Re: The river culture that never came

Uwe Müller skreiv:

"Daryl Krupa" <icycalmca@xxxxxxxxx> schrieb [...]:

On Dec 28, 6:28 am, Trond Engen <trond...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...] Five or six millennia ago early civilizations thrived in fertile river valleys on the edge of deserts. Why didn't a comparable culture develop along the Amu-Darja and the Syr-Darja?

Maybe the glacial meltwater that feeds those rivers had not yet
flowed in sufficient quantity to support irrigation agriculture.
I.e., until those glaciers had grown and then started to melt at a significant rate, those rivers might have been small and interrmittent.

The problem could well have been climatic in this instance. The former centres are near the sea, they share climates, which are influenced by the sea. Central Asia otoh has harsh winters and boiling hot summers, so the intelligent thing would have been to remain nomadic or semi-nomadic to escape from the extreme weather conditions

Well, now I've done some actual reading and apparently "an advanced bronze age culture", the Sipalli culture, flourished in the region throughout the third millenium BC. Thus I may restate my question as "why didn't the Sipalli culture develop similarly to the cultures of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley?"

I don't fins much, though, and the rest is speculation. I'd expect trade and cultural exchange between this region and the large centra of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley to be significant, and recent progress in the fields of technology and politics, like irrigation, organized religion, standing armies and despotism, to be known.

Seemingly, a different balance between farmers and (semi-)nomads would be part of the explanation. Were the settled valleys and fertile spots either virtually self-defended or undefendable -- either way giving little reason for the establishment of a central power?

have fun

I will. I do.

--
Trond Engen
- Bien Syr, mon Amu
.