History of Eurasia - Writing, The Civilizations Emerge

Writing, The Civilizations Emerge

Origins of writing are dated to fourth millennium BC. Writing may have started independently on various areas of Eurasia. It appears the skill spread relatively fast, giving people a new way of communication.

The three regions of Western, Eastern and Southern Asia developed in a similar manner with each of the three regions developing early civilizations around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China (along the Yellow River and the Yangtze) shared many similarities and likely exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Ancient Egypt also shared this model. These civilizations were most likely in more or less regular contact with each other by the early versions of the silk road.

Europe was different, however. It was somewhat further north and contained no river systems to support agriculture. Thus Europe remained comparatively undeveloped, with only the southern tips of the region (Greece and Italy) being able to fully borrow crops, technologies, and ideas from the Middle East and North Africa. Similarly, civilization didn't arise in Southeast Asia until contact was made with ancient India, which gave rise to Indianized kingdoms in Indochina and the Malay archipelago. The steppe region had long been inhabited by mounted nomads, and from the central steppes they could reach all areas of the Asian continent. The northern part of the silk road traversed this region.

One such central expansion out of the steppe is that of the Proto-Indo-Europeans which spread their languages into the Middle East, India, Europe, and to the borders of China (with the Tocharians). Throughout their history, up to the development of gunpowder, all the areas of Eurasia would be repeatedly menaced by the Indo-Iranian, Turkic and Mongol nomads from the steppe.

A difference between Europe and most of the regions of Eurasia is that each of the latter regions has few obstructions internally even though it is ringed by mountains and deserts. This meant that it was easier to establish unified control over the entire region, and this did occur with massive empires consistently dominating the Middle East, China, and at times, much of India. Europe, however, is riddled with internal mountain ranges: The Carpathians, the Alps, the Pyrenees and many others. Throughout its history, Europe has thus usually been divided into many small states, much like the Middle East and Indian subcontinent for much of their history.

The Iron Age made large stands of timber essential to a nation's success because smelting iron required so much fuel, and the pinnacles of human civilizations gradually moved as forests were destroyed. In Europe the Mediterranean region was supplanted by the German and Frankish lands. In the Middle East the main power center became Anatolia with the once dominant Mesopotamia its vassal. In China, the economical, agricultural, and industrial center moved from the northern Yellow River to the southern Yangtze, though the political center remained in the north. In part this is linked to technological developments, such as the mouldboard plough, that made life in once undeveloped areas more bearable.

The civilizations in China, India, and Mediterranean, connected by the silk road, became the principal civilizations in Eurasia in early CE times. Later development of Eurasian history of mankind is told in other articles.