The Impact of Geography and Nomadic Contact on Early Civilizations

• The Role of the River
• Geographical Barriers
• Open Terrains
• Benefits of Contact with Outsiders
• Geography: One Factor
• Sources

The growth and demise of early civilizations was shaped in great part by the geographical characteristics of the lands of the time and the travel routes they allowed between people of different origins. The development of food production was supported by the presence of rivers valleys. The destruction from the flooding of these same rivers brings about recreations of culture and organization. Stability within a civilization is associated with natural barriers to invasions by nomads as well as spread of civilization. Conversely, traversable lands that contributed to destabilization by nomadic invasions also allowed the spread of trade and ideas. These factors were not the only ones determining the fates of early civilizations however they did have both negative and positive impacts on the course of human history, and sometimes a lack of consistency that reminds one that there are other factors involved.

The Role of the River

The river valleys and their ecologies provided a water source and fertile soil as resources in the production of food. Irrigation was often developed to manage the water although this is not universal. The Yellow River Valley civilization of China cultivated grains without the use of irrigation (Bartleby Section A.1.d). There, the river provided a source of rich soil in the form of loess from the Ordos Desert that the Yellow River carried down in to the Shang kingdom (Stearns, 58, 61). Rivers deposited rich loam on the banks of other river sites as well however this process also challenged the people to manage the flooding that could come with it. Individual characteristics of the regions made this more challenging to some civilizations than others. The Egyptians created a calendar and used astronomy to help them predict the flooding of the Nile. The Sumerians did not have the advantage of foretelling because their flooding patterns were not as regular (38) but they did succeed in rebuilding after floods caused destruction (28). The rivers served as a source of stimulation to societies in other ways as well. The Harappans learned to use the Indus River as a mode of transporting goods via riverboat (52) and the Shang society held ritual competitions between boats at river festivals (60).

Geographical Barriers

The relationship between natural barriers and stability is most notable in Egypt. Surrounded by the Libyan Desert on the west, and the Red Sea on the east, Egypt’s main area of vulnerability to nomadic invasion was the passage between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea through passage after the Syrian Desert (33). Here the society enjoyed years of stability in phases, the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom. Each phase flourished until the phases were interrupted by unrest and disorganization that followed periods of invasion (39). However, what might seem like barriers did not prevent the migration of nomads in all cases. The Aryan nomads traveled through mountains before arriving in the Indus valley (51, map 3.1) where they contributed to the decline of the Harappan civilization (53).

Open Terrains

The flat terrain of Mesopotamia (29) left those civilizations open to invasion. This openness also allowed Sumer to expand its warring, trading civilization of city-states by invasion though there wasn’t the organization to protect itself from other Middle Eastern people. The region’s risks extended beyond the Middle East and it was only a couple of hundred years after Sumer was consumed by the Arrakadian Empire that the area succumbed to the Hittites as a first wave of destabilizing invasions from central Asia (34). The open terrain to the north and west of the Yellow River led way for an influx of migrants into the region during the Zhou period of early Chinese civilization. The pressure of Aryan nomads coming from further out may have contributed to this migration which, unlike the destabilizing affect of the invasions of occurring in Mesopotamia, served to fuel a larger civilization which in turn pushed back non-Chinese peoples to the south (Stearns, 65-66).

Benefits of Contact with Outsiders

Contact with outsiders could serve to strengthen and spread civilization as well as cause unrest. From as early as the Neolithic time when concepts in food production utilizing crops and animals reached areas such as Egypt and the Indus River have contacts with other people spurred development within a region (Diamond, 100). With Egypt and the Middle East open to the western Mediterranean Sea trade with water travelers such as the Minoans and the Phoenicians led to the sharing of knowledge that was then expanded on by the receiving society. For instance, the Phoenicians further developed both the cuneiform writing that originated in Mesopotamia and the Egyptian system of numbering. Even when the Indo-European invasions disrupted civilizations established in Greece by the Minoans of Crete traces of Egyptian and Mesopotamian contributions to civilization continued to have some influence on classical Greece (Stearns, 45).

Geography: One Factor

Analyzing the geography and migratory patterns of people gives a wider picture to the how’s and why’s of early civilizations and is part of a complex web of factors that are woven into each other. Geography allowed contacts to develop in the realms of trading and the migration of nomadic peoples yet how the individual civilizations responded to these contacts was a matter of more than just geography alone as the differences between these responses infer. It would seem that the shape of the land people live on also shapes the people themselves but it is how the people respond to the nature of the land around them that makes them who they are.