WEBVTT - Was Mesopotamia the Cradle of Civilization? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.119 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:17.919 Clark with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Me, 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.119 Chuck and I are going to get to the bottom 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.159 today of whether or not Mesopotamia was the cradle of 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.600 civilization like that, straight ahead. We're gonna find out if 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.320 that's the case I think it is, do you Yeah, sure, 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:35.519 there's a lot of evidence. You wrote a compelling argument 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.720 for it, I believe, my friend. Can I set the scene? Yes? Okay, 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:44.320 So Chuck round about eleven thousand years ago, Okay, humanity 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:50.239 did something you could say significant. Okay, we abandon our 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:54.400 hunter gatherer ways, which entails jumping out of trees onto 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:59.200 gazelles and butchering them. Small tribes picking berries. No more 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.640 than thirty Apparently, anything over thirty you have too much 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:07.520 um interpersonal conflict. Really, and so I guess through trial 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.760 and error, are early ancestors figured out that you couldn't 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:12.720 have more than thirty in a band? That thirty first 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.959 dude started killing people every time. Yeah, They're like, there's 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.440 always one how to thirty? Right? And then they're like, 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.479 oh wait, gotcha thirty. That's good. That was a hunter 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:27.399 gatherer Joe. Yeah. Um, let's never get old the so yes, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.280 but we we so we spent all of our all 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:36.640 of humanity's history hunting and gathering wandering around. That was it. Yeah. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.280 And then eleven thousand years ago, during what's called the 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:45.199 Neolithic Revolution, we stopped, we settled down, and we started 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:49.160 raising crops. We turned to agriculture, which led to while 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.000 not sitting around, clearly there's a lot of work to 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:55.920 be done, but not moving around, a more sedentary, stable environment, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:00.520 right right. And it changed everything from this in fairly 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:08.560 quick fashion. Uh, civilization, developed, cities sprung up. Yeah. Um, 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.800 And what we have now today all goes back to 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.680 that period eleven thousand years ago where the where we 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:20.200 adopted agriculture. Right, So that leads one to wonder, okay, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.400 well what was the first civilization? Then it leads me 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.600 to wonder, Yeah, me too, which is why I wrote 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.160 this article. And you did a fine job, sir. Is 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.080 it just living in cities, Chuck? Is it just creating 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.840 a village based around agriculture? Is that your civilization? Huh no, Josh, 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.840 But it does take a village. That's what Hill says, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.920 and that's what I say. Okay, uh, it takes a village, Josh, 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:43.840 and let me let me break it down. It's funny 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.600 for me to tell you even though you wrote this. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:50.520 It's a little awkward. But a civilization is uh, I 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.560 like the way that one writer put it. Um. If 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.720 culture is behavior, civilization is structure. Right there, there are 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:57.640 certain things that have to be present. Yeah, So what 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:03.160 we're talking um a class structure um um upper class 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.120 usually religious leaders, where the where the ruling party is 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.800 a right, religious or political or both a lot of 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.640 times both back then right and um laws. It would 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:17.480 be nice. That's an indicator, right, Um living in one 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:23.359 place obviously, that's another indicator, like a religious and economic structure, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.600 so like trade, commerce, that kind of thing. Is there 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:31.919 anything else? That's pretty much the basics for civilization. Okay, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:33.680 but it doesn't always have to be a city. But 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.600 it just kind of made sense how it's always been, Yeah, 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:41.080 because civilization has always been tied to agriculture. And agriculture 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.560 means you have a you're growing crops and you have 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:46.760 a bunch of people tending to these crops, so they're 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.720 all living in the same area and generally they're all 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.000 sharing this land in some way or another provide it up. 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.520 So that's a city. Yeah. It did give him more 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.760 time though, Like I said, it was hard work, but 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.680 it's clearly gives them more free time than say, hunting, 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.520 hunting and gathering when you're constantly on the move. Not necessarily. Yeah. 