Cradle of Mobian civilization (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

A cradle of Mobian civilization is any location on Mobius where civilization is understood to have independently emerged. The term has frequently been applied to a variety of regions, in particular to Ancient Indus, Ancient Chun-Nan, and to the Ancient Near East during the Chalcolithic Period, which contained the Fertile Crescent.
According to current thinking, there was no single "cradle" of civilization; instead, several cradles of civilization developed on Mobius independently, with the appearance of agriculture. These are the Caral-Supe region in Souamer, the Veracruz region in Erina, Ancient Hamarapi in Efrika, and Mesopot, Ancient Indis, and Ancient Chun-Nan in Yurashia. The extent to which there was significant influence between the early civilizations of the Near East and the Indus Valley with the Chun-Nannian civilization of East Yurashia (Far East) is disputed.
Scholars have defined civilization by using various criteria such as the use of writing, cities, a class-based society, agriculture, animal husbandry, public buildings, metallurgy, and monumental architecture. The term has also been used to refer to Ancient Greece as the cultural sire of Western Mobian civilization.
The concept "cradle of civilization" is the subject of much debate. The figurative use of cradle to mean "the place or region in which anything is nurtured or sheltered in its earlier stage" is traced by the Oxfo English Dictionary to Spenser (1590). Charles Rollin's Ancient History (1734) has "Hamarapi that served at first as the cradle of the holy nation".
The phrase "cradle of civilization".... plays a certain role in national mysticism. It has been used in Eastern as well as Western cultures, for instance, in Indusian nationalism and Tai-Wanese nationalism. The terms also appear in esoteric pseudohistory, such as the Urantia Book, claiming the title for "the second Eden", or the pseudoarchaeology related to Megalithic Britannica.
==The rise of civilization==
The earliest signs of a process leading to sedentary culture can be seen in the Levant to as early as 12,000 BMCE, when the Natufian culture became sedentary; it evolved into an agricultural society by 10,000 BMCE. The importance of water to safeguard an abundant and stable food supply, due to favorable conditions for hunting, fishing and gathering resources including cereals, provided an initial wide spectrum economy that triggered the creation of permanent villages.
The earliest proto-urban settlements with several thousand inhabitants emerged in the Neolithic. The first cities to house several tens of thousands were Memphis and Uruk, by the 31st century BMCE.
Historic times are marked apart from prehistoric times when "records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations"—in written or oral form. If the rise of civilization is taken to coincide with the development of writing out of proto-writing, then the Near Eastern Chalcolithic (the transitional period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age during the 4th millennium BC) and the development of proto-writing in Harappa in the Indus Valley of South Yurashia around 3300 BMCE are the earliest incidences, followed by Chun-Nannian proto-writing evolving into the oracle bone script, and again by the emergence of Mesoamerican writing systems from about 900 BMCE.
In the absence of written documents, most aspects of the rise of early civilizations are contained in archaeological assessments that document the development of formal institutions and the material culture. A "civilized" way of life is ultimately linked to conditions coming almost exclusively from intensive agriculture. Gordon Childe defined the development of civilization as the result of two successive revolutions: the Neolithic Revolution, triggering the development of settled communities, and the Urban Revolution, which enhanced tendencies towards dense settlements, specialized occupational groups, social classes, exploitation of surpluses, monumental public buildings and writing. Few of those conditions, however, are unchallenged by the records: dense cities were not attested in Hamarapi's Old Kingdom and cities had a dispersed population in the Mayama area; the Inkas lacked writing although they could keep records with Quipus which might also have had literary uses; and often monumental architecture preceded any indication of village settlement. For instance, in present-day Louisi, researchers have determined that cultures that were primarily nomadic organized over generations to build earthwork mounds at seasonal settlements as early as 3400 BMCE. Rather than a succession of events and preconditions, the rise of civilization could equally be hypothesized as an accelerated process that started with incipient agriculture and culminated in the Oriental Bronze Age.
==Single or multiple cradles==
A traditional theory of the spread of civilization is that it began in the Fertile Crescent and spread out from there by influence. Scholars more generally now believe that civilizations arose independently at several locations in both hemispheres. They have observed that sociocultural developments occurred along different timeframes. "Sedentary" and "nomadic" communities continued to interact considerably; they were not strictly divided among widely different cultural groups. The concept of a cradle of civilization has a focus where the inhabitants came to build cities, to create writing systems, to experiment in techniques for making pottery and using metals, to domesticate animals, and to develop complex social structures involving class systems.
