Key Features of Agrarian Civilizations - Essay Example

Key features of Agrarian civilizations Name of the Student: Name of the Instructor: Name of the course: Code of the course: Submission date: Key features of Agrarian civilizations Introduction In a broad sense, the concept of agrarian can be perceived to relate to cultivated land or the cultivation of land. On the other hand, the concept of civilization is often used as a reference to the instrumental as well as the material side of the human cultures. These cultures are endowed with extensive sophistications in terms of science, technology as well as division of labor. Such civilizations are often urbanized and hierarchical. The term of civilization is usually used in diverse realms of academia as being synonymous with progress, this term will assume a different meaning in this paper. Subsequently, Christian1 defined agrarian civilizations as large societies which were primarily founded on agriculture, with states and all that implies, for instance, warfare, literacy. The concept of agrarian civilizations can be viewed to be contradictory based on the backdrop that there is often a close linkage between civilization (a term which is derived from Civis, a Latin word meaning citizens) with states and the cities which have been instituted therein. However, the deliberate inclusion of the adjective of agrarian is a reminder that all the pre-modern cities had primary dependence on rural hinterlands at the edge of the cities or in villages which were some distant from these cities. In this case, the agrarian civilizations relate to those pre-modern societies which were based on agriculture and their cultural and day to day orientation revolved around the same. Against this background, this paper is a profound attempt to explore the key features of the agrarian civilizations. The key features which will be investigated in this analysis division of labor, rapid population growth as well as social stratification. Division of labor From a historical perspective, division of labor can be viewed to emanate from two facts of nature. These are the generic inequality of human abilities and secondly, the diversity of the external conditions which influence the human life on earth. In actual sense, these two facts can be taken as being one, that is, the diversity of nature which fails to repeat itself but proceeds to create the universe in infinite, inexhaustible variety.2 The general concept and execution of division of labor has for a long time been observed in ancient Mesopotamian culture. This is where the undertakings of different jobs across some cities corresponded with the elevated trade as well as growth of economic interdependence. Above the aforementioned triggers of division of labor, diverse scholars have credited it as being integral in elevating the productivity of both the manufacturers as well as the individual workers in different fields. In the agrarian civilization, division of labor was a predominant feature with various individuals and collectives specializing in particular responsibilities in the societies. This was evident in southern Mesopotamia at the end of the 4th millennium BCE. In this case, the villages founded on relative egalitarianism and self-sufficiency which had characterized the early agrarian era had disappeared.1 However, the growth of division of labor and specialization can be shown to have fully appeared with the emergence of full time potters most specifically in the fifth millennium. This is primarily evidenced by archeological excavations of workshops which contain specialized tools which include the potters’ wheels. Additionally, it is imperative to note that it is from the late fourth millennium that an extensive list of diverse professions exist which include but not limited to officials, priests as well as a wide alley of artisans who include scribes, stoneworkers, potters and silversmiths among others.1 Majority of these professions which were primarily based in division of labor and merchants have been perceived as a core component of division of labor in the urban areas. This is because in cities like Uruk, there was demand for more goods above those which could be conveniently produced and supplied by the farmers in the nearby localities. Moreover, there was also the need for wood, stones as well as luxury goods which were only availed through the prominent trading activities along Euphrates and Tigris. The advancement of division of labor among the agrarian civilization was key in the establishment and subsequent development of a rich cultural heritage based on specialization. This fact is fortified by different scholars like Gupta3 who cited complex division of labor as being a major feature of the formation of a sophisticated culture among the indigenous societies which graced the agrarian civilizations. All these facts point to the fact the division of labor was a key component of the agrarian civilization with different individuals and groups performing specialized tasks aimed at meeting the various needs of the wider society. Some of the scholars have attributed the subsequent socio-economic and political inequality in the agrarian civilizations as having emanated from extensive division of labor. However, the evident fact from the historical and archeological viewpoint is that division of labor played a key role in the agrarian civilizations, whether progressively or retrogressively. Rapid population growth This was another key feature of the agrarian civilizations. This is best epitomized in the Middle East whereby the Natufian populations experienced rapid population growth and the Natufian villages have been credited for undergoing extensive fission and eventual spread throughout the Eastern Lavant after the 14,000 BP.1 Much of the population growth in the agrarian civilizations has been attributed to increased sedentism. This is founded on the fact that in the previous epochs, the communities of foragers which were in existence were engaged in widespread mobility and had a profound rationale of limiting the growth of their population capacity. However, when they eventually decided to settle down in the advent of the agrarian civilizations, there was gradual relaxation of the limitations on population growth. In this case, the availability of good grain diet to feed the population, capacity of women to reach puberty earlier than before as well as shortening of birth intervals are just some of the factors which expedited the rapid growth of population in the less mobile communities which characterized the agrarian civilizations.1 Additionally, the increased sedentism among the communities in the agrarian civilizations meant a greater transformation of their technological capacity as well as a more enhanced knowledge of the genetic nature of the plants and animals on which they fed. This culminated to better techniques of acquiring food