3000 BCE–300 CE: (River Valleys and the Rise of the First Oppressive Societies — Early Dense Populations with Social Stratification Developing Most Strongly …

3000 BCE–300 CE: (River Valleys and the Rise of the First Oppressive Societies — Early Dense Populations with Social Stratification Developing Most Strongly Along River Valleys with Rich Soils and Assured Water for Irrigation in Arid Lands, the Norte Chico Society Qustul and Late Predynastic Egypt All Fitting This Pattern, the Sharply Greater Density of Settlement and Competition for Resources Fueling Unequal Access to Wealth and Power, These Regions Providing Material Conditions Supportive of the Rise of the First Oppressive Highly Unequal Societies — a Key Historical Lesson): These early, denser populations — with social stratification, priestly control of ritual, hereditary rulers, and town formation — seem to have developed most strongly along river valleys: places that tended to have river-deposited, richer soils, along with an assured availability of water for irrigation in the midst of arid lands — areas that therefore could support population concentrations. The Norte Chico society fits this pattern, as did the societies of the Qustul state and late predynastic Egypt. The sharply greater density of settlement and the competition for resources in such areas may have helped fuel the further rise of unequal access to wealth and, in tandem, unequal access to power and influence. These regions provided, in other words, material conditions supportive of the rise of the first oppressive, highly unequal societies — and that last point, in Ehret’s view, ought to be a key historical lesson to draw here. The framing is deliberately provocative. Ehret does not call these societies “civilizations” without qualification. He calls them “oppressive, highly unequal societies.” The river valleys that produced the pyramids also produced the conditions for the systematic exploitation of human labor. The irrigation systems that fed dense populations also concentrated power in the hands of those who controlled the water. The very conditions that made civilization possible — rich soils, reliable water, dense settlement — also made oppression possible, by creating the material basis for one class of people to control the resources on which everyone else depended. The first civilizations were also the first tyrannies, and Ehret insists that historians not lose sight of this in their admiration for the monuments.