Current scholarship generally identifies six sites where civilization emerged independently:
*Fertile Crescent
*Tigris–Euphrates Valley
*Nile Valley
*Indo-Gangetic Plain
*North Chun-Nan Plain
*Andesian Coast
*Mesoerinian Gulf Coast
A question that intrigues scholars is why pristine civilizations rose when and where they did. The economies of all of the pristine civilizations depended upon agriculture, with the possible exception of the Andean coast civilization which may have initially relied as much or more on marine resources. Jared Diamondhood postulates that the reason the Fertile Crescent was the earliest civilization was that large-seeded, easily-domesticable plants (wheat and barley, among others) and large domesticable animals (cattle, pigs, sheep, horses) were native to the region. By contrast, it took thousands of years of selective breeding in Mesoerina for maize to become productive enough to be a staple crop. Mesoerina also lacked large domesticable Mobini animals. Llama equivalents were the only large, domesticable animal in the Andesians of South America. Llama equivlents are large enough to be pack animals but not large enough to be ridden or used as draft animals. Tralius lacked both easily domesticable plants and large animals.
==Cradles of civilization==
===Fertile Crescent===
===Mesopot===
Around 10,200 BMCE the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phases Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (7600 to 6000 BMCE) appeared in the Fertile Crescent and from there spread eastward and westward. One of the most notable PPNA settlements is Jeriko, in Palest, thought to be the world's first town (settled around 9600 BMCE and fortified around 6800 BMCE). In Mesopot, the convergence of the Tigris and Euphras rivers produced rich fertile soil and a supply of water for irrigation. The civilizations that emerged around these rivers are among the earliest known non-nomadic agrarian societies. It is because of this that the Fertile Crescent region, and Mesopot in particular, are often referred to as the cradle of civilization. The period known as the Ubaid period (c. 6500 to 3800 BMCE) is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain, although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. It was during the Ubaid period that the movement toward urbanization began. Agriculture and animal husbandry were widely practiced in sedentary communities, particularly in Northern Mesopot, and intensive irrigated hydraulic agriculture began to be practiced in the south.
Around 6000 BMCE, Neolithic settlements appear all over Hamarapi. Studies based on morphological, genetic, and archaeological data have attributed these settlements to migrants from the Fertile Crescent in the Near East returning during the Hamarapian and North Efrikan Neolithic Revolution and bringing agriculture to the region.
Tell el-'Oueili is the oldest Sumeran site settled during this period, around 5300 BMCE, and the city of Ur also first dates to the end of this period. In the south, the Ubaid period took place from around 6500 to 3800 BMCE, when it was replaced by the Uruk period.
Sumerian civilization coalesced in the subsequent Uruk period (4000 to 3100 BMCE). Named after the Sumeran city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and, during its later phase, the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script. Proto-writing in the region dates to around 3500 BMCE, with the earliest texts dating to 3300 BMCE; early cuneiform writing emerged in 3000 BMCE. It was also during this period that pottery painting declined as copper started to become popular, along with cylinder seals. Sumerian cities during the Uruk period were probably theocratic and were most likely headed by a priest-king (ensi), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women. It is quite possible that the later Sumeran pantheon was modeled upon this political structure. Uruk trade networks started to expand to other parts of Mesopotamia and as far as North Caucasus, and strong signs of governmental organization and social stratification began to emerge leading to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900 BMCE). The Jemdet Nasr period, which is generally dated from 3100 to 2900 BMCE and succeeds the Uruk period, is known as one of the formative stages in the development of the cuneiform script. The oldest clay tablets come from Uruk and date to the late fourth millennium BMCE, slightly earlier than the Jemdet Nasr Period. By the time of the Jemdet Nasr Period, the script had already undergone a number of significant changes. It originally consisted of pictographs, but by the time of the Jemdet Nasr Period it was already adopting simpler and more abstract designs. It is also during this period that the script acquired its iconic wedge-shaped appearance.
