The expansion of the geographical scope of civilization in the Mesopotamian Valley, as well as the rise of Egyptian and Indian-style civilizations in the distant Nile River and Indus River basins, obviously played an important role in promoting the level of human civilization. But as long as such complex societies needed river-irrigated valleys to sustain themselves, they would remain a rare and precious human way of life, like barbarian isolated islands in the ocean. Only when rain-fed areas can maintain a sufficient number of professionals to make it possible to establish a civilized society can civilization become the global mainstream. This is a process that took nearly 4,000 years to complete, starting shortly before 2000 BC and finally ending in the 19th century AD.
The details of how the shift to rainfall areas began are unknown, although this fact is undeniable. For example, by around 2000 BC, a series of satellite civilizations or pre-civilizations were born around Mesopotamia , among which the Hittite society in Asia Minor, Canaan Syria Canaan Palestine were the most famous. The Egyptian desert prevented the development of any similar civilization on both sides of the Nile, but it is possible, perhaps likely, that elements of the Indus Valley Civilization penetrated southward and eastward, affecting the lives of various peoples in the non-irrigated areas of southern and central India, although there is no archaeological material to prove it.
The conditions required for a civilization to flourish in rain-fed areas are not difficult to summarize. First, farmers must be able to produce a surplus of food. Secondly, some social institutions must transfer surplus food from the farmers who produce it to a group of professionals, so that the professionals have the conditions to study and perfect advanced technologies and supplement professional knowledge, without having to spend most of their time doing field labor like most farmers.
We have seen how the spread of the plow enabled ordinary farmers in many areas to produce a surplus of agricultural produce during most seasons. This is an indispensable condition for civilization to break through the limitations of irrigation. But the details of the origins and early development of plow agriculture are very unclear. Likewise, an exploration of the origins and nature of the social institutions that transfer food from producers to professional consumers is indeed beyond current knowledge. Conquest and trade were perhaps two important factors. But conquerors and merchants, acting in accordance with existing forms of social leadership, caused considerable structural changes in civilizations or pre-civilizations that began to transcend the confines of irrigated valleys.
For example, in northeastern Asia Minor, the discovery of a large number of clay tablets written by Assyrian merchants around 1800 BC gave people a little understanding of the emerging Hittite civilization. By then, the local ruler had begun to recruit a cadre of soldiers, priests, merchants, and craftsmen—thus, to a lesser extent, foreshadowing the court life that would develop in the Hittite capital of Hatusa about a century later. Many aspects of Hittite life were directly inherited from Mesopotamia. For example, cuneiform and some Mesopotamian religious myths were directly borrowed. At the same time, important elements of local tradition have been preserved. The result is a fusion of Mesopotamian style with local uniqueness. Hittite art is a keen representation of the type of culture that emerged as a result, for although closely related to Mesopotamian models, Hattusa's carvings have a distinctly crude style of their own.
Hittite society was composed of several different ethnic groups. The conquest of one group by other groups was probably the basis of the social stratification of the Hittite civilization . Only when local chiefs and rulers were able to command a certain amount of wealth or labor did merchants in civilized societies really start doing business. Goods produced in distant civilizations were likely to be too expensive to interest ordinary farmers, and the goods sought by civilized merchants—such as metals, wood, and other raw materials—often required quite elaborate cooperation in transportation and other preparations.With the wealth and power they initially gained as leaders of one ethnic group in the conquest of other groups, it is likely that those who organized local manpower for such activities and the merchants who purchased cloth, metalwork, and other goods from merchants in other civilized areas were able to cooperate in this way. The prominent position of the soldiers and the short, bulky characteristics of the Hittite carvings undoubtedly indicate the heavy trampling of the conquerors. They needed to obtain a large amount of land rent and labor from the people who became their victims in order to maintain the life of the small city and allow the craftsmen and other professionals in it to meet the needs of the conquerors.
Overall, the same pattern of social change appears to have occurred in other areas of Mesopotamia's borders. Canaan to the west may have been more commercial and less military developed; but to the north of the Tigris Valley and in the mountains to the east, the Hurrites and Elamites developed their own unique way of life based on that of the Mesopotamian civilization through prominent military roads - as our incomplete information indicates -.
In the grassland areas further away on the other side of the mountains, nomads are particularly interested in metals because they can improve their weapons or add to the splendor of their clothing. For example, by about 2500 BC, tribal leaders in the Kuban River basin in the northern Caucasus Mountains began decorating their tombs with exquisite bronze weapons and jewelry. Bronze made the already warlike barbarians in the grassland area even more terrifying. In fact, they proved themselves capable of widespread conquest of their neighbors. For example, in the next six to seven hundred years, barbarians using bronze weapons swept across Western Europe from the steppe areas, conquering and gradually assimilating themselves with the original populations there. These Bronze Age barbarian invasions deeply imprinted the habit of violence and the worship of force on the European consciousness. In terms of language, Europe has also become Europeanized. With the exception of Finnish , Estonian , Magyar, and Basque , all the languages spoken by modern European residents have their origins in an ancient language (or a language closely related to it) brought by the conquerors of the western steppes of the Eurasian continent in the Bronze Age.
This language family is called " Indo-European " because its branches not only have European languages, but also have branches in Persia and northern India. The modern range of this language family attests to the fact that steppe barbarians were able to launch conquests east and south as their savage prowess was enhanced by the possession of advanced bronze weapons. For example, in the Middle East, small groups of warriors speaking proto-Indo-European language seem to have established dominance over the mountainous Hurrians; the same was true for the Kassites further east. Even the Hyksos, who are mainly Semitic-speaking tribes, may also include some tribes who speak Indo-Proto-European. The Aryans 's conquest of the Indus Valley and subsequent destruction of ancient Indian civilization formed a wing of this barbarian migration. Another less famous tribe (Tocharians) migrated further east, perhaps reaching as far as the Chinese border at a later date.
