Early Civilization And Cultural Diffusion
Cultural diffusion is the spread of elements obtained from one culture like ideas, products, customs, traditions, beliefs to other people, generally through trade, wars, and the movement of people’s civilization is. The four ancient river civilizations are namely Sumerian Civilization along the rivers Tigris & Euphrates in Mesopotamia, Egyptian Civilization along the river Nile,Harappan Civilization along the Indus River and the Ancient China Civilization along Huang He along the Yellow River.
In the history of civilization, the Sumerian people were the first group of individuals to spread their new innovations through their trade with neighboring nations like Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria (Early River Civilization, ). Their skills of advancing in terms of technology, specialized workers and their advanced cities, which led to adoption by other nationalities. The Sumerians practiced polytheism, which was a belief that their numerous gods with different personalities controlled the forces of nature and they were unpredictable just like nature itself (Early River Civilization). The Sumerian society was divided into three classes of Priests and the royalty, the wealthy merchants and the ordinary workers. Women in the society were prohibited from enrolling in school but had privileges to own property, join lower ranks of priesthood (MindSparks). Cuneiform became the first Sumerian first of the writing system (MindSparks). They invented the wheel, sketch maps,three hundred and sixty degrees arithmetic derivation of a circle, the sail, the plow (MindSparks). The Sumerians were also the first people to use bronze. Due to the unpredictability in terms of water supply by the river Mesopotamia because of natural disasters like river banks overflowing and the fact that the river changed its course may have influenced the city states to major in the trade of food for the reason that it was in surplus.
Egypt’s settlements arose along the narrow strip of land made fertile by the river (MindSparks). A culture that was quite unique due to isolation by river Nile that provided natural protection against invaders also reduced interaction with other people. The Egyptians too were polytheists and believed in life after death (Early River Civilization). Mummification, which is also defined as the embalming and preserving of the dead body to prevent it from decaying(Early River Civilization). Pictographs were the earliest forms of writing techniques adopted by the Egyptians. Due to advancements, these pictographs later developed into hieroglyphics. The Egyptian architectural designs for example the first stone structure and the famous pyramids were brought about as a result of cultural diffusion even though technicality led to their advancements (Early River Civilization). The administrative part of the Egyptian rule developed a system of the simple addition and subtraction arithmetics of counting numbers so as to help in the collection and assessment of tax. Due to over flooding of the rivers, the Egyptians developed a mathematical way of surveying land in order to curb over flooding (MindSparks).
The Harappan civilization is the third ancient river civilization. It is also known as the Indus Valley civilization as a result of the numerous archaeological discoveries (Richardson, 2005). Indus Valley civilization prospered around 2,500 B.C. In the western part of South Asia (Richardson, 2005). As a result of this prosperity, modern nations including Pakistan, and parts of India emerged. The Indus Valley was home to the largest of the four prehistoric and urban civilizations of Egypt,Mesopotamia, India and China. The Indus people were remarkably known for their tremendous achievements in planning with their sophisticated city planning serving as an example (Richardson, 2005). The cities had a fortified area known as the citadel (Early River Civilization). The aim was to protect the mazed city from outside attack. Buildings in the city were constructed using standard sized bricks that were oven baked. This made the structures strong and durable. As a result of the different cultural diffusion, these societies had eloquent engineers capable of coming up with a sophisticated plumbing system for the city drainage (Early River Civilization).
Ancient China civilization developed along the river because of the rugged terrain of the country with only about ten percent land available for farming (Early River Civilization). Early chinese civilization began at an early time before the summerian settlement. During this time the chines adopted the farming systems of irrigation, and construction along thr Huang He river. One advancement came about by the invention of an engineer named Yu who developed a plan of reducing flooding and later using the fllod water for irrigation (Early River Civilization). The chinese structures were mainly constructed from wood and were as appealing and made with an architectural touch. The cities were built at the edge offorests and surrounded by earthen walls (Early River Civilization). Unlike the hierlographs, the chinese writing was made simple because each character had its own meaning and the fact the use of pictographs eas employed. An advantage was that each chinese learnt the same writing made it comprehensible. Other writings were hard to comprehend due to the complexities involved (Early River Civilization). Because of trade, the earliest chinese dynasty invented roads and canals to serve the trade centers and agricultural hubs as well. There was introduction of coined money as well (Early River Civilization).
References
Early River Valley Civilization. (n.d.). retrieved december 10, 2012 from http://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ltisdschools.org%2Fcms%2Flib%2FTX21000349%2FCentricity%2FDomain%2F287%2FChapter2.pdf&ei=X_DEUPeRHKLB0gXx84HYCQ&usg=AFQjCNFI1PzEpSw-lE4Yedo5kDWU1bvPyA
MindSparks.(n.d.). Rivers and Civilizations: What’s the Link? New York: Social Studies
Richardson, H. (2005) Life In The Ancient Indus River Valley. Canada: Crabtree Publishing Company