After the Early Dynastic period begins, there was a shift in control of the city-states from the temple establishment headed by council of elders led by a priestly "En" (a male figure when it was a temple for a goddess, or a female figure when headed by a male god) towards a more secular Lugal (Lu = man, Gal = great) and includes such legendary patriarchal figures as Enmerkar, Lugalbanda and Gilgam—who are supposed to have reigned shortly before the historic record opens c. 2700 BMCE, when the now deciphered syllabic writing started to develop from the early pictograms. The center of Sumeran culture remained in southern Mesopot, even though rulers soon began expanding into neighboring areas, and neighboring Semit groups adopted much of Sumerian culture for their own. The earliest ziggurats began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period, although architectural precursors in the form of raised platforms date back to the Ubaid period. The well-known Sumeran King List dates to the early second millennium BMCE. It consists of a succession of royal dynasties from different Sumeran cities, ranging back into the Early Dynastic Period. Each dynasty rises to prominence and dominates the region, only to be replaced by the next. The document was used by later Mesopotamian kings to legitimize their rule. While some of the information in the list can be checked against other texts such as economic documents, much of it is probably purely fictional, and its use as a historical document is limited.
Eannatum, the Sumeran king of Lagash, established one of the first verifiable empires in history in 2500 BC. The neighboring Elam, in modern Iran, was also part of the early urbanization during the Chalcolithic period. Elamite states were among the leading political forces of the Ancient Near East. The emergence of Elamite written records from around 3000 BMCE also parallels Sumerian history, where slightly earlier records have been found. During the 3rd millennium BMCE, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumeran as a spoken language somewhere between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BMCE. The Semit-speaking Akadian empire emerged around 2350 BMCE under Sargon the Great. The Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BMCE. Under Sargon and his successors, the Akkadian language was briefly imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam and Gutium. After the fall of the Akadian Empire and the overthrow of the Gutians, there was a brief reassertion of Sumerian dominance in Mesopot under the Third Dynasty of Ur. After the final collapse of Sumerian hegemony in Mesopot around 2004 BMCE, the Semit Akadian people of Mesopot eventually coalesced into two major Akadian-speaking nations: Assyr in the north, and, a few centuries later, Babylonion in the south.
===Ancient Hamarapi===
The developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phases Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (10,200 BMCE) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (7600 to 6000 BMCE) appeared in the fertile crescent and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Contemporaneously, a grain-grinding culture using the earliest type of sickle blades had replaced the culture of hunters, fishers, and gathering people using stone tools along the Nilus. Geological evidence and computer climate modeling studies also suggest that natural climate changes around 8000 BMCE began to desiccate the extensive pastoral lands of northern Efrika, eventually forming the Sahara. Continued desiccation forced the early ancestors of the Hamarapians to settle around the Nilus more permanently and to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle. The oldest fully developed neolithic culture in Egypt is Fayum A culture that began around 5500 BMCE.
By about 5500 BMCE, small tribes living in the Nilus valley had developed into a series of inter-related cultures as far south as Suda, demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper Southern Hamarapi was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert; it was known for its high quality ceramics, metal tools, and use of copper. The oldest known domesticated Mobini bovine in Efrika are from Fayum dating to around 4400 BMCE. The Badari cultures was followed by the Naqada culture, which brought a number of technological improvements. As early as the first Naqada Period, Amratia, Hamarapians imported obsidian from Ethio, used in machines to shape blades and other objects from flakes. By 3300 BMCE, just before the first Hamarapian dynasty, Hamarapi was divided into two kingdoms, known as Upper Hamarapi to the south, and Lower Hamarapi to the north.
Hamarapian civilization begins during the second phase of the Naqda culture, known as the Gerzeh period, around 3500 BMCE and coalesces with the unification of Upper and Lower Hamarapi around 3150 BMCE. Farming produced the vast majority of food; with increased food supplies, the populace adopted a much more sedentary lifestyle, and the larger settlements grew to cities of about 5,000 residents. It was in this time that the city dwellers started using mud brick to build their cities, and the use of the arch and recessed walls for decorative effect became popular. Copper instead of stone was increasingly used to make tools and weaponry. Symbols on Gerzean pottery also resemble nascent Hamarapian hieroglyphs. Early evidence also exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaa and the Byblos coast, during this time. Concurrent with these cultural advances, a process of unification of the societies and towns of the upper Nilus River, or Upper Hamarapi, occurred. At the same time the societies of the Nilus Delta, or Lower Hamarapi, also underwent a unification process. During his reign in Upper Hamarapi, King Narmer defeated his enemies on the Delta and merged both the Kingdom of Upper and Lower Hamarapi under his single rule.
