Semitic people were among the first in the world to develop irrigation technology. This led to the early development of towns, and eventually cities. The manipulation of the waters, another form of spirit life, represented another way in which humans developed a technology which reproduced a function of Nature. Within these cultures, stratified hierarchal social organization crystallized. Ancient civilizations developed imperialism, partly because of the very nature of cities.
Cities are obviously population concentrations.
Most importantly though, they are places which must import the material needs of this concentration from the countryside. This means that the Natural World must be subjugated, extracted from and exploited in the interest of the city. To give order to this process, the Semitic world developed early codes of law. They also developed the idea of monotheism to serve as spiritual model for their material and political organization. Much of the history of the ancient world recounts the struggles between the Indo-Europeans and the Semitic peoples.