Description
Book Synopsis Traditional scholarship on how ancient civilizations emerged is outmoded and new insights call for revision. According to the well-established paradigm, Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization. Following the cliche of ex oriente lux (light from the East) all major achievements of humankind spread from the Middle East. Modern archaeology, cultural science and historical linguistics indicate civilizations did not originate from a single prototype. Several models produced divergent patterns of advanced culture, developing both hierarchical and egalitarian societies. This study outlines a panorama of ancient civilizations, including the still little-known Danube civilization, now identified as the oldest advanced culture in Europe. In a comparative view, a new paradigm of research and a new cultural chronology of civilizations in the Old and New Worlds emerges, with climate change shown to be a continual influence on human lifeways.
Table of Contents
- List of Maps
- List of Figures
- Introduction: The Organic Whole of Human Existence and the Quality of Life
- 1. The Life Cycle of Cultures: Trajectories of Interaction Between Human Beings and Their Environment
- Arbitrators of socio-cultural change: The challenge of changing environmental conditions for adaptive skills
- Climate-induced changes in human ecology: The origins of the Black Sea
- Environmental ecology and how human beings adapt to local conditions of existence
- The role of older cultural patterns in the formation process of advanced cultures
- 2. Timeline: The Ancient Civilizations in Light of a Differential Model of Cultural Advancement
- The Mesopotamian bias and the Greek myth of the German romantics in the early 19th century
- The significance of the incubation stage for the emergence of advanced cultures
- 3. Early Achievements: Elementary Innovations as the Driving Force of Progress in Technological Domains
- Prototypes of the plough
- Pyrotechnology for the production of ceramic ware and prototypes of the potter's wheel
- Furnaces and metal-working
- The ancient traditions of shipbuilding and seafaring
- 4. The Wheel, the Wagon and the Chariot: Dynamics of Technological Transfer in Antiquity
- The significance of the wheel
- The impact of steppe people on transport technology and the origins of Indo-European terminology
- The input of ancient European technology in the context of collaboration with Indo-European pastoralists
- The advent of wheel and wagon in Mesopotamia
- The chariot: Technological breakthrough in the Eurasian steppes
- The absence of the wheel as a practical device in pre–Columbian civilization: A mysterious case of a "missing link"
- 5. The Economic Foundations: Trade Routes, Centers and Networks
- Trade routes, centers and networks in the commonwealth of Old Europe
- The movement of trade goods, technological know-how and ideas between Old Europe and Mesopotamia
- The early network of Middle Eastern trade routes: Sumerian cities interconnected with Dilmun and the Indus Civilization
- Gift exchange to build trust among trading partners and enhance harmony in social relations
- Early trading networks in pre–Columbian Mesoamerica: The proliferation of Olmec goods and ideas
- 6. Settlement Planning: From Villages to Urban Agglomerations
- The model of urbanization evolving from egalitarian villages
- The model of urbanization in a milieu of stratified society
- 7. Architecture: Houses, Workshops and Temples
- Houses and forms of accommodation in agrarian communities83
- Sacral architecture
- Famous temple monuments of antiquity vis-à-vis cultural memory: Between oblivion and iconicity
- 8. Social Networking: Models of Community Life, the Fabric of the Common Good
- The œcumene model of ancient civilization—The archaeological record
- The rise of the state model of civilization, associated with social hierarchy and stratified society
- Socioeconomic models of ancient civilizations in a comparative view
- 9. Religion and Worldview: Anthropomorphic and Zoomorphic Images of the Divine, Sanctuaries and Holy Precincts
- Archaic forms of spirituality
- From spirit to female divinity
- Divinities relating to plant cultivation
- The personification of individual divine agents and the origins of monumental statuary
- The emergence of divinities in the context of pre–Columbian civilization
- Figurines as a lingua franca of ritual life
- 10. Human Activity Between Life and Afterlife: The Intergenerational Chain in Light of Cultural Memory
- The world of public entertainment: Did the ancient Greeks invent theater?
- Fashion and dress-codes: Between social constraints and individual choice
- The place of the dead in cultural memory
- Connecting with the ancestors in the world of shamanism
- 11. Specialized Systems for Communication: Writing Numbers
- The beginnings of numerical and calendrical notation
- Writing numbers in pre–Columbian Mesoamerica and South America
- Writing numbers in pre–Columbian South America
- The interrelation of numerical notation and writing: The special case of the Sumerians
- 12. Specialized Systems for Communication: The Visual Recording of Ideas and Writing Language
- Writing technology and its significance for the construction of civilization
- Writing systems in the ancient civilizations
- Writing systems of the Old World
- Writing systems of the New World (pre–Columbian): The Olmec script (ca. 1500–600 bce)
- Writing technology as a vehicle of progress
- 13. Intellectual Domains: What Was the Driving Force for Science and How Did Philosophy Originate?
- Pre-Socratic philosophers as the first to reflect on cosmology and the natural world
- Picking up the threads: The rope model of repetitive continuity of ideas
- Philosophy as a tool for rationalizing mythic truths and for organizing community life
- 14. Art and Aesthetics: Artistic Genres in Their Cultural Context
- The cultural meaning of sculptures in the Old European, Native American and Mesopotamian context
- Classical Greek philosophy and art: Plato's concept of aesthetics
- Ancient civilizations as inspirational sources of modern art
- Epilogue: Cultural Memory
- Bibliography
- Index