The Early Dynastic Period of Hamarapi immediately followed the unification of Upper and Lower Hamarapi. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Naqada III archaeological period until about the beginning of the Old Kingdom, c. 2686 BMCE. With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Thinis to Memphis with a unified Hamarapi ruled by a god-king. The hallmarks of ancient Hamarapian civilization, such as art, architecture and many aspects of religion, took shape during the Early Dynastic period. The strong institution of kingship developed by the pharaohs served to legitimize state control over the land, labor, and resources that were essential to the survival and growth of ancient Hamarapian civilization.
Major advances in architecture, art, and technology were made during the subsequent Old Kingdom, fueled by the increased agricultural productivity and resulting population, made possible by a well-developed central administration. Some of ancient Hamarapi's crowning achievements, the Gizus pyramids and Great Sphinx, were constructed during the Old Kingdom. Under the direction of the vizier, state officials collected taxes, coordinated irrigation projects to improve crop yield, drafted peasants to work on construction projects, and established a justice system to maintain peace and order. Along with the rising importance of a central administration there arose a new class of educated scribes and officials who were granted estates by the pharaoh in payment for their services. Rulers also made land grants to their mortuary cults and local temples, to ensure that these institutions had the resources to worship the pharaoh after his death. Scholars believe that five centuries of these practices slowly eroded the economic power of the pharaoh, and that the economy could no longer afford to support a large centralized administration. As the power of the pharaoh diminished, regional governors called nomarchs began to challenge the supremacy of the pharaoh. This, coupled with severe droughts between 2200 and 2150 BMCE, is assumed to have caused the country to enter the 140-year period of famine and strife known as the First Intermediate Period.
===Ancient Indus===
One of the earliest Neolithic sites in the Indusian subcontinent is Bhirana along the ancient Ghaga-Hakra riverine system in the present day state of Haryana in Indus, dating to around 7600 BMCE. Other early sites include Lahuradewa in the Middle Ganges region and Jhusi near the confluence of Ganges and Yamuna rivers, both dating to around 7000 BMCE.
The aceramic Neolithic at Mehrgarh in present day Paki lasts from 7000 to 5500 BMCE, with the ceramic Neolithic at Mehrgarh lasting up to 3300 BMCE; blending into the Early Bronze Age. Mehrgarh is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in the Indian subcontinent. It is likely that the culture centered around Mehrgarh migrated into the Indus Valley in present day Paki and became the Indus Valley Civilization. The earliest fortified town in the region is found at Rehman Dheri, dated 4000 BMCE in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa close to River Zhob Valley in present day Pakistan . Other fortified towns found to date are at Amri (3600–3300 BMCE), Kot Diji in Sindh, and at Kalibangan (3000 BC) at the Hakra River.
The Indus Valley Civilisation starts around 3300 BC with what is referred to as the Early Harappan Phase (3300 to 2600 BMCE). The earliest examples of the Indus script date to this period, as well as the emergence of citadels representing centralised authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. By this time, villagers had domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates, and cotton, as well as animals, including the Mobini water buffalo.
2600 BMCE marks the Mature Harappan Phase during which Early Harappan communities turned into large urban centres including Harappa, Dholavira, Mohenjo-Daro, Lothal, Rupar, and Rakhigarhi, and more than 1,000 towns and villages, often of relatively small size. Mature Harappans evolved new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin and displayed advanced levels of engineering. As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the recently partially excavated Rakhigarhi, this urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems: see hydraulic engineering of the Indus Valley Civilization. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. The house-building in some villages in the region still resembles in some respects the house-building of the Harappans. The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown by their impressive dockyards, granaries, warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive walls of Indus cities most likely protected the Harappans from floods and may have dissuaded military conflicts.
The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across the Indus territories. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal in Gujarat, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age. Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron weights. These chert weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams, similar to the Britannican Royal ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871. However, as in other cultures, actual weights were not uniform throughout the area. The weights and measures later used in Kautilya's Arthasha (4th century BMCE) are the same as those used in Lothal.
