Topic 2 on the Gaia PDF

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Topic 2 on the Gaia...

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“In the classical definition, civilization consists of three or more of the following: cities, writing, the specialization of occupation, monumental architecture, the formation of capital.” (Watson, 2005:100). Civilizations is a concept that describes the growth and the development of the human generation and our surroundings, it’s the rate at which we become more involved in technologies and new ways of lifestyle. Civilization continues to expand across the human population with nearly the entire world practicing this culture. Throughout the humanities readings we have discovered the ways in which mankind has evolved in various ways for example writing, these are to be discussed furthermore. There are many types of ancient civilizations of which two are to be discussed. The first ancient civilization was that of the Sumer whom resided in Mesopotamia and Egypt about 3000 B.C. I have chosen to discuss this type of civilization because it is interesting to see how the alphabets that make up letters and words are being used to type this assignment out initially were pictures and symbols that later on became the letters we use today in modern society. Mesopotamia was filled with urban areas where people began to move to the cities for an improved life and this was the change that happened; civilization. Mesopotamia was rich in cities such as Uruk and cities like these were growing and development because people wanted security, the security which was through agriculture because of the climate being dry and cool moderate conditions. Thus, the population increased because of food security. The climate started to change and they experienced a period of flooding which attracted a greater number of people for the purposes of agriculture. The population contributed to new ideas and innovations being shared amongst civilians and this gave rise to the architecture of the cities. Developments such as writing began to arise, Mesopotamia which invented the cuneiform script which is made up of abstract signs; “part pictures of objects and part symbols” (Watson, 2005:104) The cuneiform was written on tokens where the writing developed overtime because of the changes that where happening in the economy for example they started trading thus in order for communication amongst them, they added and subtracted symbols. Trade is the reason for writing which expanded into other dimensions like religion and this gave rise to a different style of writing which was the making of lists. Writing developed into the use of syllables which then changed to alphabets. Civilization even expanded and libraries were being built to store the precious information like tokens. For many years Mesopotamia followed the law of the Old Testament but due to the outbreak of civilization new way justice were being introduced and this was through law codes. The law

codes consisted of laws that dealt with specific matters for example marriage where related laws would be identified through a code. The second ancient civilization is the Greek civilization, I chose this type of civilization because it outlines the developments in the trading industries. Greece experienced a period of invasion which wiped out the city, only certain cities such as Athens and Euboea managed to survive. The Greeks lived a poor lifestyle and they made their money through trade, they began with the trading of olives which meant more farming but populations increased and this became strenuous thus they turned to the life of the sea. The Greeks were not stable in their area of living, this resulted in the Greeks losing a definite group of themselves because they were constantly at sea and they spent most of their lives in other countries due to the distances it took for them to travel from country to country through the Mediterranean and the Black Sea as the author states, “Greece was a land open to the eastern Mediterranean and Greek culture was fashioned by influences from all around the sea’s rim.” The Greeks became multi-cultured, the men and women had children with people from other countries for example Rome. The Greeks were later known to be part of the Romans who were fearful of the life at sea and dared to not sail and ships or boats in open water. The Romans absorbed the Greeks and together they influenced the world through monuments and art, this was the ‘classical’ civilization because people began living by their ways. The reason for the collapse of the ancient civilization is because of deforestation, people are putting a lot of pressure on the environment and because of the population increase this becomes even worse as the environment is put under more strain. People needed wood from trees for purposes such as cooking and sometimes the building of houses but the main reason for this type of destruction was due to overgrazing of livestock. The Greeks were aware of what is was they needed to do in order to preserve the soil and slow the rate of damages which was by manuring and terracing, but the rise in the population made this even more impossible to do. The damages that were caused by the Greek was described in the book “Plato in his Critias” where the author describes the changes that happened; from land enriched with nature and soil to merely beneficial remains. What can be learnt from the collapse of the ancient civilizations is that when there is surplus, this results in agriculture and later civilization thus in order for us sustain civilization we have to

focus on agriculture. Civilization has caused Homo sapiens the environment, because we want to grow and better our standard of living by inventing new things like our architecture and writing. But what we do not realize is that this has caused us our environment, the disruption of the environment means we are destroying precious land which is responsible for feeding us and responsible for what is important to us; agriculture. The pro of civilization is that it has allowed us to grow and expand beyond measures and it has allowed us to be able to have more control over the rate at which our population is growing....