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.920 I remember one of my heroes, Dr Jared Diamond, who 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.800 wrote that essay the greatest mistake in the history of 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.960 mankind or human kind, the greatest mistake in the history 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.520 of the human race. Yes, Dr screech right, um. He 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.400 argued that no, no, no, like you, you spend four 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.000 hours out of your day hunting, hunting, and gathering, and 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.640 the rest is leisure. I don't have anything to tend to. 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.680 It was his big argument that that agriculture was a 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.440 huge mistake. Well what's the deal though, with you saying 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.400 then that science and art sprung out of the free 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.919 time from the agricultural lifestyle. I'm very glad you asked that, Chuck, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.880 because this is a very important point. Okay, because uh, 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.400 and that that that um stood out to me too 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.880 when I was back rereading this article. Right, Um, we 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.600 were able because of the advent of civilization. We were 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:02.880 able to pursue things like science, pursue things like math, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.760 create calendars and astronomy and all that um, because there 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.800 were people who were toiling on behalf of others who 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.320 weren't toiling. Uh to say, the ruling class were the 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.560 ones who created science, who don't okay, because they make 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:19.960 half the toil. They didn't even have to go hunt 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:24.000 and gather nothing but free time exactly. Okay, that makes sense. Well, 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.839 and you mentioned the calendar in time that was specifically 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.440 the Babylonians, which is part of Mesopotamia. They invented minutes 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:38.200 and seconds, right did I? Well, come, I'm kidding Mesopotamia. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:40.120 Let's go ahead and let the cat out of the bag. 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.120 They were the first civilization. Yeah, you'd think they had 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.400 everything right there. Modern day Iraq is that right? Yes? 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:48.720 And a little I think a little bit of Iran 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.760 between the tigers and the Euphrates River very fertile at 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.200 land there wasn't it. It was thanks to the early 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.760 farmers because they re routed the water, Is that right? Yeah? 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.200 I mean they had a lot it was. It was fertile, 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.640 you know, around the river. But these guys were building 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.440 canals like twenty miles out in founding cities where they 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.640 ended so long ago, it's amazing. Yeah, this is about 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:15.960 four thousand BC that Mesopotamia really started to grow up. Um. 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.360 And Mesopotamia is Greek, I believe for land between two 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.560 rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Right, Um. And it was actually 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:31.400 a series of independent although affiliated city states Syria, Babylonia 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:36.960 and Summer sumer sum Sumaria. I've seen both ways sumer 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:42.880 and Sumeia. But remember Um in Ghostbusters, Gozo is a 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:48.240 Sumerian god? Which one was Gozo or Gozer goes? Yes, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.960 the lady in the suit is that a suit? It 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.039 was some kind of suit alright, So Chuck, like you said, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.400 Um that that one scholar Matthias Tomzak said that if 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.479 culture is behavior, then civilization is structured to that behavior, 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:10.080 and that kind of underlie underscores the point that we 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:14.400 had certain things, certain elements that that formed the basis 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.720 of civilization floating out there in the ether, like hunter 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:23.400 gatherer tribes engaged in religious ceremonies and rituals um and 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:28.000 and there were some sort of structure to their bands. 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.640 From time to time, if there was a shaman present, 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.040 he probably ran the show or she um. So there 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:38.000 were these elements to civilization, but it was in Mesopotamia 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.720 where they all came together, right, and they were structure 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:49.120 I structured. Wow, organized, Yes, I think that's the word 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.559 you're looking for. Uh. You know what was also really 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:54.680 cool I thought that you pointed out was were they 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.160 the very first people to actually write things down on tablets? Yea. 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.600 And this kind of shows how you would think like, oh, well, 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.520 the Mesopotamians really had everything together and they like, we're 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.559 gonna build humanity. Yeah, we're gonna write books because books 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.360 are important. They didn't know that, no, not not at first. 