sources which not only increased the life span of the population members, but also created a conducive environment for reproduction based on enhanced food security. However, several scholars have attributed these tendencies to have impeded the growth of production. In this case, they have cited that the population explosion among the agrarian civilizations eventually outstripped the growth in production and hence contributing to the elevation of disease, famine and war. They have thus cited that the massive increase of population was a major trap which imprisoned the agrarian populations and eventually spilt over to the subsequent civilizations up to the seventeenth century whereby different civilizations either collapsed or became immobile like China and Japan.4 Christian in his work has also explored the aspect of the trap of sedentism which contributed to elevated population growth in the agrarian civilizations. According to this author, just a few generations after the members of the agrarian civilizations adopted sedentism as a way of life, they lost their ancient skills and the eventual population growth minimized the territories which were available for each community. This can be perceived to be a perfect prediction of the Neolithic Malthus perspective whereby as the population tends to experience uncontrolled growth, there is often the tendency towards outstripping the available natural resources. In this case, the option of reverting to the traditional mobile lifestyle was unviable based on the fact that the neighboring communities were also overpopulated and also people had become accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle. This left the members of the agrarian civilizations with the sole choice of further intensification and increased focus and effort aimed at heightening the productivity of the few favored species of plants and animals that they had adopted.1 Many scholars, for instance, Goldstone5and Turchin6 have cited the preceding explanation as having precipitated the breakdown of the agrarian civilizations which is purely founded on sociological mechanisms and based on the demographic-structural theory. Social stratification This is the last feature which is explored in this paper. The social stratification in the agrarian civilizations can be attributed to the features discussed in the preceding section. This is whereby increased division of labor culminated to the emergence of middle and lower classes of craftsmen and merchants. In this case, there was an elaborate structure in terms of seniority of individuals based on their specialization. This has been attributed to the emergence of the ‘upstairs, downstairs’ syndrome which various scholars like Srinivas7 reveal to have formed the foundation and rationality of the caste system in India. In this latter system, each job-related specialty is an endogamous group whereby the local customs have a detailed dictation on the relationship between the castes. On the other hand, increased population growth also had its fair share of increasing the level of social stratification among the agrarian civilizations. This is evidenced by Christian who determined that the early Natufian communities were basically small and consisted of interrelated families. Nonetheless, as these communities increased in size as a result of rapid population growth, there was an emergence of more sophisticated relationships as the problems related to managing the village activities as well as controlling the conflicts within the communities became more complex. For this reason, the communities which constituted the agrarian civilization found it necessary to choose leaders in their quest to address the above dynamics. In a basic sense, the emergence of leadership positions instituted some form of hierarchy. Archaeological evidence has fortified the above fact whereby extensive excavations in the agrarian civilization sites have revealed differences between a minority of individuals who had been buried with a wide alley of ornaments, and were presumably from the high hierarchy of the social structure and a majority of the people who had been buried less grandly. Additionally, it is imperative to note that the rudimentary fact that some children were sometimes found buried more grandly than most adults suggested that the high ranks in the social hierarchy could have been inherited and points towards a system of ranked lineage.1 The above fact supports the inference that each of the civilizations in the classical period had a great emphasis of a clear social structure which was founded on significant distance between the elites and the majority of the individuals who often did the manual and menial work.8 Thus, the agrarian civilizations can be perceived to have been founded on strict hierarchical structures which defined the position and rank of each individual in the society. This can also be perceived to have influenced the level of influence that an individual commanded in these societies, the amount of wealth as well as respect from other members of the society. Conclusion The preceding analysis has offered a comprehensive insight into the concept of agrarian civilizations. This review has also acknowledged the fact that there are some distinct features which characterized the agrarian civilizations. Three key features namely division of labor, rapid population growth and social stratification have been extensively explored in this analysis evidence in regions like China, Japan, ancient Mesopotamia and India being concrete examples. Archeological evidence and modern social structures in the above regions have been the primarily evidence used to support the above accounts. Bibliography Christian, David. Maps of time: Introduction to big history. Oakland: University of California, 2011. Evers, Williamson, ‘Specialization and the Division of Labor in the Social Thought of Plato and Rousseau’, The Journal of Libertarian Studies 4, No. 1 (1980): 45-64. Goldstone, Jack, 1991, ‘The causes of long-waves in early modern economic history’, in, Research in Economic History. Supplement 6. The Vital One: Essays in Honor of Jonathan R. Hughes, edited by J. Mokyr, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Gupta, Ashok, ‘Does Indigenous Knowledge have anything to deal with Sustainable Development?’, Antrocom Online Journal of Anthropology 7, No. 1 (2011): 57-64. Macfarlane, Alan. David Hume and the political economy of agrarian civilization, http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/TEXTS/HUME.PDF (accessed May, 14 2013). Srinivas, Maysore. Caste in Modern India. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962. Stearns, Peter, World Civilizations: The Global Experience, 3rd ed. Boston: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. Turchin, Peter, 2003, Historical dynamics: Why states rise and fall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. , Read More