The World That Agrarian Civilizations Made Lecture 32
So, the many striking similarities between Agrarian civilizations, even where there were no signi¿cant contacts, count as one of the most interesting and important factors about human history because they provide powerful reasons for thinking that human history is in some sense directional—that it was shaped by large, general factors that you could only see if you look at human history on a large scale.
Lecture 32: The World That Agrarian Civilizations Made
W
hy were all Agrarian civilizations so similar despite the limited contact between them? Why did human societies in different parts of the world not evolve in utterly different ways? The fact that they did not suggests that there are large forces, perhaps related to our astonishing adaptability as a species, that drive human history in particular directions despite local differences in geography and cultural traditions. It is tempting to think that, ultimately, those similarities derive from the human capacity for collective learning, which ensured that, over time, human societies—wherever they might appear—would acquire increasing resources that would allow the appearance of larger and more complex societies. In short, it may be collective learning, the de¿ning feature of our species, that helps explain the apparent directionality of human history. This lecture concentrates on general features of the 4,000-year era dominated by Agrarian civilizations. Instead of discussing each civilization in turn, we will discuss Agrarian civilization in general. As Robert Wright puts it, “if we relax our vision, and let these details go fuzzy, then a larger picture comes into focus: As the centuries Ày by, civilizations may come and go, but civilization Àourishes, growing in scope and complexity” (Christian, Maps of Time, p. 283). Though labels for eras and types of societies are arti¿cial, we need them because to understand the past we have to break it into manageable chunks. Chronologically, we will use two interchangeable labels for the epoch from 3000 B.C.E. to about 1000 C.E.: the “later Agrarian” era and the “era of Agrarian civilizations.” This epoch was dominated by Agrarian civilizations. 146
