\what led to the start of civilization

     As you have seen, one reason that civilization first appeared in the

Middle East was because agriculture had taken hold in this region. Over many

centuries agriculture became more common and productive in the Middle East; it

began to create the conditions for further innovations - including

civilization. But the first civilization also required an additional set of

stimuli, the new inventions and organizations that had taken shape around 4000

B.C.

     Much time elapsed between the development of agriculture and the rise of

civilization in the Middle East and many other places. The successful

agricultural communities that formed were based primarily on very localized

production, which normally sustained a population despite recurrent disasters

caused by bad weather or harvest problems. Localized agriculture did not

consistently yield the kind of surplus that would allow specializations among

the population, and therefore it could not generate civtlization.

     Even the formation of small regional centers, such as Jericho or Catal

Huyuk, did not assure a rapid pace of change. Their economic range remained

localized, with little trade or specialization. Most families who inhabited

them produced for their own needs and nothing more. It was important that more

and more regions in the Middle East were pulled into the orbit of agriculture

as the Neolithic revolution gained ground. By 4000 B.C. large nomadic groups

still flourished only at the southern end of the region in the deserts of the

Arabian peninsula. Even the knowledge of agriculture spread slowly, so the

gradual conversion of virtually the whole Middle East and some surrounding

areas was no small achievement. But the shape of agricultural communities

themselves in 4000 B.C. differed little from that of pioneering agricultural

centers 4000 years before.

     Based on the expansion of agriculture in the Middle East, a detached

observer who lived a little before 4000 B.C. might have predicted the gradual

spread or independent development of agriculture in many parts of the world.

Portions of India, northern Africa, central Asia, and southern Europe were

already drawn in (though other nearby regions, such as Italy, remained immune

for another millennium and a half). A separate Neolithic revolution was

beginning to take shape in Central America. All this was vital, but it did not

assure the civilizational revolution within key agricultural regions

themselves.

Dynamic Implications Of Agriculture

     Several factors flowed together to create the unexpected development of

civilization. While the establishment of agriculture did not guarantee further

change, it did ultimately co tribute to change by encouraging new forms of

social organization. Settled agriculture, as opposed to slash-and-burn

varieties, usually implied some forms of property so that land could be

identified as belonging to a family, a village, or a landlord. Only with

property was there incentive to introduce improvements, such as wells or

irrigation measures, that could be monopolized by those who created them or

left to their heirs. But property meant the need for new kinds of laws and

enforcement mechanisms, which in turn implied more extensive government. Here

agriculture could create some possibilities for trade and could spur

innovation - new kinds of regulations and some government figures who could

enforce them.

     Farming encouraged the formation of larger and more stable communities

than had existed before Neolithic times. Most hunting peoples moved in small

groups containing no more than 60 individuals who could not settle in a single

spot lest the game run out. With settled agriculture the constraints changed.

Communities developed around the cleared and improved fields. In many early

agricultural areas including the Middle East, a key incentive to stability was

the need for irrigation systems. Irrigated agriculture depended on

arrangements that would allow farmers to cooperate in building and maintaining

irrigation ditches and sluices. The needs of irrigation, plus protection from

marauders

b: the establishment clause  

b: socialism  

it would weaken the prestige of japan’s military.