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:19.520 So yeah, in Sumeria, the first writing came about why Chuck, Well, 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.200 like you point out here, it's a very boring things 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.600 that they were keeping track of on on written record, 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:31.720 which like tax records and um accounting records. But that 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.880 makes sense. They were smart enough early on to keep 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.360 track of their financial business for with a permanent record 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.959 and new necessity is the mother of invention. They needed 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.000 to keep track of their stuff, so they created writing. 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.680 But then that writing led to the phonetic alphabet to 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.400 where now things UM could be depicted, where there was 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.440 no UM there was no picture for them. Right. It 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.240 wasn't just like cal Sun Mountain, right, they could I 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.520 think I think he just insulted somebody in in ancient Egypt, 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:05.880 they could actually express abstract thought for the first time 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.440 on paper, well not paper but clay tablets. Right. And 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.640 that led actually to Gilgamesh, which is thought to be 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.800 the first literary work in the entire world. Have you 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.600 ever read it? Really? Yeah, so it's a real thing. Yeah, 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:20.959 I mean, I know it's a real thing, but it's 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.000 a real book with the plot. Is it fiction? It 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.240 is fiction, although there was supposedly a real king Gilgamesh. Um, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.320 and yeah, it's it's actually it's really interesting because it 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.680 kind of depicts the struggle at the time between going 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:43.480 towards civilization or remaining hunter gatherers. You have pretty much, Um, 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.280 you have Gilgamesh. He's all about the city and he 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:52.120 runs into Inky Do in ky Do. I've heard it 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.360 both ways too, Is that your c o A. Now 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.440 I've heard it both ways? Write uh and incaduced like 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.280 this wild man of the woods and Gilgamesh meets him, 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.600 wrestles him, and uh, basically it's like, hey, you're my 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.800 best friend now because you almost beat me. Let me 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.000 take you to the city. So it's as much about 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.559 gilgamesh Um as it is about him taming inky Do, 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.200 bringing another human being out of the woods and into 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.679 the city, out of our past as hunter gatherers, into civilization. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.679 Because not everybody just subscribed to it at once, and 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.280 a lot of people believe that Gilgamesh um is symbolic 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.679 for this transition at this point in human history. It's 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.920 the city mouse and the country mouse. Yeah, exactly, it's 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.760 it's it's a struggle that still goes on today. It's weird, 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:42.120 but um. Yeah, however you interpreted, Gilgamesh is arguably the 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.240 first work of literature on the planet, and that came 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.920 from Samaria, Okay, which was Mesopotamia, right, all right, So 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.840 that's a good that's a strike in their favor. You 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.760 know what else was religion organized religion. It wasn't the 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:57.960 first time it had happened, right, but the fact that 0:10:58.000 --> 0:10:59.760 they were all in one place all of a sudden, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.040 instead of hunting and gathering and having your own little 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.880 religious ideals in small pockets of thirty, all of a sudden, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:10.360 you had large numbers of people worshiping the same gods 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.319 and you had these people at the top of this 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.360 religious hierarchy. They were in charge. Who Yeah, they were 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.040 in charge because they were the ones who knew what 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.760 the gods we're thinking. And they could be like, you 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:26.600 know this god um uh Utu, the sun god, or 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.200 goes Er. You didn't want to mess a gozer. But 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.559 let's say goes Er Um commands you to bring me 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:38.480 a bunch of um wheat wheat, and uh, I'm supposed 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.040 to eat it, and you're supposed to sit there and 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:42.760 watch and not say anything. And that's why I'm a 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.480 fat cat. But that's that's the hierarchy, you know, like 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.640 the the they this. These priests had control immediately over 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.640 these people once organized religion started, Yes, and that led 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.360 to moral codes of conduct, which eventually would lead to 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.560 regular law, which is another little strike in their favorite. 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.800 All these things are coming out of Mesopotamia. It's all 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:06.120 forming a picture, josh Um. There's also some very overtly well, 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.920 now there's there's some other great advances they made. Um. