ESSAY 2

. 09 by Routledge , Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

blished in the USA and Canada

is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

@ 2009 J, Donald Hughes Typeset in ITC Galliard by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby

All l'ights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in wl'iting from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Hughes, J. Donald (Johnson Donald), 1932- An environmental history of the world: humankind's changing role in the community of life/ J. Donald

Hughes. p. cm. -- (Routledge studies in physical geography and environment)

"Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada"--T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Human ecology--History. 2. Nature--Effect of human beings on--History. 3. Biotic communities-- History. I. Title.

GF13.H83 2009 304.2'8--dc22

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-48149-6 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-48150-2 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-88575-8 (ebk)

ISBN 10: 0-415-48149-X (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-415-48150-3 (pbk) ISBN 10: 0-203-88575-9 (ebk)

2008053780

·The great divorce of culture and nature

Cities are not separate from the natural world on which they depend. In a north Indian city, men and women build a new apartment structure largely by hand. They carry tiles in wooden hods on their heads, tiles formed of earthen clay that have been baked by burning wood and charcoal, which is partially oxidized wood, from the shrinking forests on hillsides far to the north. The scaffolding is of bamboo that grew in the same forests, tied with ropes of hemp from fields that can be seen in the hazy distance from the top of the building. Like all cities, this one uses resources transported from the land near at hand or far away.

In Shanghai, I visited a marketplace where an astonishing variety of stalls lined the lane, stocked with every staple for the kitchen: vegetables and fruits from gardens just outside the city, live ducks from a nearby lake, lotus, water chestnuts, and snails that country people brought to sell. What is often described as a series of economic transactions also can be seen as human beings manipulating and using other species of animals and plants.

An easy walk from the center of Avila in Spain took me along the crowded streets of a thriving provincial capital, through a gate in the massive walls, through wheat fields, vine- yards, and olive orchards, to a viewpoint where, looking back over the city, I could glimpse the pineclad heights of the Sierra. In this short distance, I saw examples of many different ways in which the land is used to meet the preferences and needs of an urban population.

Each of these scenes has something important in common with the early cities that arose in the river valleys of Mesopotamia, the Nile, and the Indus, or on the loess plains of north China. The state with its religious and political institutions, the specialization of human occupations, the stratification of society into classes, and the development of arts such as monumental architecture, writing, and the measurement of space and time, appeared first and developed most fully in these large, densely populated human centers. The city is a structured human relationship with the natural environment. Although it is an artificial creation of human culture, it can also be seen as an ecosystem related to other ecosystems. Every activity of human beings in it requires some resource from the surrounding environ- ment. The city is not a truncated phenomenon, but has a natural context consisting of the many cycles of organic and inorganic substances that constantly affect it. Cities are part of the ecosystems within which they exist, although they make extensive changes within them and reorganize nature for their own benefit. Too often cities are studied only as a series of human social relationships and economic arrangements, and their intimate, constant, and necessary connections with the natural processes of the Earth are forgotten. 1

A more productive agriculture was the necessary condition for the genesis of cities, since they were larger, more densely populated, and organized in a more complex way than the villages that preceded them. They required an agrarian economic base that could produce a food surplus. This was done in part by expanding cultivated land at the expense of forests,

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The great divorce of culture and nature 31

wetlands, and arid country. But in order to feed large numbers of men and women engaged in activities that did not produce food, such as rulers, priests, milit,µy commanders, and ,H;ribes, it was necessary to have a system in which the labor of a farm family could provide food for others besides itsel£ This was often achieved through large-scale water manage- ment aimed at controlling floodwaters, or providing waters to fields through canals.

The staple food of city dwellers consisted of grains such as wheat, barley, and millet. Rice was cultivated in China as early as the Shang dynasty (c.1750-1100 Bc),2 and was possibly pl'csent in the Indus Valley at approximately the same tirne. 3 The plow, a technological innovation, helped to create an agricultural surplus, and thus to make cities possible. Seed tit:lcction, fertilization techniques, and crop rotation also made contributions.

