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21.13
Work history.Ancient Civilizations
 
     
  Now the traditional work model of ancient civilization focuses around the ancient river-delta populations being the cradle of civilization focusing on the development of trade and specialized roles. Historians like to portray cultures exploiting rich soil to develop huge irrigation installations resulting in population explosions and tremendous wealth.
  
  Yet as we described earlier, trade for survival had already begun before these great civilizations had even emerged. In the process, the first specialized work roles had been defined.
  
  The warrior and the trader
  
  Prior to the Bronze Age and the emergence of natural tin Bronze from Ireland, tribes of hunter gatherers, even around the rich and fertile river deltas fought each other with stone tools that were both heavy, brittle and clumsy.
  
  But the earliest traders from Ireland did not have the luxury of large populations, nor of their precious cargo being stolen by raiding competing bands. Their trade was based on the premise of the survival of their whole community.
  
  From previous failures new kinds of tools and weapons had been born, the broad spear, with a bronze tip had been created, the bronze sword was created as well as helmets. All this was made possible for the fact that Ireland was home to the first natural bronze deposits exploited in history. These new kind of weapons for war gave the warriors accompanying Irish traders huge advantages even mythological “godlike” powers- for no stone age culture, no matter how large could fight against such advanced technology.
  
  Because of the importance to negotiate, often the Irish would send a person trained as a priest as the head of the trading party.
  
  Thus with trade came the twin powers of religion and war- a potent mix.
  
  The knowledge of war
  
  The knowledge of war and new weapons brought by the “gods” quickly spread across the Mediterranean and ancient river delta cultures. Relatively small bands of men, armed with these weapons and adapted forms of religious wisdom of the cuileann, the “holy ones” of Ireland quickly subdued the other tribes of these regions and became their first kings.
  
  In turn, these kings sought to develop more weapons and find ways of creating the necessary “magic metal” for more weapons to expand their empires. Thus the pursuit of science was born, not out of desire, but out of necessity to find ways of manufacturing weapons.
  
  In the Anatolian Peninsula of Turkey, across the Middle East and in parts of North Africa deposits of arsenic copper were found and eventually ways were discovered of creating Bronze, while no where near as strong as natural tin bronze, still enabled spears and implements to be fashioned. Thus the jobs of craftsmen such as blacksmiths were born.
  
  Similarly, agriculture was used as an important trade tool for bronze, the magic metal that enabled small bands of men to control thousands of Stone Age opponents. Thus organized large scale farming was created.
  
  Again historians like to paint a quaint picture of small tribes of former hunter-gatherers becoming farmers. On the contrary, in history the first sites of ancient agriculture were organized and large scale, not small community sites. It appears that small agriculture and farming emerged much later in the development of civilization under the period of the Celts 900’s BCE.
  
  Finally, communities in strategic locations between food manufacturers and mining resources were able to use their geographic position to advantage by developing their own craft and skills, thus settlements such as Ebla in Northern Syria were born where great manufacturing first emerged.
  
  The framework for the growth of the ancient world
  
  Thus all the factors and all the forces were in place to push the growth of the ancient world and the emergence of great Empires.
  
  To conquer large areas, Warrior Kings needed a well armed (bronze weapons) and well fed force. That meant controlling either mineral deposits or locations of import/export for bronze. It meant controlling at least one region of food manufacture and it meant a region capable of amassing a significant sized army.
  
  So it was the first great armies and Empires came out of the Northern end of the Tigris/Euphrates basin, then the Southern end, as well as Egypt, then Turkey, then Ireland itself, then Greece and then Rome.
  
  With each Empire, with each conquest, new technology, new science and methods came into play until the Greeks and then the Romans used civilization itself and their mastery of engineering as a weapon of war and peace.
  
     
 
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