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:14.360 We talked about the calendar. Apparently the um Babylonians were 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.080 the first to actually mark time beyond the sun's up 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.880 of the sun's down. Yeah, they came up with seconds 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.080 and minutes. They created the calendar, and then this in 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.040 turn gives rise to astronomy. You can't have astronomy without 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.599 a calendar and math, right eventually, Yes, so science is 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.960 coming out of Mesopotamia too. And art, Yes, they actually 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.080 people have been creating art for ten thousand years at 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.760 that point, right, Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that art 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.199 was one of the first things that humans try their hand. 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.360 I mean, think about like the prehistoric drawings in the 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.679 caves in France. I remember which ones, but of like 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.440 the people running around hunting bison, right, and they were 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:56.520 also telling stories to write it. Isn't that art? Yeah? 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.559 Oh man, look at you. What a sensitive guy. So, Josh, 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.080 was it all like super awesome ideas that they were 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.440 like laying down on humanity? Surely they did some harm, right, definitely, 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.480 because with advancement, it's hard not to step on a 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.080 few toes along the way, right. And once you say, oh, 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.480 I've got this group subjugated, but that group over there's 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.600 got a lot of emmer wheat did I want to? 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.199 So I'm gonna amass an army and you guys are 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:25.160 going to go subjugate that other group, So war slaves 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.280 expansion is um, all of this stuff came out of 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.400 that too. Sure. And the other thing too is disease. 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.520 And uh, I guess plague. Now that you have or 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.920 not plague, what would you call it? Epidemics? Yeah, an epidemics. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:39.920 Since you have people all living in one place, it's 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:41.800 much easier to you know, pass that thing around all 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:43.720 of a sudden that you have an epidemic on your hand. 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:46.199 That was another point Jared Diamond made, like, you can't 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:48.640 you can't have an epidemic if you just are living 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.560 in groups of thirty that don't really contact one another. 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:57.240 Doctor screech exactly. Um, so chuck. It's pretty clear Mesopotamia 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.880 is the creative civilization, although there are some other comer. 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.280 There are definitely some settlements that have been discovered that 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.760 are neolithic, um, that show signs of some sort of cohesion. 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.800 Um in uh, let's see, there's some along the Yellow 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.400 River in China that are pretty old. Yeah. Um, there's 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.880 cattle Hoyak, which is one of my favorites. Yeah. Southern Turkey. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.880 They had temples of worship, shrines, they had art, they 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:27.240 raised livestock and farmed and they had about ten thousand 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.760 people together doing this. But what strikes me is you 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:36.240 point out that they didn't have a hierarchy or social stratification. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.400 But that's a ten thousand people back then with no hierarchy. 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.640 It's communism. Well, it's hinky as what it is, it's utopia. 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:46.600 I bet it didn't go so well though, you know, 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:51.080 especially in those early like savage times. Sure, um or 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.320 else it did. I mean, they could have ended because 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.800 of climate change or whatever. Um Or maybe they actually 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.080 did have a social hierarchy. It's just not a it 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.960 to researchers yet. But if if they did, they were 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.680 That's really what they were lacking, was the social hierarchy 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:08.640 that would have made them a civilization. And they had 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.280 a good three thousand years on the Mesopotamians. What about 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.800 Gonner Ganner Dept. That's in a Turkmenistan. Yeah, they sound 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.800 like they meet the thing. They farm, they built canals, 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:23.720 palaces and traded. Yeah, you know what kept them out? Again, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.440 I think it was the hierarchy, class structure. And and 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.640 isn't that sad that class structure is a It's one 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:35.120 of the spaces of civilization. And I think about this, Chuck, 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.240 we're we're talking about how civilization it's you know, um 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.360 that keeping tax records gave rise to phonetic alphabets, which 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:48.920 gave rise to capturing abstract ideas. Right, UM, So we've 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.960 we've you can see how civilization at one point when 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.680 when we all of a sudden they're starting to settle 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:59.520 down the whole there's a world of opportunity, of choices 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.720 of available to us. Um. But with each block that 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:07.120 we built upon and cemented, we also built our own. 