CONCLUSION

The second millennium BCE was an era of migrations, warfare, and kingdom building in Afro-Eurasia. Whereas river-basin societies had flourished in the fourth and third millennia BCE in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley, now droughts and deserts shook the agrarian foundations of their economies. Old states crumbled; from the steppes and plateaus nomadic pastoralists and transhumant herders descended in search of food, grazing lands, and plunder. As transhumant herders pressed into the river-basin societies, the social and political fabric of these communities changed. Likewise, horse-riding nomads from steppe communities in inner Eurasia conquered and settled in the agrarian states, bringing key innovations. Foremost were the horse chariots, which became a military catalyst sparking the evolution from smaller states to large kingdoms encompassing crowded cities and vast hinterlands. The nomads and herders also adopted many of the settled peoples’ beliefs and customs. On land and sea, migrating peoples created zones of long-distance trade that linked agrarian societies.

The Nile Delta, the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River basin were worlds apart before 2000 BCE. Now trade and conquest brought many of these societies into closer contact, especially those in Southwest Asia and the Nile River basin. Here, the interaction even led to an elaborate system of diplomatic relations. The first territorial states appeared in this millennium, composed of communities living under common laws and customs. An alliance of farmers and warriors united agrarian wealth and production with political power to create and defend extended territories. The new arrangements overshadowed the nomads’ historic role as predators and enabled them to become military elites. Through taxes and drafted labor, villagers repaid their rulers for local security and state-run diplomacy.

The rhythms of state formation differed where regimes were not closely packed together. In East Asia, the absence of strong rivals allowed the emerging Shang dynasty to develop more gradually. Where landscapes had sharper divisions—as in the island archipelagos of the South China Sea or in northern Europe, the Aegean, and the South Pacific—small-scale, decentralized microsocieties emerged. This was true above all in the Americas, where the lack of wheeled vehicles and horses made long-distance communication much more challenging—and inhibited rulers’ territorial ambitions. Here, too, microsocieties were the norm. But fragmentation is not the same as isolation. Even peoples on the fringes and the subjects of microsocieties were not entirely secluded from the increasing flow of technologies, languages, goods, and migrants.

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TRACING THE GLOBAL STORYLINE

FOCUS ON: COMPARING FIRST STATES

Egypt and Southwest Asia

• Invasions by nomads and transhumant herders lead to the creation of larger territorial states: New Kingdom Egypt, the Hittites, and Mesopotamian states.
• Creating a centuries-long peaceful era, a community of major powers emerges among the major states as the result of shrewd statecraft and diplomacy.

Indus River Valley

• Migratory Vedic peoples from the steppes of Inner Eurasia use chariots and rely on domesticated animals to spread out and begin integrating the northern half of South Asia.

Shang State (China)

• Shang dynastic rulers promote improvements in metalworking, agriculture, and the development of writing, leading to the growth of China’s first major state.

Microsocieties

• Substantial increases in population, migrations, and trade lead to the emergence of microsocieties among peoples in the South Pacific (Austronesians), the Aegean world (Minoans and Mycenaeans), the northern frontier of Europe, and the Americas.

KEY TERMS

• Amorites p. 101
• chariots p. 91
• Hammurabi’s Code p. 102
• Hittites p. 104
• Hyksos p. 99
• Indo-European migrations p. 90
• microsocieties p. 111
• oracle bones p. 110
• pastoral nomads p. 90
• territorial state p. 96
• transhumant herders p. 90
• Vedic peoples p. 105

THINKING ABOUT GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

• Thinking about Environmental Impacts and Territorial States Around 2000 BCE, a series of environmental disasters helped destroy the societies that had thrived in parts of Afro-Eurasia in the third millennium BCE. What were the short-term and long-term impacts of these environmental troubles? How did they influence the movement of peoples and the formation of territorial states in the second millennium BCE?
• Thinking about Transformation & Conflict and Territorial States The second millennium BCE witnessed large-scale migrations of nomadic peoples who brought with them their domesticated horses and their chariot technology. These people are referred to by scholars as Indo-Europeans, largely on the basis of their languages. Contrast the impact of migrations into Southwest Asia (Anatolia and Mesopotamia), Egypt, South Asia, and East Asia. To what extent did conflict play a role in the impact of Indo-European-language speakers on the formation of territorial states?
• Thinking about Interconnection & Divergence and Territorial States While territorial states formed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia, and East Asia, microsocieties formed in the South Pacific and in the Aegean Sea. What factors influenced whether a region might host a territorial state as opposed to a microsociety? What areas of the planet were still worlds apart? What ways of life continued to predominate in those worlds apart from the territorial states and microsocieties discussed in this chapter?

CHRONOLOGY