--- ## Agrarian Society Along the two rivers of life, `長江 (Yangtze)` and `𒌓𒄒𒉣 (Euphrates)`, the calendrical nature of agrarian society slowly forced synchronization across time, behaviour, and belief. However, only certain behaviours proved reliably adaptive to this new structure; dissent—manifesting as novelty, improvisation, or excess individuality—became liabilities to a society in which non-conformist ideals led to the starvation of the collective. Those who could delay gratification, abstract seasonal planning into actionable behaviour, and suppress impulsivity became more productive, and more trustworthy. Kin lines, whether through predisposition or pedagogy, that could accumulate surplus without social collapse eventually became the ancestors of ruling classes. *Note: Agriculture requires foresight, understanding seasons, resisting impulsive consumption of seed grain, and coordinating group effort—all core to executive function, largely mediated by the prefrontal cortex. Population-level variation in dopaminergic polymorphisms—specifically in COMT, DRD4, and DAT1—modulates traits such as impulsivity, executive function, and risk tolerance. Their geographic distribution broadly aligns with ecological demand models of behavioural adaptation, complementing serotonergic findings such as those on [5-HTTLPR and collectivism.](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2842692/)* ### The Fertile Crescent - Anatolia As barley and wheat cultivation spread from [Jericho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho) and [‘Ain Ghazal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Ghazal_(archaeological_site)) to [Çatalhöyük](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk, stored grain and domesticated goats created stockpiles and power disparities. Villages [swelled into the thousands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fertile_crescent_Neolithic_B_circa_7500_BC.jpg), as more learned of agriculture, and adopted the domestication of sheep, goats and cattle. The world population, from the previous millennia, [nearly doubled to ~8-10 million.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006502/global-population-ten-thousand-bc-to-2050/) However, much of the community’s energy and surplus went into maintaining **irrigation works, granaries, ritual centers, and defensive walls**, rather than tool-making or experiments. Jerichos need for walls is more than vanity, more than a representation of defined identity, its a project which required immense man-power and coordination, the type which wouldn't be necessary without a real threat. Every person added to a community, is another brick added to the tower granaries, another layer to a house of cards. Without writing, complex technical know-how was transmitted orally or by apprenticeship, creating [[The Nature of Power & Change#A Short History|information choke points.]] Dissemination is only as fast as it can be spoken, understood, and borne on foot. Where [[1HE - Seed & Blood - (9,000–8,000 BCE)|the 9th millennium]] saw **firsts**—initial cultivation, sickles, villages; [[2HE - Clay & Fire - (8,000–7,000 BCE)|the 8th millennium]] focused on **spreading and standardizing** techniques across Anatolia, the Aegean, and beyond. *Note: A prioritization of **stability**—the aversion of change and risk—is a [long standing cultural signal,](https://doi.org/10.2218/jls.8074) echoed millenniums later by [[Plato - Πλάτων]] who expressed deep skepticism about innovation in his [[Plato - Πλάτων#The Republic|thought experiment]] of an ideal state. Studies of harvesting toolkits [[5HE - Plow & Division - (5,000–4,000 BCE)|(c. 5650-4450 BCE)]] Iberia show **diversity and use-wear adaptations** rather than brand-new tool types, diffusion over invention. That is to illustrate that agriculture and the changes it brought cannot be contextualized as a revolution in our modern sense. It was the result of perhaps 50,000+ years of human knowledge prior, and another ~3,000 years, until the end of this millennium for it to be considered established.* ![[Fertile_crescent_Neolithic_B_circa_7500_BC.jpg]] *Area of the Fertile Crescent, (c. 7500 BC), with main sites. [[2HE - Clay & Fire - (8,000–7,000 BCE)#Jericho|Jericho]] with its mud and clay walls, was a foremost site of the [Pre-Pottery Neolithic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Pottery_Neolithic "Pre-Pottery Neolithic") period. The area of Mesopotamia proper was not yet settled by humans. During this period, the region transitioned from the cooler, drier conditions of the Younger Dryas (ending around 9600 BCE) to the [warmer and wetter climate of the Early Holocene.](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.06.012) This climatic shift led to increased precipitation and milder temperatures, creating a more hospitable environment for human habitation and agriculture. The availability of water from sources like the Ein es-Sultan spring in Jericho supported the development of permanent settlements and the cultivation of crops.