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.680 We built ourselves into a certain worldview that we can't 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.640 it's tough to see out of sometimes now these days, 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:15.520 you see what I'm saying, Like what what were the 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.040 choices that they mean? Like could they have been like 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.160 well we're gonna go with cattle hiak and not have 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.160 a social hierarchy. But now having a social hierarchy and 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.040 class uh means that you're a civilization. We can't think 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.440 of it without that. And there's also a lot of 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:35.760 benefit to studying early civilization or what constitute of civilization 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.320 because it sheds light on our own Like today we 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.800 have class structures. We have a ruling class that that 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:47.000 um distributes wealth based on economic policies and tax breaks. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:48.840 And it's tough to see it like that because you 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.720 just think it's Barack Obama, John McCain. But this is 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.440 really you can look at it in that detached manner 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.840 like this is a this is the class structure, and 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:00.760 this is how they doll out the goods, and they 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.160 don't dole it out equally. You know what Bob Marley 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:06.920 said lively after yourself, Well, he said a lot of things. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.080 Don't know your past, you don't know your future. That's 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.400 true right there. I don't think he was the first 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.840 guy to say that either. But Chuck, there's one question 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.439 that's remained unanswered. This this is awesome. Tell me this 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:22.760 isn't awesome. It's pretty awesome. Why did we start farming? Well, Josh, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.880 there are different theories, but the one that you found 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.000 that I love is from an archaeologist named Patrick McGovern, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.000 and he believes that once humans got their first little 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:39.639 nip of that sweet, sweet alcohol from what fermented fruit 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.320 or grain or something by accident, probably the first time. 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.119 Once they got that taste of intoxication, they would stop 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.280 at nothing to recreate it. And he contends in a 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:55.879 book Uncorking the Past Colon the Quest for wine, beer, 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.879 and other alcoholic beverages. That the Neolithic Revolution happened and 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.840 agriculture was born because people wanted to grow things to 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.440 make alcohol. Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense, Chuck, 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.960 because if you think about it as hunter gatherers, um, 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.399 we had food already, and we had figured out that 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.040 you could live in bands of thirty or less. There 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.560 isn't necessarily an urge to live in civilization. We're tied 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.000 to a sedentary lifestyle through agriculture. But it leaves that 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.200 door open, like why would we go, Well, I've got 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.720 some food over here, and I have tons of leisure time, 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.720 but I'd rather stick right here and spend all of 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:38.679 my time farming for food. But this McGovern hypothesis about 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.160 you know, alcohol providing the basis of agriculture, it makes 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.800 a lot of sense. It answers that question. Well, that's 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:49.160 the age old question and archaeological circles is what came first? 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.119 Beer or bread? Yeah, so you're growing these crops, what 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:53.560 were they doing? Are they making bread with it? Or 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.640 are they making beer? They were making neither. They were 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.639 actually making a um fermented combination of me and some 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.879 sort of fruit wine about ten percent alcohol is that 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.080 what they said? And this is we're talking like seven 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:11.080 thousand BC, nine thousand years ago again along the Yellow 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.720 River in China, people are making this some sort of 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:18.960 fermented um alcoholic beverage. And they were so clever about this, chuck, 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:23.200 you have to have some sort of malt sugar to 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.199 to allow the fermentation process to take place, right, So 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:27.879 what did they do? This is what they did. They 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.480 had obviously no knowledge of chemistry at the time none, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:35.000 so they would prehistoric humans would uh mixed clumps of 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.719 rice with their saliva in their mouth. They chew it up, 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.920 break down the starches in the grain in their mouth 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.840 and convert it into malt sugar and then spit that 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:49.520 up into the homebrew and apparently all the yeasty, foamy 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.439 stuff would float to the top and they would use 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:56.119 these really long party straws, crazy straws to drink the 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.680 alcohol from the bottom of the thing. And they still 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.760 use similar uh jugs to drink out of in China. