Harsh climate change was the primary driver in the development of civilization, according to new research by the University of East Anglia. The early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and Northern South America were founded between 6000 and 4000 years ago when global climate changes, driven by natural fluctuations in the Earth's orbit, caused a weakening of monsoon systems resulting in a drier climate.
These first large urban, state-level societies appeared because failing resources forced previously migratory people into close proximity in areas where water, pasture and productive land was still available.
Dr. Nick Brooks challenges existing views of how and why civilization arose, saying that the earliest civilizations developed largely as a by-product of adaptation to
harsher changing climate and environment.
"Civilization did not arise as the result of a benign environment which allowed humanity to indulge a preference for living in complex, urban, 'civilized' societies," said Dr. Brooks.
"On the contrary, what we tend to think of today as 'civilization' was in large part an accidental by-product of unplanned adaptation to catastrophic climate change. Civilization was a last resort - a means of organizing society and food production and distribution, in the face of deteriorating environmental conditions."
He added that for many, if not most people, the development of civilization meant a harder life, less freedom, and more inequality. The transition to urban living meant that most people had to work harder in order to survive, and suffered increased exposure to communicable diseases and stress. Health and nutrition are likely to have deteriorated rather than improved for many.
The new study challenges the wide belief that the development of civilization was the result of a transition from harsh, unpredictable climatic conditions during the last ice age, to more benign and stable conditions at the beginning of the Holocene period some 10,000 years ago.
The research also has profound philosophical implications because it challenges deeply held beliefs about human progress, the nature of civilization and the origins of political and religious systems that have persisted to this day. It suggests that civilization is not our natural state, but the unintended consequence of adaptation to climatic deterioration - a condition of humanity "in extremis".
Dr. Brooks said: "Having been forced into civilized communities as a last resort, people found themselves faced with increased social inequality, greater violence in the form of organized conflict, and at the mercy of self-appointed elites who used religious authority and political ideology to bolster their position.
These models of government are still with us today, and we may understand them better by understanding how civilization arose by accident as a result of the last great global climatic upheaval."
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