Why Cities?

[Jon Miller]

I am not sure how that is relevant for hunter-gatherer versus city.

JM

[Dauphin]

You probably had hunter gather groups of different sizes that followed the same distribution. Once populations reach a certain size you can't remain only as hunter gatherers.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Ah, but why the first city?

I have theory.

Mesopotamia was good land to live in surrounded by inhospitable. Likewise Egypt and perhaps to a lesser extent, the Indus and Yellow river valleys. Always a river or two, huge oases capable of supporting a lot of people where wanderers would tend to pile up, not wanting to move on through the crap territory. That pretty much covers the very earliest cities, save possibly some new world stuff on roughly the Chilean coast that probably met the same oasis criterion. I wasn't there 5,000 years ago and am not sure what is known/deduced about the climates in each region at the time cities got going, but it seems to hold up if my assumptions are correct.

[Aeson]

[Dinner]

Yes, and more people means better at a fight. Pastoralists later could do even better at times, but this was due to building on city-dwellers and could not exist in a vacuum.

I am currently reading Guns/Germs/Steel so I admit I am being influenced.

JM

A great book. Even though it is 20 years old and some what out of date the broad themes ring true and it explains many things well. In fact, I believe it has an entire chapter just on this very question.

[Ben Kenobi]

Cities - well, not in the sense that we'd call them cities. The reason people settled down and farmed is because they could generate greater caloric density than they could as a hunter gatherer. Now it's true that there wasn't a great deal of difference between the two, and not everywhere was there a significant advantage. Certain areas (particularly in North America), that lacked crops that made farming more advantageous never really developed into cities.

Some areas persisted without farming in North America well into the 19th and 20th centuries due to climate issues discouraging farming and extremely productive hunting and particularly fishing.

Once you could sustain greater caloric density you tended to have more children. Hunter Gatherers are limited to about a child every 3 or 4 years. Farms are not under such constraints and could have children every 2 years. If they could have children twice as fast, than the population of the settled areas would grow more quickly.

People forget that it was less about 'people moving into the cities', but rather populations growing. The population influxes people are talking about weren't from hunter gatherers moving in, but rather farmers from outlying areas moving to the cities.

Modern cities don't really form until after the agricultural revolution. People moved to the cities to find jobs and survive since they couldn't farm. I don't believe it was until the 1950s that the majority of the American population lived in cities.

[giblets]

All the hunter-gatherers got killed off by farmers or pushed into marginal lands that weren't suitable for farming.

[BeBMan]

Just to add in another thing: "First came the temple, then the city"

Basically the idea is that the site(s) at Göbekli Tepe serve a religious purpose, but the surprise is that they were build by hunter-gatherers. Ppl who support this view see it as a 1st step to organize and build bigger communities (with cities at the end of a long development). Which would contradict the standard view that agriculture > surplus > allowing all the cool stuff.

Is this the one and all ultimate pwning-everything explanation? >>>

[Jon Miller]

My understanding, even from recent publications (10k old city in Canada), is that first 'cities' were places where there was enough resources for people not to move around. That the agricultural city (ala Ur/etc) came a little bit later.

JM

[The Mad Monk]

All this talk of hunter-gatherers and cities is forcing me to play CivIV C2C.

[Dinner]

I think I might go hunt and gather the wild pizza from down my block. I understand if I leave a certain amount of cash in the right spot then tge wild pizza cannot resist and they magically appear.

[Elok]

The 48" kind is easily trapped, but dangerous if angered. Be sure to kill it with a single slice, and bring a large peel to haul it away.

[giblets]

48" is only a legend.

[Elok]

Increasing urbanization has driven the shy four-footers into isolated pockets, it is true. But we cannot rule out their survival.

[Dinner]

My understanding, even from recent publications (10k old city in Canada), is that first 'cities' were places where there was enough resources for people not to move around. That the agricultural city (ala Ur/etc) came a little bit later.

JM

In the Pacific Northwest Natives created, not real cities, but certainly large permanent townships in areas which were exceptionally productive. Places with large salmon runs, a lot of game, and a lot of wild foods such as berries, nuts, and acorns. That is impressive as the natives had no agriculture in that area yet could still make permanent settlements based upon areas with exceptionally good natural food sources.