A History of Agriculture in India v1.c15: Chapter 9. The Chalcolithic Culture in Mesopotamia

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c15

Language: English

v1.c15.s1 Egypt — 7 parts

Chapter 9. The Chalcolithic Culture in Mesopotamia

v1.c15.1

INVENTION OF THE PLOUGH, WHEEL AND METALLURGY

The term Chalcolithic is applied to communities using stone implements along with copper or bronze ones. In more advanced communities, the proportion of copper and bronze implements is higher than that of stone ones. The Chalcolithic revolution, like the Neolithic, was the climax of a long process. It was the ultimate result of what Gordon Childe calls: "The Second Revolution between 6000 and 3000 B.C. which transformed tiny villages of self-sufficing farmers into populous cities, nourished by secondary industries and foreign trade, and regularly organized as States. The scene of this drama lies in the belt of countries between the Nile and the Ganges. During this period, man has learnt to harness the force of oxen and winds, he invents the plough, the wheeled cart, and the sailing boat, he discovers the chemical processes involved in smelting copper ores and the physical properties of metals, and he begins to work out an accurate solar calendar."¹

v1.c15.4

¹ Childe, V. G. Man Makes Himself, p. 118

v1.c15.5

The Chalcolithic revolution began in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. From this nuclear zone, it spread to Egypt and subsequently to the Indus Valley. The valleys of Tigris and Euphrates have a fertile soil. The Sumerians who settled in the deltas of these rivers had just emerged from the Neolithic stage of culture. They had splendid pottery and carried on cultivation with flint hoes. Their capital was Ur, which was subsequently destroyed by flood. To the north of Sumer was Akkad, which included the Neolithic sites of Jarmo and Hassuna, which saw the birth of agriculture. By 3000 B.C. Sumerian civilization was fully developed, and about 2385 B.C. king Sargon of Akkad conquered Sumer and unified the country.

v1.c15.6

Copper is not found in Mesopotamia and it was imported from Oman on the Persian Gulf. Hence it was with imported copper that the Sumerians worked and they became masters of the technique of bronze-manufacture.

v1.c15.7

One of the major events of the Bronze Age was the shifting of primitive wheat varieties from the mountains to the plains. Helbaek believes that one result of this forced movement of primitive cereals beyond their natural habitat by the human agency may have been the emergence of new plants. With the use of the bullock-drawn wooden plough, the rich alluvial soil started yielding bumper crops of wheat. The plot gave place to the field, and agriculture really began. In fact, the plough heralded an agricultural revolution, just as the tractor in the present century. Horticulture was concentrated around the urban centres. The priestly hierarchy, with the concentration of surpluses in their hands, started building monumental temples, which dominated the economic life. It was also the beginning of warfare with emphasis on fortification for the urban centres. There was expansion of handicraft production, which led to the development of trade.

v1.c15.8

Mesopotamia and the adjacent lands are favourably situated among the three of the centres of origin of cultivated plants, viz. the Near Eastern, the Mediterranean and the Central Asiatic. The Central Asiatic is the native home of wheat, peas, beans, lentils, gram and cotton.

v1.c15.9

Whyte thus sums up the contribution made by the Near Eastern and the Mediterranean centres to cultivated plants of the Old World: "The world's potential sources of western orchard fruits are concentrated in the Near East, the native home of the grape, pear, cherry, pomegranate, walnut, quince, almond, apricot and fig. The first orchards were undoubtedly located in the Near East. In Soviet Georgia and Armenia, one may still observe all phases of the evolution of fruit-growing from wild groves consisting almost wholly of wild fruit trees through transitional methods to those approaching modern fruit-growing, including the grafting of the better wild varieties on the less-valuable wild forms. Here also one may see that primitive man, while clearing away forests to make room for grain fields, has left standing the better specimens of wild apple, pear and cherry. It appears that viticultural methods and all the more important grape varieties have been acquired from the Near East, where one can still find wild forms quite suitable for culture in vineyards. In *Medicago*, *Pyrus* and *Amygdalus*, species formation has been active and is still occurring. Natural polyploidy has been discovered among wheats and numerous species of wild plants, particularly in alpine and subalpine zones. From Turkey, Iran and Soviet Central Asia has come the world's wealth of melons, and the leading forage crops, lucerne, Persian clover, a number of species of *Onobrychis*, *Trigonella* and vetch."²

v1.c15.10

² Whyte, R. O. *Evolution of Land Use in South-Western Asia*, p. 86

v1.c15.11

In the cultivated plants of the Mediterranean centre, one can easily trace the important role played by man in selecting the most suitable forms; the Mediterranean forms of flax, barley, beans (*Vicia*) and chickpea are notable for their large seeds and fruits in contrast to the small-seeded forms of central Asia, their basic centre of origin, where most of the dominant genes of these plants are concentrated. "The western dispersal of vine, olive, fig, stone fruits, bread wheat, rice, ornamental and shade trees was apparently partly or wholly due to the spread of Greek and Roman civilizations. To this the Arabs added the sugarcane, date palm, cotton, some types of *Citrus*, lucerne and other plants. The grapevine and lucerne also went eastwards into China and are clearly attributed to Change Chi'ien about 140 B.C."