The effects of flood control and irrigation on the environment were among the impacts of urbanization. Rivers carry sand, silt, and suspended organic matter, all of which settle out when the water slows. Where a river was contained between levees to prevent flooding, as 111 Mesopotamia and north China, it caused the riverbed to rise above the surrounding land nnd made floods worse when dikes finally broke. Siltation also occurs in canals and, unless people undertake the heavy burden of removing silt to adjacent spoil banks, shortens the lrncful life of these works. Eventually it may overwhelm them in spite of th~se efforts. Another effect was salinization, the gradual increase of salts in waterlogged soil as a result of tWaporation. Flowing water dissolves salt, and more of it after deforestation exposes salt- hearing rocks to rainfall. When the water is spread on the fields and evaporates, the salt iil:cumulates. High salt concentrations obstruct germination and impede the absorption of water and nutrients by plants, or prevent growth. Salinization can be serious wherever lrt1igation is practiced in dry climates on poorly drained soils, which was the situation in much of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. , The rise of cities created demand for materials and fuels. Architecture became extensive, tomplex, and massive. The need for building materials was immense, considering residences imd places of business, temples, palaces, and. tombs, along with walls and citadels. Most illl\terials for construction ·came from the Earth, consisting of clay dried in the sun or baked into brick, and stone. Stone quarries scarred· many a hillside. Fuel for brick kilns required '11t1ge quantities of wood and charcoal, which came from the forests. The cities of the Indus ;~alley, for instance, were constructed of baked brick. Timber was also of major importance iii building, being used to support ceilings and roofs, and for scaffolding during construc- tion, adding to pressures on woodlands.

An improved metallurgy produced tools, weapons, and ornaments of copper and then of · /!JrOnze. Cities were often centers of metallurgy, or spawned such centers in their vicinity,

}\flQ the demands for fuel threatened forests. The ore had to be dug out of the ground, · Jtrn.ving pits and tunnels; and had to be raised to a high temperature for smelting (2012°F

JWU00°C for copper), which required the burning of wood or charcoal for fuel. It required J1,ughly 15-25 tons4 of charcoal to produce one ton of copper. The effect of cutting vegeta- },tfon for this one use alone.at a major center of production would have involved the divesti- Jurt of hundreds of thousands of hectares oftrees.5 Copper compounds are poisonous, so workers were at risk, and pollution from the wastes of manufacture was dangerous to humans and other organisms. { '.fhe people were divided into a number of new occupations, some new and unique to the llity. As a result, many citizens of urban centers belonged to groups whose jobs meant they Wt!rc insulated from the land and no longer worked intimately with living animals and l\1li!.nts. They spent their time indoors or in marketplaces, manufacturing or selling products, far working in government, the law, and religion. Their food was obtained through trade,

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32 The great divorce of culture and nature

not directly from the sources. Those who were most urbanized included the leaders and political decision-makers.

Warriors attempted to defend the agricultural lands and other resource interests of the city, and strove to seize those of neighboring cities. Before the adoption of horses and chariots, success depended on amassing numbers of foot soldiers on the battlefield. Com - manders demanded the service of almost all able-bodied men and made warrior status the requirement of citizenship, a fact that prevented women from formal participation in polit- ical life. Acts of war destructive of the environment were often done deliberately to deprive rival cities of the means of support and resistance. Armies set fires, trampled crops, cut trees, and disrupted water supplies.

Merchants formed an important occupational group in the early cities,6 and the market- place evolved, usually an open square near the center, surrounded by a sheltered walkway where stalls or shops could be erected. There the produce of local farms, handicrafts of artisans, and items of clothing were offered in trade. In addition, services like haircuts and dentistry were available, as well as prepared food and alcoholic drinks. The marketplace had notable environmental effects from the start, facilitating the exchange of resources and increasing demand for them.

Growth in numbers and density of population produced probJems of pollution, waste disposal, and the spread of diseases, affecting the health, stature, and longevity of the inhab- itants. Drinking water was drawn from wells, rivers, and canals subject to contamination. Mesopotamian documents mention the danger of death from drinking bad water.7 To pol- lution from sewage and offal were added wastes from industrial activities such as metallurgy, leather tanning, and pottery kilns. These accumulated until rain washed them into rivers and ground water. A few early cities arranged for removal, or built sewers and latrines, such as are found in the ruins of Knossos on Crete. Wastes as well as the concentration of human bodies and stored foodstuffs attracted opportunistic organisms.

Human health suffered by every measure. Neolithic villagers were less healthy than hunters and herders, but city dwellers showed further decline; studies of their skeletal remains show that they were shorter in stature, lived briefer lives, suffered more from bad teeth and bones, and were subject to communicable diseases. 8 To these dangers must be added warfare, slavery, and human sacrifice. An unconscious tradeoffhad been made which forfeited quality of life for quantity of human numbers and security for the community. For individuals, urban life was rarely an improvement over earlier societies.

