Complex Society in Mesopotamia - Essay Example

A complex society is also known as developed or a formative state which is a typical social formation. Complexity refers to a state in which social transformation appears in terms of quality and quantity of various kinds of economic, government and religious aspects among people who live in close contacts. However, the few who are specialized in different levels are governed by the existing norms and regulations. To understand the emergence of complex society,' it is crucial to identify the typical traits and all other aspects of progression from discerned archeological accounts. For that reason, the paper will try to elaborate what is a complex society' by using archeological evidence from the British archeologists Colin Renfrew.

According to Adams et al. (2014, 32), there has been an ethnographic attention of culture since much of the anthropology of the complex societies has been focused on the shape of social relationships. Such attention has been advantageous since scholars have been able to gain a thorough understanding of the different work settings, meaningful forms of a neighborhood and how the interaction between small units of face-face interactions are carried out. Thus, replication of uniformity' has been well addressed through studying culture using traditional anthropological terms. In order to understand the aspect of complex societies in a broader manner, it is good to understand the interrelated subcultures and not think in terms of an organization of diversity'.

Complex societies started to emerge in southern Mesopotamia 5000 years ago. The complex centered society of 5000 years ago can be distinguished in terms of administrative buildings, specialization in economics and multi-tiered settlement hierarchy (Ur, 2014, 250). Later around 10,000 BCE certain communities started to divert to a new direction. They began producing food in a more systematical way and abandoned hunting in the wilderness. Materialization of farming took place in many parts of the globe. Human beings were being mindful of producing food by coming up with new production techniques.

Colin claimed that invention is one of the contributing aspects to cultural subsystems which is fueled through constructive response. Innovation is the main aspect that influences growing relations between diverse subsystems. For example, there was a multiplier effect in action for the animal frames and artifacts from different cultures of the Aegean Bronze Age in the third millennium BCE, the archliberal remnants from different archeologist locations and also evaluating seeds in the Aegean Bronze Age. According to Finnigan (2017, 31), although Colin did not clearly elaborate on his concept of multiplier effect in action, the question remains if the multiplier effect in action can well portray the multifaceted cultures that emerged in the lower Mississippi valley. The Mississippi Valley was well known to the immense earthwork at poverty point in the second millennium BCE. Several archeologists have proved that the answer to this question can only be gotten from the artifact and archeological data of the poverty point culture.

The environment generally provokes people to act and invent new things for them to survive. If the climate is very rigorous people will be required to survive in order to progress past the normal subsistence. Development of complex society takes place when the climate is either too rigorous or too generous (Turchin et al., 2013, 16385).

The produced artifacts resulted to distinct elements in culture. On the other hand, the same procedure that resulted in a global impact in the progression of complex societies also led to the emergence of two constructing cultures. According to Butterlin and Rey (2016, 1956), at around 10,000 BCE various ancient complex societies led to offshoots in the Middle East, southern Europe and eastern Africa. Various diminutive centers of modernization contributed greatly to their development, for example, the monotheistic religion of Jewish in Palestine.

In Mesopotamia, at around 4600 to 3400 millennia which is referred to as the late Ubaid period, various political formations emerged (Pyburn, 2017, 74). Also, at around 5th millennia there were about four-level settlement hierarchies which exercised economic control in Southern Western Iran. Later in 4000 B.C various Uruk formations emerged in the irrigated regions in lower Mesopotamia around the Tigris-Euphrates river system.

The four hierarchical settlement gives a clear picture of a pattern not feasible without internal administrative specialization although the archeologists do not give any indication of administrative technology or public buildings. According to Ur (2015, 70), first, the four levels of hierarchical settlement entailed large information processing that was to combat difficulties in handling data. Second, there was a large consumption of natural resources that was accompanied by increasingly greater effort. Third, the varied amount of human activities were regulated by the greater number of bureaucrats, therefore, calling for proportional tax collection. On the other hand, the dry-upper part of Mesopotamia archeologist evidence indicates that there were aspects of emergent complexities. This reveals that the evidence of the existence of both public and domestic buildings led to the production of crafts which later yielded to the period of conflict.

Trade is also evident in all the southern cities of Mesopotamia (Jamieson, 2015, 23). Most of the localized rich niches were exploited by individuals from the southern polities. Later there was an evolutionary impact on the southern states and different trade shifting patterns were experienced in the cities. All these aspects show a clear change and continuity as a result of complex society in the Sumerians civilization.