* ![[Cole_Thomas_The_Course_of_Empire_The_Savage_State_1836.jpg]] --- ### First Signs in the East - 賈湖 In the east we see [people settle](http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00048614) in [賈湖 (Jiahu),](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiahu) with knowledge of [pottery, alcohol fermentation and agriculture.](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1902668116) Their culture, rich, included burial traditions, [musical instruments,](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16862110/) and perhaps [proto-writing](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00061329) [[3HE - Hearth & Kin - (7,000–6,000 BCE)|(c. 6,000 BCE.)]] [Chemical analyses](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0407921102) provide direct evidence for fermented beverages in ancient Chinese culture, which were of considerable social, religious, and medical significance, and help elucidate their earliest descriptions in the [[8HE - Empire & Iron - (2,000–1,000 BCE)|Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions.]] Their instruments, flutes, were carved from the wing bone of the red-crowned crane, with five to eight holes capable of producing varied sounds in a nearly accurate octave. Chinese myths known from nearly [[8HE - Empire & Iron - (2,000–1,000 BCE)|6,000 years later]] tell of a cosmological importance, with sounds [alleged to lure cranes to a waiting hunter.](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/jiahu-ca-7000-5700-b-c) ![[Jiahu-symbols-horizontal-6000BCE.png]] *Note: There is evidence that in [[1HE - Seed & Blood - (9,000–8,000 BCE)|the previous millennium]] at [Göbekli Tepe](https://doi.org/10.1080/1751696X.2024.2373876) there existed a [spread of shared symbolism,](https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.67) which may also be considered proto-writing. “In the beginning was the Word.” But whose word gets remembered, and whose becomes dust, is the history of power itself. [[The Nature of Conversation & Vision|The Nature of Speech]] is ephemeral, dependent on context and proximity. Whereas [[The Nature of Representation, Symbolism & Meaning|symbols transpose meaning]] and worldviews—shapes of time, models of agency and hierarchies—across time and space. This syntax requires significant investment in formalization and shared cohesion.* The inhabitants of [賈湖](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiahu) cultivated [foxtail millet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxtail_millet "Foxtail millet") and [rice.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice "Rice") Evidence over their 1,300 year settlement shows a plentiful amount of food, from pears and apricots to pigs, poultry, carp, wild game and small numbers of cattle. Due to this steadily improving and varied diet, the health and longevity of the people gradually improved to an average expectancy of ~40 years. ![[Jordan-Grimmer-people-in-valley-2022.png]] *Note: Wet-rice cultivation, in contrast to wheat-based agriculture, demands [roughly double the human labor](https://kyoto-seas.org/pdf/15/3/150313.pdf) per hectare. Core tasks—puddling, transplanting, water regulation, and constant weeding—must be executed in synchrony, within narrow ecological windows, to maintain flooded fields and suppress invasive growth. This ecological precision required not only meticulous individual effort but institutionalized coordination at the village level. The scale and interdependence of these operations, especially water management across terraced systems, necessitated supra-household cooperation: rotating labor pools, lineage-based councils, and mechanisms for conflict arbitration. The systemic fragility, where failure by one node could lead to cascading crop failure, elevated **collective resilience** over **individual autonomy**, [embedding enforcement structures](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1246850) such as ritualized reciprocity, public sanction, and harsh penalties for defection. Even in [natural experiments,](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44770-w) descendants of rice farmers exhibit [statistically robust differences in social cognition:](https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-04053-7) higher in-group loyalty, nepotistic preferences, and holistic (vs. analytic) reasoning styles.* --- ## In The Steppe Contrasting this were the steppe groups. With no need for granaries or irrigation rites, there was **no ecological pressure for behavioural delay**. In fact, the opposite: opportunity on the steppe came suddenly—migration paths, seasonal game, rival clans—and demanded acute responsiveness. This was a reward structure optimized for risk-tolerance, immediate action, and strong kin-group loyalty, a selection gradient for exogamous raiding cultures. Males, often ejected during times of famine or internal strife, became roving bands, proto-Indo-European war-brotherhoods. Raiding redistributed resources, tested leadership, and reinforced the prestige economy of honour, vengeance, and display. ![[John_park_cattle_in_field_approx-2000s.png]] --- This is the era from survival to stability, the substrate of civilization. Agriculture, no longer a fringe experiment, has mythologized into system. Settlement is no longer temporary, but generational. However, with the rise of new affordances, new challenges came, *"if we can no longer run from conflict, what must we create to live above it?"* *How does a society organize itself—socially, symbolically, and morally—once it becomes anchored to place rather than motion?* Thus we enter the era of [[3HE - Hearth & Kin - (7,000–6,000 BCE)]]