Just as important as the transformation of the environment where the city stood was the way in which urban demands affected the surrounding area at greater distances as the city grew. Cities could exploit resources at a distance, directly and indirectly, becoming depend- ent on trade routes vulnerable to hostile disruptions or natural calamities.

The most damaging effect of cities on the environment was deforestation as a result of the demands for building material and fuels. It began close to the .. centers and spread outward along lines of transportation such as rivers, coastlines, and roads. Forest products are heavy and bulky, and were exploited as much as possible over the shortest and easiest routes. However, many cities had to reach out further. The cities of the Indus Valley, for example, brought deodar cedar wood from the Himalaya. The cedar forests of the Lebanon moun- tain range furnished timber to the Sumerians and the Egyptians, who had to transport it long distances. Later, King Hiram of Tyre gave cedar and cypress timber to King Solomon to build the temple in Jerusalem; it was shipped in the form of sea-going rafts.9

Warfare meant destruction in ancient times, and the natural environment was not safe from it. Crops were destroyed when armies marched over them, or fought battles on the

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The great divorce of culture and nature 33

fields, although blood and fallen bodies might briefly fertilize the soil. Longer-lasting damage was done by cutting down groves of fruit, trees, an action forbidden by the Hebrew Bible. 10

Armies also set forests on fire, diverted rivbrs, and deliberately polluted sources of water. Many of the regions where cities first appeared are today arid and sparsely vegetated. It is

11 thought-provoking sight to see the remains of a great dty like Ur, with its massive zig- gurat (a step-pyramid-like structure topped by a temple), or the citadel of Mohenjo-Daro, surrounded by desiccated and largely deserted landscapes. 11 Desertification is intensified by salinization, and both processes went on in the neighborhood of cities. Another factor dem- onstrated by hydrologic studies is the altering of watercourses. The channels of the Yellow River, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Indus and its tributaries, shifted over significant distances. Although many of these often disastrous displacements occurred spontaneously, others were occasioned by the construction of canals and other water control structures, and by deforestation and subsequent floods and desiccation. Thus early cities had a hand in creating the deserts that later enveloped them. Progress, it appears, is not inevitable.

The city cannot be understood properly unless it is seen as an ecosystem, that is, as a series of ecological relationships. It does not exist in isolation, but interacts with other ecosystems and functions as part of a larger ecosystem. A study of the city, therefore, must see human NOcial factors as operating within a complex series of ecological processes that impact and affect them. The city-dwellers, like their Neolithic ancestors, depended on a natural system for survival. But this fact was less immediate for them. Feedback from natural systems was less instantaneous. Therefore it could seem to them that culture and nature were two sepa- 1\lte realms, and that culture, representing order and security, should be dominant over chaotic nature.

Such a viewpoint was mistaken. The city of the Afro-Asiatic Bronze Age ( c.3000-1000 BC) was no less a part of the larger ecosystem than the Neolithic village or Palaeolithic hunters' munp. It was more populous, though, and more complex. Its decision-making had a wider impact on the environment, and needed to be informed by better knowledge of the work- Jugs of surrounding ecosystems. This knowledge was not always available. Mistakes made in lV.'ban economic arrangements were more far-reaching than before, and might mean that a ~lty imposed demands on the environment at a level that was not sustainable. This actually llitppened many times. Cities shrank, or their sites were .abandoned completely. But before ~his happened, or while it was happening, they depleted their environment, and they did so tvcr an extensive landscape, sometimes including distant places from which they drew iiesources. Culture acted as though it were divorced from nature only at its own peril.

l;hc Uruk Wall: Gilgamesh and urban origins ihc rooms of museums do not always transport their visitors in spirit to far places and

nt times, particularly if the visitors are tired and have walked through dozens of rooms previously. So it was with few expectations that I stepped into the room in the Perga-

ibon Museum in Berlin that contains a large number of objects from Uruk, a site in Iraq that was once a great Sumerian city. One side of the room was occupied by the patterned baked ~ay bricks of a city wall. I read the label. This was a piece of the wall ofUruk, the city where ,J,jiilg;amesh was king! Suddenly, a thrill of excitement seized the back of my neck, and frag- 'fflMts of the most ancient epic poem that survives on Earth came into my mind.