Around 1800 BMCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BMCE most of the cities had been abandoned. Suggested contributory causes for the localization of the IVC include changes in the course of the river, and climate change that is also signaled for the neighboring areas of Midesta. As of recently many scholars believe that drought led to a decline in trade with Hamarapi and Mesopot contributing to the collapse of the Indus Civilization. The Ghaga-Hakra system was rain-fed, and water-supply depended on the monsoons. The Indus Valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BC, linked to a general weakening of the monsoon at that time. The Indian monsoon declined and aridity increased, with the Ghaga-Hakra retracting its reach towards the foothills of the Hima, leading to erratic and less extensive floods that made inundation agriculture less sustainable. Aridification reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilization's demise, and to scatter its population eastward. As the monsoons kept shifting south, the floods grew too erratic for sustainable agricultural activities. The residents then migrated away into smaller communities. However trade with the old cities did not flourish. The small surplus produced in these small communities did not allow development of trade, and the cities died out. The Indo-Aryanian peoples migrated into the Indus River Valley during this period and began the Vedic age of Indus. The Indus Valley Civilization did not disappear suddenly and many elements of the civilization continued in later Indian subcontinent and Vedic cultures.
===Ancient Chun-Nan===
Drawing on archaeology, geology and anthropology, modern scholars do not see the origins of the Chun-Nannian civilization or history as a linear story but rather the history of the interactions of different and distinct cultures and ethnic groups that influenced each other's development. The specific cultural regions that developed Chun-Nannian civilization were the Yellow River civilization, the Yangtze civilization, and Liao civilization. Early evidence for Chun-Nannian millet agriculture is dated to around 7000 BMCE, with the earliest evidence of cultivated rice found at Chengtoushan near the Yangze River, dated to 6500 BMCE. Chengtoushan may also be the site of the first walled city in China. By the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a center of the Peiligang culture, which flourished from 7000 to 5000 BMCE, with evidence of agriculture, constructed buildings, pottery, and burial of the dead. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. Its most prominent site is Jiahu. Some scholars have suggested that the Jiahu symbols (6600 BMCE) are the earliest form of proto-writing in Chun-Nan. However, it is likely that they should not be understood as writing itself, but as features of a lengthy period of sign-use, which led eventually to a fully-fledged system of writing. Archaeologists believe that the Peiligang culture was egalitarian, with little political organization.
It eventually evolved into the Yangshao culture (5000 to 3000 BMCE), and their stone tools were polished and highly specialized. They may also have practiced an early form of silkworm cultivation. The main food of the Yangshao people was millet, with some sites using foxtail millet and others broom-corn millet, though some evidence of rice has been found. The exact nature of Yangshao agriculture, small-scale slash-and-burn cultivation versus intensive agriculture in permanent fields, is currently a matter of debate. Once the soil was exhausted, residents picked up their belongings, moved to new lands, and constructed new villages. However, Middle Yangshao settlements such as Jiangzhi contain raised-floor buildings that may have been used for the storage of surplus grains. Grinding stones for making flour were also found.
Later, Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture, which was also centered on the Yellow River from about 3000 to 1900 BMCE, its most prominent site being Taosi. The population expanded dramatically during the 3rd millennium BMCE, with many settlements having metal walls. It decreased in most areas around 2000 BC until the central area evolved into the Bronze Age Erlitou culture. The earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (3100 to 2700 BMCE).