In Mesopotamia, there were several adjustments that consisted of modernization which was shaped by various technological innovations. In addition, there was increase need of harmonized regional association of villages and also utilization of economic surplus. The Sumerians also enjoyed some benefits as a result of complex society formation. According to Yiqing (2016, 1), the reason as to why the Sumerians were in a good position to have immeasurable benefits from complex society is because of the comparatively regular economic superfluous. Consequently, the surplus produced encouraged the formation of merchants and artisans. The eastern Mediterranean and Kush also had numerous gains from complex societies. Several towns started to emerge which later spread to southern Europe.

Some of the factors that can be attributed to the evolution of Mesopotamia as a complex society can be grouped under managerial, internal conflict, external conflict and synthetic hypothesis. Managerial hypotheses assert that complex societies emerged as a result of more complex forms of political integration (Adams et al., 2014, 35). Different positions in the society arose to accomplish activities such as building canals that connected the ocean and controlling trade. Internal conflict hypothesis holds that conflicts attributed to class are the causes of social complexity. Different institutions emerge so as to protect their riches and power of the few who are privileged over the others.

External conflict hypothesis holds that institutions complex societies in Mesopotamia emerged in response to external threats. Goals set by the society help in responding to threats and administer groups that lost in a war. Synthetic hypothesis combines some interrelated processes including the ones named above. According to Ur (2014, 253), some of the complex societies in Mesopotamia adopted the shapes of city-states like Uruk and Ur. These helped them to have new ideas, growth and power. However, there were challenges in maintaining some of these cities because they required the extreme influence of the surrounding environment.

Development of complex societies triggered infrastructure like roads. In addition, due to the increased population, it meant that armies and rulers to take part in different positions were urgently needed to maintain law and order. Many cities mushroomed from villages and others became city-states which had ruled their agricultural plantations and urban centers independently (Finnigan, 2017, 31). On the other hand, high food production by villages restricted some residents not to take part in food production but to engage in other beneficial roles that would help the community. As a way of ensuring unity between these different classes and also to mobilize people to work together for the making of water systems and projects, respective leaders were needed to come up with new social classes. Political leadership took different positions in the civilization that was characterized by commands and centralized governments.

Information given by Colin can be given out in an overview that growth of agriculture is one of the factors that led to the formation of complex society. On the other hand, some larger groups resulted to new challenges which called for more complicated social administration systems. According to Turchin et al. (2013, 16387), complex societies took place in many forms such as cities, states, city-states and agricultural villages. In addition, labor specialization fueled the formation of social classes and various innovative developments in the society of Mesopotamia. Finally, there was the introduction of record-keeping and symbolic expression which appraised the practice of writing an aspect that made them grow more complex.

In Mesopotamia, there were several adjustments that consisted of modernization which was shaped by various technological innovations. In addition, there was increase need of harmonized regional association of villages and also utilization of economic surplus. The Sumerians also enjoyed some benefits as a result of complex societys formation. The reason as to why the Sumerians were in a good position to have immeasurable benefits from complex society is due to the comparatively regular economic superfluous (Butterlin and Rey, 2016, 1956). Consequently, the surplus produced encouraged the formation of merchants and artisans. The eastern Mediterranean and Kush also had numerous gains from complex societies. There was numerous emergence of towns in the regions which later spread to southern Europe.

A society collapses when it shows rapid and specific losses of established levels of sociopolitical complexity. According to Pyburn (2017, 77), the collapse of complex societies from Mesopotamia can be attributed to certain signs that include centralized control, trading activities, specialization in different activities, proper coordination and also social stratification. This means that the society is in an unruly nature in the sense that cities are torched, national security is affected and soldiers no longer keep the peace but mistreat citizens. In addition, there is also a centralized distribution that results in the looting of markets, granaries and palaces. On the other hand, there is very little or no specialization taking place as compared to before. In general, administrative structures that are expected to govern and give people support and services completely get lost and are not manageable.

In summation, the rise of complex society is a fundamental focus for archeologists as they attempt to identify the circumstances that political transformations have occurred. It is right to say that Colin Renfrew much contributed to the understanding of the aspect of complex society in Mesopotamia. Although several ideas have been raised in an attempt to explain the origin of complex societies' research on the same has been challenging due to the complexity...