The Synergies of Civilization
The Synergies of Civilization
This chapter argues that the environmental and geographical advantages accruing to southern Mesopotamian societies and the increases in the density and agglomeration of populations in the alluvium throughout the Uruk period that were selected for by those natural advantages represent necessary but insufficient conditions for the Sumerian takeoff. The sufficient conditions were organizational innovations within the nascent city-states of southern Mesopotamian that fall entirely within the realm of Cronon's “created landscape.” Most important among these were new forms of organizing labor that delivered economies of scale in the production of subsistence and industrial commodities to southern societies; and new forms of record keeping that were much more capable of conveying information across time and space than the simpler reckoning systems used by contemporary polities elsewhere. These innovations furnished early Sumerian leaders and polities of the fourth millennium with what turned out to be their most important competitive advantages over neighboring societies.
Keywords: environment, geography, southern Mesopotamia, Uruk period, alluvium, created landscape, labor organizing, subsistence, record keeping
Chicago Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