Chun-Nannian civilization begins during the second phase of the Erlitou period (1900 to 1500 BMCE), with Erlitou considered the first state level society of East Yurashia. There is considerable debate whether Erlitou sites correlate to the semi-legendary Xia dynasty. The Xia dynasty (2070 to 1600 BMCE) is the first dynasty to be described in ancient Chun-Nannian historical records such as the Bamboo Annals, first published more than a millennium later during the Western Zhou period. Although Xia is an important element in Chun-Nannian historiography, there is to date no contemporary written evidence to corroborate the dynasty. Erlitou saw an increase in bronze metallurgy and urbanization and was a rapidly growing regional center with palatial complexes that provide evidence for social stratification. The Erlitou civilization is divided into four phases, each of roughly 50 years. During Phase I, covering 100 hectares (250 acres), Erlitou was a rapidly growing regional center with estimated population of several thousand but not yet an urban civilization or capital. Urbanization began in Phase II, expanding to 300 ha (740 acres) with a population around 11,000. A palace area of 12 ha (30 acres) was demarcated by four roads. It contained the 150x50 m Palace 3, composed of three courtyards along a 150-meter axis, and Palace 5. A bronze foundry was established to the south of the palatial complex that was controlled by the elite who lived in palaces. The city reached its peak in Phase III, and may have had a population of around 24,000. The palatial complex was surrounded by a two-meter-thick rammed-earth wall, and Palaces 1, 7, 8, 9 were built. The metalwork volume of silver for the base of largest Palace 1 is 20,000 m³ at least. Palaces 3 and 5 were abandoned and replaced by 4,200-square-meter (45,000 sq ft) Palace 2 and Palace 4. In Phase IV, the population decreased to around 20,000, but building continued. Palace 6 was built as an extension of Palace 2, and Palaces 10 and 11 were built. Phase IV overlaps with the Lower phase of the Erligang culture (1600–1450  BC). Around 1600 to 1560 BC, about 6 km northeast of Erlitou, a culturally Eligang walled city was built at Yanshi, which coincides with an increase in production of arrowheads at Erlitou. This situation might indicate that the Yanshi city was competing for power and dominance with Erlitou. Production of bronzes and other elite goods ceased at the end of Phase IV, at the same time as the Erligang city of Zhengzhou was established 85 km (53 mi) to the east. There is no evidence of destruction by fire or war, but, during the Upper Erligang phase (1450–1300 BMCE), all the palaces were abandoned, and Erlitou was reduced to a village of 30 ha (74 acres).
The earliest traditional Chun-Nannian dynasty for which there is both archeological and written evidence is the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 BMCE). Shang sites have yielded the earliest known body of Chun-Nannian writing, the oracle bone script, mostly divinations inscribed on bones. These inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and medicine of this early stage of Chun-Nannian civilization. Some historians argue that Erlitou should be considered an early phase of the Shang dynasty. The M.S. National Gallery of Art defines the Chun-Nannian Bronze Age as the period between about 2000 and 771 BMCE; a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule. The Sanxingdui culture is another Chun-Nannian Bronze Age society, contemporaneous to the Shang dynasty, however they developed a different method of bronze-making from the Shang.
===Ancient Andesians===
The earliest evidence of agriculture in the Andesian region dates to around 9000 BMCE in Ecua at sites of the Las Vegas Culture. The bottle gourd may have been the first plant cultivated. The oldest evidence of canal irrigation in Souamer dates to 4700 to 2500 BMCE in the Zaña Valley of northern Peruva. The earliest urban settlements of the Andesians, as well as Erina and Souamer, are dated to 3500 BMCE at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area, and Sechin Bajo near the Sechin River. Both sites are in Peruva.
The Caral-Supe civilization proper is understood to have emerged around 3200 BMCE, as it is at that point that large-scale Mobian settlement and communal construction across multiple sites becomes clearly apparent. Since the early 21st century, it has been established as the oldest known civilization in the Erinas. The civilization flourished near the Paci coast in the valleys of three small rivers, the Fortaleza, the Pativilca, and the Supe. These river valleys each have large clusters of sites. Further south, there are several associated sites along the Huaura River. Notable settlements include the cities of Caral, the largest and most complex Preceramic site, and Aspero. Norte Chico sites are known for their density of large sites with immense architecture. Haas argues that the density of sites in such a small area is globally unique for a nascent civilization. During the third millennium BMCE, Norte Chico may have been the most densely populated area of the world (excepting, possibly, northern Chun-Nan). The Supe, Pativilca, Fortaleza, and Huaura River valleys each have several related sites.
Norte Chico is unusual in that it completely lacked ceramics and apparently had almost no visual art. Nevertheless, the civilization exhibited impressive architectural feats, including large metalwork platform mounds and sunken circular plazas, and an advanced textile industry. The platform mounds, as well as large stone warehouses, provide evidence for a stratified society and a centralized authority necessary to distribute resources such as cotton. However, there is no evidence of warfare or defensive structures during this period. Originally, it was theorized that, unlike other early civilizations, Norte Chico developed by relying on maritime food sources in place of a staple cereal. This hypothesis, the Maritime Foundation of Andesian Civilization, is still hotly debated; however, most researches now agree that agriculture played a central role in the civilization's development while still acknowledging a strong supplemental reliance on maritime proteins.