I will proclainl to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh ... In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart ... Look at it still today: the outer wall where the cornice runs, it shines with

34 The great divorce of culture and nature

the brilliance of copper;·,and the inner wall, it has no equal. Touch the threshold, it is ancient ... Climb upon the wall of Uruk; walk along it, I say; regard the foundation terrace and examine the masonry: is it not burnt brick.and good? 12

This passage is not a mere poetic boast; the circuit of walls around Uruk measured 9.6 km ( 6 mi), with 900 towers. Archaeology presently indicates that the earliest civilized societies arose as a series of city-states in Sumeria, located in the alluvial land along the lower courses of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, near where they empty into the Persian Gulf. This area would be desert were it not for the rivers and the irrigation they make possible. The walls of the old cities of Sumeria, built as they were of clay brick, have more or le:~~ eroded into the _ rounded mounds of the cities they formerly protected. But the restored wall ofU ruk reflects something of its ancient glory to the inner eye.

The wall is the symbol not of the city alone, but also of a new view of the world, which entailed a "Great Divorce," a sense of separation between culture and nature that came about with the origin of cities. Walls were meant to keep enemies out, but they stood also as tangible signs of a division between what was inside and what was outside: within was the ordered lifestyle of a city; and without was a comparatively chaotic world. In the day of Gilgamesh the wall-builder this distinction was recent, and it indeed marked a divorce between civilization and nature. The psychological separation was rhuch more marked than anything experienced by hunters, herders, or village farmers. The distinction between the crowded centers of human civilization, the productive countryside, and the lands beyond where wild creatures lived, was clearly recognized.

The motif of human struggle against hostile nature is prominent in the mythologies of Mesopotamia, where the first cities arose. In the Old Babylonian epic of creation, Enuma Blish, which is patterned on much earlier Sumerian texts, the world is shown to be the result of a battle between Tiamat, the female monster of chaotic nature, and Marduk, the champion

Figure 3.1 Mostly abandoned, these terraces in the arid country near Petra, Jordan, illustrate the impression of environmental deterioration over large areas of the Near East. Photograph taken in 1976.

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The great divorce of culture and nature 35

of the new order of the gods. Marduk captures Tiamat in a net, drives the wind into her mouth to distend her belly, shoots an ai-row through her' heart, and "split[s] her like a shell- fish into two parts," 13 making the sky of the upper half and the sea of the lower half. He then proceeds to build Esharra, a city of the gods, in the sky. This is an instance of the prevalent idea among urban folk that the city, with its straight streets, monume:nts, and walls, is an earthly copy of a model of divine order, the heavenly city.

At the same time, the wild and its inhabitants became enemies and game. When Gil- gamesh's kingship in his city ofUruk becomes oppressive, the gods fashion a wild rival for him, a hairy man named Enkidu, who lives in the wilderness with the animals, running with them and warning them away from hunter's traps. He is a man among wild creatures, learn- Ing from them and protecting them. Then Gilgamesh sends a woman to seduce Enkidu. Besides sex, she offers him bread and wine, foods transformed from cultivated plants by human art. After that, the animals fear and flee from him, and Enkidu has to e:Uter the city. One of the labors of Gilgamesh ap.d Enkidu is an expedition to a sacred cedar forest in the mountains, where they kill the wild guardian, Humbaba, cut down the trees, and take the logs back to his city to use in building a palace. Undomesticated animals were extirpated, especially if they threatened crops and herds; Gilgamesh is portrayed killing lions simply because he sees them "glorying in life." 14 In destroying forests, the inhabitants of cities were ,1lso destroying the habitats of many species of animals.

The theme of struggle between culture and nature seems to have been a masculine rather t:han a feminine attitude to many recent writers. That it was so should not be surprising, 1dncc battle is a warriors' metaphor, warriors are usually men, and warriors eventually con- tmlled the political and economic structure of the early cities. In pre~urban societies, women ilnd men seem to have had complementary roles, with neither completely dominant. The tMks of the sexes were not rigidly defined; women sometimes hunted and men often gath- tm:d, for example, while planting or weaving were done by either sex, or both. 15 In the cities of the Urban Revolution, roles were more strictly divided, and male warriors tended to fill !·hose that were dominant. Men wrote most of the literature, too, although not exclusively iO, and the warrior images of combat and conquest are prominent as a result. It is important JiOt to make too hard and fast a rule of this; there were warrior goddesses and male earth ac,ds in the myths of cities. But the thought that attitudes to nature might have been more

