Prehistoric Men

by Robert J. Braidwood

CONTROL OF THE RIVERS THE BUSINESS OF EVERYONE

Here, then, is a part of the reason why civilization grew in Egypt and Mesopotamia first—not in Palestine, Syria, or Iran. In the latter areas, people could manage to produce their food as individuals. It wasn’t too hard; there were rain and some streams, and good pasturage for the animals even if a crop or two went wrong. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, people had to put in a much greater amount of work, and this work couldn’t be individual work. Whole villages or groups of people had to turn out to fix dikes or dig ditches. The dikes had to be repaired and the ditches carefully cleared of silt each year, or they would become useless.

There also had to be hard and fast rules. The person who lived nearest the ditch or the reservoir must not be allowed to take all the water and leave none for his neighbors. It was not only a business of learning to control the rivers and of making their waters do the farmer’s work. It also meant controlling men. But once these men had managed both kinds of controls, what a wonderful yield they had! The soil was already fertile, and the silt which came in the floods and ditches kept adding fertile soil.