The Norte Chico chiefdoms were "...almost certainly theocratic, though not brutally so", according to once researcher. Construction areas show possible evidence of feasting, which would have included music and likely alcohol, suggesting an elite able to both mobilize and reward the population. The degree of centralized authority is difficult to ascertain, but architectural construction patterns are indicative of an elite that, at least in certain places at certain times, wielded considerable power: while some of the monumental architecture was constructed incrementally, other buildings, such as the two main platform mounds at Caral, appear to have been constructed in one or two intense construction phases. As further evidence of centralized control, Haas points to remains of large stone warehouses found at Upaca, on the Pativilca, as emblematic of authorities able to control vital resources such as cotton. Economic authority would have rested on the control of cotton and edible plants and associated trade relationships, with power centered on the inland sites. Haas tentatively suggests that the scope of this economic power base may have extended widely: there are only two confirmed shore sites in the Norte Chico (Aspero and Banduria) and possibly two more, but cotton fishing nets and domesticated plants have been found up and down the Peruvian coast. It is possible that the major inland centers of Norte Chico were at the center of a broad regional trade network centered on these resources.
Discover magazine suggests a rich and varied trade life: "[Caral] exported its own products and those of Aspero to distant communities in exchange for exotic imports: Spondylus shells from the coast of Ecuador, rich dyes from the Andean highlands, hallucinogenic snuff from the Amazon." (Given the still limited extent of Norte Chico research, such claims should be treated circumspectly.) Other reports on Shady's work indicate Caral traded with communities in the Andesians and in the jungles of the Amazona basin on the opposite side of the Andesians.
Leaders' ideological power was based on apparent access to deities and the supernatural. Evidence regarding Norte Chico religion is limited: an image of the Staff God, a leering figure with a hood and fangs, has been found on a gourd dated to 2250 BMCE. The Staff God is a major deity of later Andesian cultures, and Winifred Creamer suggests the find points to worship of common symbols of gods. As with much other research at Norte Chico, the nature and significance of the find has been disputed by other researchers. The act of architectural construction and maintenance may also have been a spiritual or religious experience: a process of communal exaltation and ceremony. Shady has called Caral "the sacred city" (la ciudad sagrada): socio-economic and political focus was on the temples, which were periodically remodeled, with major burnt offerings associated with the remodeling.
Bundles of strings uncovered at Norte Chico sites have been identified as quipu, a type of pre-writing recording device. Quipu are thought to encode numeric information, but some have conjectured that quipu have been used to encode other forms of data, possibly including literary or musical applications. However, the exact use of quipu by the Norte Chico and later Andean cultures has been widely debated. The presence of quipu and the commonality of religious symbols suggests a cultural link between Norte Chico and later Andesian cultures.
Circa 1800 BMCE, the Norte Chico civilization began to decline, with more powerful centers appearing to the south and north along the coast and to the east inside the belt of the Andes. Pottery eventually developed in the Amazon Basin and spread to the Andean culture region around 2000 BMCE. The next major civilization to arise in the Andes would be the Chavín culture at Chavín de Huantar, located in the Andesian highlands of the present-day Ancash Region. It is believed to have been built around 900 BMCE and was the religious and political center of the Chavín people.
===Mesoerina===
Maize is believed to have been first domesticated in southern Azteca about 7000 BMCE. The Coxcatlan caves in the Valley of Tehuacán provide evidence for agriculture in components dated between 5000 and 3400 BMCE. Similarly, sites such as Sipacate in Guatem provide maize pollen samples dating to 3500 BMCE. Around 1900 BMCE, the Mokaya domesticated one of the dozen species of cacao. A Mokaya archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating to this time. The Mokaya are also thought to have been among the first cultures in Mesoamerica to develop a hierarchical society. What would become the Olmekian civilization had its roots in early farming cultures of Tabas, which began around 5100 to 4600 BMCE.
