Studies On The Early Social Organization And Origin Of Civilization In Mesopotamia

Great Mesopotamia, the cradle of earliest human civilizations, has experienced a complicated social evolution before origin of states. In order to understand early civilizations precisely, we need to consider the development of Mesopotamia societie as a coherent and dynamic process and discover the nature factors of human civilizations by taking advantage of research achievements of predecessors.The first part of this article has described the geographical scope of Mesopotamia and has also summarized the predecessors’ research achievements on the prestate social organizations and origins of civilization in Mesopotamia. However, there are still some shortcomings, so we will figure out these problems in rest of the article.The second part,represented by Kent V. flannery, foreign scholars believe that “Nuclear family” has already existed even in the early neolithic or paleolithic of Mesopotamia. However, even the influnce of this view is very wide, there are still substantial problems, since the evidences Flannery has used canalso support the interpretation of a matriclan. Judging from an comparative analysis of the teeth of human bones in ?atalh?yük and according to a study ofmtDNA extracted from the deceased in Kurdu, we hold theopinion here that itmust be a matriarchal society in the early neolithic of Mesopotamia.Using an analysis of settlements and burials, we have discussed the appearance of monogamy family in Mesopotamia in the third part of this paper. Since ovens(hearths) and storerooms of Tell Abada are located in public place, people have still lived a collective life during Ubaid 2/3. On the contrary, the separation of ovens(hearths) and storerooms in building of Tell Madhur shows that collectivity are collapsing in Ubaid 3/4. Then, the appearance of kitchen in Arslantepe prove that residents of ubaid 4 or terminate ubaid have lived apart. In addition, based on the changes of architectural composition, stoves, storerooms and pottery kiln in Tell-i-bakun A site and following the concept proposed by Engels that “The appearance of Monogamy family marks the coming of civilization age”, we believe that the family organization of Tell-i-bakun A site was going to transform into monogamy family at the last phase of Ubaidian Culture in Mesopotamia. Moreover, the multi-burials in Ur and family-burials in Eridu also show us a Strong family ties in late period of Ubaid. So we speculate that living in polygamous family has become a common way of life in the Ubaid 4 of Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia.The last part, we have talked about the origns of civilizations(states) in Mesopotamia. The burials, the buildings and the military fortifications, from which we can all reveal the emergence of family, class, and mandatory public power, have presented a dynamic evolution process from late Chalcolithic(4500BC) to early Bronze age(2800BC). Part of burials: The level gap of burial objects between tombs in Tepe Gawra, especially in terms of precious ornaments, are growing fast from 4000 BC to 3500 BC. Further more, the high standard tombs with human sacrifice of Arslantepe in 3000 BC can also present the social inequality and emergence of class in Mesopotamia. Part of architecture: Theappearance of living space in temples of eridu indicate that Society have began to stratify in 4000 BC.Meanwhile the palace in 3000 BC shows that Arslantepe hasbecome a state. Military fortifications: Learing from the fortress in TepeGawra,we may be able to speculate the time that Mesopotamia step in civilized society is about 4000 BC. However, integrating all of these elements, we hold the opinion here that it is in the late Chalcolithic(4000BC—3000BC), the first civiliazation(state) in Mesopotamiahas appeared. Bronze leads to human civilizations.