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Saturday, March 04, 2006

Early towns

Thinking about how agricultural socities obliterated hunter societies, one thing struck which is still going on presently, NUMBERS. Majority always wins. Larger the group, more chances are that it will destroy the smaller human groups surrounding it. Early towns, also had there wars. Better to put it like continuous fighting. Hunter groups had a option of moving out whereas farming societies didn't have this option. Hunter groups also had there wars but they were more of skirmishes. It would have been more like a gorilla wars, one group will attack another another or just members of other groups. Depending on the conditions, if only a member of enemy group was attack, it was fatal, when two complete groups faught, it was either ended with stallmate or one group leaving the field. Group fights were generally avoided as all groups were of similar sizes with no extra advantage of any fighting skills. Early town changed this balance. Towns had large number of humans to fight which was a huge advantage against smaller hunter societies. So, as more area came under cultivation, hunter societies either became part of agricultural towns or were annihilated. Some of them who survived were located in isolated lands where agriculture was not possible or very difficult.
Victorious is always right as the saying goes. It appeared here also. Though, initially agriculture was not having any significant advantages over hunting but numbers favored them. Numbers led to their victory and the losers lost it all. History then was molded in major advancement in farming and its absolute supremacy for food sourcing.
Early towns evolved first on the gates of africa, mainly in river valleys where land was fertile and water was plenty. This area covers Nile river valley, Tigris and Euphrates river vallies and other areas in between Mediterranean, Black and Caspian sea.

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