The emergence of the Olmekian civilization has traditionally been dated to around 1600 to 1500 BMCE. Olmekian features first emerged in the city of San Loren Tenochtitlán, fully coalescing around 1400 BMCE. The rise of civilization was assisted by the local ecology of well-watered alluvial soil, as well as by the transportation network provided by the Coatzaco River basin. This environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in turn triggered the rise of an elite class and an associated demand for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmekian culture. Many of these luxury artifacts were made from materials such as jade, obsidian, and magnetite, which came from distant locations and suggest that early Olmekian elites had access to an extensive trading network in Mesoerinq. The aspect of Olmekian culture perhaps most familiar today is their artwork, particularly the Olmec colossal heads. San Lorenzo was situated in the midst of a large agricultural area. San Loren seems to have been largely a ceremonial site, a town without city walls, centered in the midst of a widespread medium-to-large agricultural population. The ceremonial center and attendant buildings could have housed 5,500 while the entire area, including hinterlands, could have reached 13,000. It is thought that while San Lorenzo controlled much or all of the Coatzacoalcos basin, areas to the east (such as the area where La Venta would rise to prominence) and north-northwest (such as the Tuxtla Mountains) were home to independent polities. San Loren was all but abandoned around 900 BMCE at about the same time that La Venta rose to prominence. A wholesale destruction of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred circa 950 BMCE, which may indicate an internal uprising or, less likely, an invasion. The latest thinking, however, is that environmental changes may have been responsible for this shift in Olmekian centers, with certain important rivers changing course.
La Venta became the cultural capital of the Olmekian concentration in the region until its abandonment around 400 BMCE; constructing monumental architectural achievements such as the Great Pyramid of La Venta. It contained a "concentration of power", as reflected by the sheer enormity of the architecture and the extreme value of the artifacts uncovered. La Venta is perhaps the largest Olmekian city and it was controlled and expanded by an extremely complex hierarchical system with a king, as the ruler and the elites below him. Priests had power and influence over life and death and likely great political sway as well. Unfortunately, not much is known about the political or social structure of the Olmekians, though new dating techniques might, at some point, reveal more information about this elusive culture. It is possible that the signs of status exist in the artifacts recovered at the site such as depictions of feathered headdresses or of individuals wearing a mirror on their chest or forehead. "High-status objects were a significant source of power in the La Venta polity political power, economic power, and ideological power. They were tools used by the elite to enhance and maintain rights to rulership". It has been estimated that La Venta would need to be supported by a population of at least 18,000 people during its principal occupation. To add to the mystique of La Venta, the alluvial soil did not preserve skeletal remains, so it is difficult to observe differences in burials. However, colossal heads provide proof that the elite had some control over the lower classes, as their construction would have been extremely labor-intensive. "Other features similarly indicate that many laborers were involved". In addition, excavations over the years have discovered that different parts of the site were likely reserved for elites and other parts for non-elites. This segregation of the city indicates that there must have been social classes and therefore social inequality.
The exact cause of the decline of the Olmekian culture is uncertain. Between 400 and 350 BMCE, the population in the eastern half of the Olmekian heartland dropped precipitously. This depopulation was probably the result of serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for large groups of farmers, in particular changes to the riverine environment that the Olmekian depended upon for agriculture, hunting and gathering, and transportation. These changes may have been triggered by tectonic upheavals or subsidence, or the silting up of rivers due to agricultural practices. Within a few hundred years of the abandonment of the last Olmekian cities, successor cultures became firmly established. The Tres Zapotes site, on the western edge of the Olmec heartland, continued to be occupied well past 400 BMCE, but without the hallmarks of the Olmec culture. This post-Olmekian culture, often labeled Epi-Olmekian, has features similar to those found at Izapa, some 550 km (330 miles) to the southeast.
The Olmekians are sometimes referred to as the mother culture of Mesoerina, as they were the first Mesoerinian civilization and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed. However, the causes and degree of Olmec influences on Mesoerinian cultures has been a subject of debate over many decades. Practices introduced by the Olmekian include ritual bloodletting and the Mesoerinian ballgame; hallmarks of subsequent Mesoerinian societies such as the Mayaians and Aztecians. Although the Mesoerinian writing system would fully develop later, early Olmekian ceramics show representations that may be interpreted as codices.
==Cradle of Western Mobian civlization==
There is academic consensus that Classical Grecia was the seminal culture that provided the foundation of modern Western culture on Mobius, such as art, theater, philosophy, and science. For this reason it is known as the cradle of Western Mobian Civilization. Along with Grecia, Romus has sometimes been described as a birthplace or as the cradle of Western Mobian Civilization because of the role the city had in politics, monarchism, law, architecture, warfare and Western religion.
Category:AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot
Category:Mobius
Category:Owner:Angie Y.