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:09.560 It bro Yeah, that's like making booze nine thousand years ago. 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:14.280 And um McGovern would know, he's a molecular archaeologist. He 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:17.320 pretty much pioneered the field. And if you have an 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.600 old pottery shard that you want analyze to take it 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.760 to him. And so he started noticing time after time 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.119 that with all of these um shards of pottery, he 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.720 kept finding tartaric acid, which is a UM. It's an 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.159 acid present in wine. UM. And he would find some 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:38.720 other stuff too UM. And actually in Goner Deppie he 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.800 found some vessels or he was asked to analyze some 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.320 vessels and um. He found a contaminant of beer, a 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.640 natural contaminant of beer. UM. And he also figured out 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.600 that these little scratched, these cross hatch scratches in the 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:55.760 bottom of the play pottery were designed to absorb this 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.320 contaminant which occurs in crystal form, so it would just 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.520 sink to the bottom, me get stuck in these cross hatches. 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.560 So he's like, these are beer bottles and this is 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.359 like the four thousand years ago or six thousand years ago. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.040 That's awesome. You know what else, Uh Sumerians, which was 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:16.440 part of Mesopotamia, they worshiped the goddess of fertility, Nina Harra, 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.240 and they consider her to be the inventor of beer 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:23.400 and the goddess of fertility too. That's pretty funny. That's 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.879 funny because I thought Paul Massan was the goddess of fertility. 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.400 That's good. And also, Josh, you know what we're saying. 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.520 And how they Sumerians wrote down things on clay tablets, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.040 some of the first folks to do that. They actually 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.560 wrote down the recipe for beer was one of the 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.680 things they wrote down. So they had like the first 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:45.159 brewers handbook. Basically, they had tax records Gilgamesh and a 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:48.360 good beer recipe you need and I don't know, that's 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.080 pretty awesome. And his his hypothesis is also backed up 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.480 by the really rapid spread around the world of fermentation. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:00.640 Right um, after these I think the Chinese shards, uh 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.800 that show that fruit and mead mixture are the oldest, 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.600 and then after that it kind of spreads fairly quickly. Yeah, 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.680 pretty cool. And if you look at their staple crops 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.640 that that may that constituted early agriculture, you can brew 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.520 from all of them. Yeah, there was some corn millet 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:21.600 rice beer company was that some weer company had found 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.320 some concient recipe and they for beer and they were 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:27.960 able to recreate it. Sweet. Yeah, I wish I could 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:29.680 remember the name of it. Someone will tell me it's 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.600 not flag Porter is it? I don't know. Maybe flag 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.119 Porter great beer. I'll look into it. All right, Well, Chuck, 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.960 that's about it. Uh, we still haven't quite gotten to 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.840 the bottom of whether Mesopotamia was a credile of civilization 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:47.640 or not. I say yes, I say yes, But as 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.760 you point out, scholars still debate what is a civilization 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:54.960 in the first place, So so who are we to say? Um, 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:57.639 that's about it. I don't even recommend reading the article. 0:22:57.680 --> 0:22:59.760 We pretty much covered it. But there is a search 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:03.440 bar how stuff worth dot com all sorts of cool stuff. Um, 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:08.520 how about listener mail Josh. This is a long one, 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.239 but it's worth it because this is one of the 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.080 best ones we've ever gotten. That's two full pages, well 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:18.200 sixteen point for my old eyes, uh, Josh and Chuck. 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:20.960 Strange as it may sound, I was. I actually discovered 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.639 a secluded tribe. A few years ago. While I was 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:27.800 sailing solo around the world, somewhere around uh Vanua to 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.479 Vanua too in the South Pacific, I was hit by 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:34.440 a huge storm. Uh snapped my mass like a match 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:37.000 stick and treated my boat like a bathtub toy. He 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:38.640 had to strap himself in the boat, so he didn't 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.880 get watched overboard, gets tossed around for what seems like days, 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.240 ends up washed ashore like a castaway, not like a castaway. 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:48.720