Prehistoric Men

by Robert J. Braidwood

The Nile floods its banks once a year, in late September or early October. It not only soaks the narrow fertile strip of land on either side; it lays down a fresh layer of new soil each year. Beyond the fertile strip on either side rise great cliffs, and behind them is the desert. In its natural, uncontrolled state, the yearly flood of the Nile must have caused short-lived swamps that were full of crocodiles. After a short time, the flood level would have dropped, the water and the crocodiles would have run back into the river, and the swamp plants would have become parched and dry.

The Tigris and the Euphrates of Mesopotamia are less likely to flood regularly than the Nile. The Tigris has a shorter and straighter course than the Euphrates; it is also the more violent river. Its banks are high, and when the snows melt and flow into all of its tributary rivers it is swift and dangerous. The Euphrates has a much longer and more curving course and few important tributaries. Its banks are lower and it is less likely to flood dangerously. The land on either side and between the two rivers is very fertile, south of the modern city of Baghdad. Unlike the Nile Valley, neither the Tigris nor the Euphrates is flanked by cliffs. The land on either side of the rivers stretches out for miles and is not much rougher than a poor tennis court.

THE RIVERS MUST BE CONTROLLED

The real trick in both Egypt and Mesopotamia is to make the rivers work for you. In Egypt, this is a matter of building dikes and reservoirs that will catch and hold the Nile flood. In this way, the water is held and allowed to run off over the fields as it is needed. In Mesopotamia, it is a matter of taking advantage of natural river channels and branch channels, and of leading ditches from these onto the fields.

Obviously, we can no longer find the first dikes or reservoirs of the Nile Valley, or the first canals or ditches of Mesopotamia. The same land has been lived on far too long for any traces of the first attempts to be left; or, especially in Egypt, it has been covered by the yearly deposits of silt, dropped by the river floods. But we’re pretty sure the first food-producers of Egypt and southern Mesopotamia must have made such dikes, canals, and ditches. In the first place, there can’t have been enough rain for them to grow things otherwise. In the second place, the patterns for such projects seem to have been pretty well set by historic times.

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.

THE GERM OF CIVILIZATION IN EGYPT AND MESOPOTAMIA

This learning to work together for the common good was the real germ of the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian civilizations. The bare elements of civilization were already there: the need for a governing hand and for laws to see that the communities’ work was done and that the water was justly shared. You may object that there is a sort of chicken and egg paradox in this idea. How could the people set up the rules until they had managed to get a way to live, and how could they manage to get a way to live until they had set up the rules? I think that small groups must have moved down along the mud-flats of the river banks quite early, making use of naturally favorable spots, and that the rules grew out of such cases. It would have been like the hand-in-hand growth of automobiles and paved highways in the United States.