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