Egypt

v1.c15.s1.1

The main elements in the population of Egypt were the Libyans who came from the north, and the Semites who came from Palestine. The Semites brought with them flocks of sheep and techniques of making pottery and stone vases, and elementary knowledge of metals. It is they who ushered in the Chalcolithic phase in the southern countries. It is through them that the civilization of Mesopotamia reached Egypt. In proto-dynastic age, irrigation of fields by canals had been introduced, and towns with temples had been founded. River transport by means of boats, propelled by paddles by batches of men, developed. This was followed by the use of the sail, thus harnessing power of the wind in the service of man. A system of writing had developed and the Egyptian art had acquired its peculiar idiom.

v1.c15.s1.2

**The City.** The origin of the city is one of the main achievements of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations. The rise of the city meant a new social organization, as well as the origin of town-planning and architecture. Apart from food-producers, a city has a preponderance of people who are not directly engaged in agriculture and are administrators, priests, traders, craftsmen and labourers. The rise of a city itself meant improvements in the technique of agricultural production so that non-agriculturists could also be maintained. It also meant the rise of a leisured class, the priests, who could think and study. It is these people who watched the stars, the moon and the sun and thus developed astrology, the mother of the science of astronomy. Already, by about 2700 B.C., observations of the Egyptian priests had led to the compilation of a solar calendar. The Mesopotamians developed the sexagesimal system and mathematical tables from which algebra and arithmetic arose in due course.

v1.c15.s1.3

**Irrigated Farming and the Plough.** In the Chalcolithic Period, basic agricultural techniques, which had developed in hilly uplands, shifted to lower river valleys. The system of nomadic shifting cultivation gave way to the cereal-fallow system. Irrigated farming was developed. Flood waters were stored in reservoirs for irrigation in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, and canals were dug. Hence Chalcolithic is also called the age of irrigated farming.

v1.c15.s1.4

The sowing of seed by dibbling with a pointed stick gave place to hand furrowing. Woolley mentions that the settlements of Al'Ubaid people in the Euphrates Valley are marked by the vast numbers of heavy flint hoes which litter the sites. The invention of the plough, which was at first only a forked branch of a tree, brought about improvement in cultivation by field tillage. Though it is not possible to credit any particular country with its invention, the plough was in use in Mesopotamia before 3000 B.C. The Sumerian plough had a tube attachment through which seed could be dropped. This is the earliest seed-drill known. Copper was as yet expensive and, hence, denticulated flint sickle blades were in common use up to the middle of the third millennium B.C.

v1.c15.s1.5

Irrigated agriculture with the use of canals has its own problems. What is considered a boon in early stages becomes a curse in due course. The cause of the decline of Sumerian civilization, according to Whyte, was salinity and water-logging. After 1,000 to 1,500 years of irrigation, serious salinity problems developed. By 1700 B.C. wheat had completely disappeared in the south, and barley, which is more salt-resistant, survived but gave lower yields. It was the loss of command of environment, observes Toynbee, which led to the breakdown of the civilization of the Tigris Basin.

v1.c15.s1.6

Braidwood thus sums up the achievements of the Bronze Age: ‘In 3,000 or 4,000 years the life of man had changed more radically than in all of the preceding 250,000 years. Before the agricultural revolution most men must have spent their waking moments seeking their next meal, except when they could gorge following a great kill. As man learned to produce food, instead of gathering, hunting or collecting it, and to store it in the grain bin and on the hoof, he was compelled as well as enabled to settle in larger communities. With human energy released for a whole spectrum of new activities, there came the development of specialized non-agricultural crafts. It is no accident that such innovations as the discovery of the basic mechanical principles, weaving, the plough, the wheel and metallurgy soon appeared.’

v1.c15.s1.7

Braidwood, R.J. The Agricultural Revolution, *Scientific American*, Sept, 1960 Childe, V.G. *Man Makes Himself*, London, 1936 Randhawa, M.S. *Evolution of Life*, New Delhi, 1969 Whyte, R.O. *Evolution of Land Use in South-Western Asia*, F.A.O., Rome, 1960 Woolley, C.L. *Excavations at Ur*, London, 1954