Expert: Conrad T. Jalowski - 1/14/2008

Question
Hi,

I realize that we have stone-age tools and have found burial sites of peoples who lived tens of thousands of years ago.

But what I am curious about is this: what is the earliest century for which we have extensive--"historical"--evidence of a people?

I know that we have fairly extensive information on the Egypt of 3000BC. And I see that you mention this for Minoans six centuries earlier.

Is this the earliest period on which we have fairly extensive information on a people (society).

Many thanks for your efforts.

Steve

Answer
Thank you for the question, it is a great honor to help others with perplexing questions.

Accordingly, the evolution of human civilization is divided into a tetrarchotomous or four stages. These stages created by Elman Service and Morton Fried consists of such from the eolithic age to the more modern culture zeitgeists. These are: A) hunter-gatherer bands, B) horticulture/pastoral societies, C) highly stratified structures or chiliarchies, and D) Civilizations.

The cultural timeline consists of: A) eolithic, B) Paleolithic, C) Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic, D) Neolithic, E) Chalcolithic, F) Bronze Age, G) Terramara culture, H) Lusatian culture, I) Hallstat culture, J) Villanovan culture, K) La Tene culture, or the Iron Age cultures.

The first known civilization to inchoate was that of the Sumerians: 4000-3500 BCE. Some claim that it ended on 2,334 BCE with the Rise of the Akkadians and Elamites of the Sargonic Empire: 2350-2230 BCE, however, the civilization prospered in an aetataureate or a Golden Age during the Third Hegemony of Ur: 2119-2004 BCE. Another early civilization wwas the Minoan or the Eteocretan autarchy from 3650-1100 BCE. This was a thalassocracy or a maritime supremacy empire with mercantile trade throughout the Aegean archipelago. The Eteocretan timeline is ditrichotomous or divided into two main parts: protopalatial or Old Kingdom and neopalatial or the New Kingdom or Palace Period. The timeline is as follows: 3650-3000, 2900-2300, 2300-2160, 2160-1900, 1900-1800, 1800-1700, 1700-1640, 1640-1480, 1480-1425, 1425-1390, 1390-1370, 1370-1190, 1190-1170, and 1100 BCE. Their empire fell due to effimancy of the autarchs or kings and an overall dilapidation or decay of the socio-political scheme.

The fall of civilization is attributed to multitudinous scholars. Edward Gibbons was one of the first to establish the abjuration of antiquity to the fall of the Grecian Byzantine Despotates and Palatinates from 1453-1479 CE to the Ottoman Turks, with their suzerainty being abjured and their claims to agnatic primogeniture in the Balkans, Anatolia, and southern Italy being rejected. Theodore Mommsen suggested antiquity collapsed on 476 CE, though Syagrius of the Sossians: 457-489 CE held out for a fugacious time and the Frankish Sossians: 511-613 CE. According to him, civilizations underwent a cycle of genesis, growth, senescence, collapse and decay. Oswald Spengler argued that civilizations tended to undergo imperialistic entelechies or goals that ultimately collapse and usher in plutocracy and oligarchical government as opposed to the former despotism. Such development is included within the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos of liberty and the right to depose an autochthonous or native sovereign with the use of force if the commonwealth or the synhedrion is abolished. Jared Diamond suggested that the five major reasons for civilization collapse is due to: A) enviromental damage, such as deforestation and soil erosion, B) climate change, C)dependence upon long distance trade and mercantilism, D) increasing levels of internal adn external violence and kleptocracy or socio-political chaos, and E) societal respones to enviromental and internal problems. Finally, according to Sergey Nefedov, Peter Turchin, and Sergey Malkov they were able to demonstrate the socio-demographic cycles of complex agranian cultures. The stages are: A)After the population reaches the ceiling of the carrying capacity of land, its growth rate declines toward near-zero values.
The system experiences significant stress with decline in the living standards of the common population, increasing the severity of famines, growing rebellions, etc.
B) As has been shown by Nefedov, most complex agrarian systems had considerable reserves for stability, however, within 50–150 years these reserves were usually exhausted and the system experienced a demographic collapse (a Malthusian catastrophe), when increasingly severe famines, epidemics, increasing internal warfare and other disasters led to a considerable decline of population, and C)
As a result of this collapse, free resources became available, per capita production and consumption considerably increased, the population growth resumed and a new sociodemographic cycle started.

I hope this has answered your question,

Conrad Jalowski