of populations, but because the need did not arise as early as Mesopotamia, the development was later than that region. Population appears to be a strong indicator of the development of agriculture, but as shown in the Mesoamerican region, it is not a pre-requisite. The flourishing agricultural environment did emerge with the trade development, but agriculture existed previous to that time and was proliferated throughout the hunting gathering tribes. In contrast to the Mesopotamian development centered on population and the emergence of the city-state, agriculture in Mesoamerica developed previous to the emergence of cities. While China developed shortly after the agricultural development of Mesopotamia through largely independent resources, the development of Egyptian and Indian agriculture came from the cross-culture exposure to both China and Mesopotamia. In Mesopotamia, the influences of time, geographic variations that allowed for agricultural development while discouraging hunting gathering, and the development of populations all provided for the emergence of agriculture in the regions of the Fertile Crescent before any other region of the world. The climate, social needs, and the growth of populations around the emergence of a city-state were the foundation upon which the agricultural community was built in Mesopotamia. The archaeological evidence suggests that the climate and social structures were perfect for the growth of the agricultural industry as both need and technological knowledge grew in tandem as the hunting gathering societies were struggling to survive. China, in comparison to Mesopotamia, developed an independent agricultural structure at almost the same time as Mesopotamia, but came up slightly shy of the same time frame. The emergence of agriculture in both India and Egypt were created from the cross-cultural exposures to other more advanced civilizations where agriculture was concerned and adapted that knowledge into their own culture. Because of distance, it is suggested through evidence of archeology suggests another independent development of agriculture. Through exploring the nature of the development of agriculture throughout the world, it appears that because of time, environment, and population, the development in the Mesopotamian regions emerged earlier than any other developing agricultural hearth where the idea of growing was merged with technologies in order to create industry. Read More