· · ;jympath~tic if women had continued to be as balancing a force in urban societies as they ]tad been in earlier ones does not seem unreasonable. \ Indeed, the art and literature of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia -repeat an unmis- tilkable note of pride in human triumph over nature, and often this note resounds to glorify

· L imtnan technological achievements. Flood control and irrigation are the basis of a well- /iJrdered state. Kings are portrayed armed with bows and arrows, using nets, and riding in

··· · · fots, engaged in the ceremonial hunting and killing of wild animals, particularly power- I ones such as lions, ibexes, and wild bulls. •rhe creation of cities in Mesopotamia was an aspect of a changed relationship between

n beings and the environment, based on a more intensive agriculture using two new tions: the plow and systematic large-scale irrigation. Early cities were not large by

/riadern standards; Uruk had a population of perhaps 25,000. But for a human aggregation (Jf' this size, it was necessary for agriculture to produce a surplus. This happened with the nwcntion of the ox-pulled plow and irrigation. The fertile, sandy soil of Mesopotamia was

· ~rnity turned by the ox-drawn plow. The rivers provided the needed water, but their flow \VilS so undependable that control by major irrigation works was demanded. These works of il'rigation conquered sections of the land and won rich sustenance from its basic fertility.

Figure 3.2 The wall of the ancient city of Uruk in Sumeria, more than 5,000 years old, is decorated with a colored pattern of painted terracotta cones. It symbolizes the separation of the urban center from the rural and wild areas outside the city. Photograph taken in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, in 1991.

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The great divorce of culture and nature 37

'f'hus a Mesopotamian king felt justified/in listing the construction of a new canal, along with the defeat of his enemies in battle, as the major events of his reign. The systems of \i1tnals that brought water to the fields constituted the Sumerians' most extensive and labor- t:tmsuming achievement. This new agriculture enabled a much larger human population to live in expanded settlements, and many people no longer had to work on the land, so that

.· ~pecialized occupations flourished in the cities. It was necessary for society to create the ln~titutions that would organize food production and distribution,· the import of useful 11rn.terials, and the defense of one city against the appropriation of its lands and goods by tlriOther.

The urban dwellers raised mighty works of baked and unbaked clay bricks: temples, !ih.i'ines raised on lofty ziggurats, palaces, and thick city walls. But thefack in Sumeria of

· · ~l}me important building materials, especially timber and stone, meant that cities like Uruk had to import them from far away. In the flat, alluvial land where agriculture flourished there were few substantial forests and little stone or metallic ore. Native materials such as r✓iii::ds and clay could be used in ordinary domestic construction, but roofs of ever larger i'.tt!Uples and palaces required long, straight timbers that the treeiess Mesopotamian plain i!tmld not supply, and sculptured images and other decorations had to be made from stone ,md metal that the alluvial soil did not contain. Mountains to the north and west had abun- ¥1!lnt supplies of stone and timber. These products, as well as luxury goods, were obtained by the far-ranging merchants. Merchants were an important segment of Sumerian society, but it must not be imagined that they represented free enterprise. Their activities were managed by the rulers, and when they traveled to other cities, their status was that of quasi- llnlbassadors. These merchant-venturers traveled by land, river, and sea; To the east, they

JN1ded as far as the Indus Valley for timber, ivory, and precious stones. 16 In the west, they brnught fine woods from Lebanon, copper from Cyprus, and were in touch with Egypt almost continuously by way of the Red Sea. Every Sumerian city had a marketplace where rhc items of trade as well as those of local manufacture were available; In Mesopotamia, women engaged in trade in many commodities, and were the proprietors of bars. 17

In order to support the growing trade, cities needed to increase production of items to 1~xchange, principally grain, ceramics, and textiles. This led to additional pressure on the limd. Farmers shortened the fallow period, overplanted, plowed marginal lands, and intensi- lfod irrigation - practices which led to salinization. 18

Copper and bronze metallurgy appeared around 3000 BC as the Sumerian cities flour- iuhed, which justifies the name "Bronze Age" for the period that followed. The early metal- lurgists undoubtedly adopted some of the methods used by the manufacturers of pottery to ;1t:hieve the high temperatures that were necessary. Both processes· required considerable volumes of fuel, mainly wood and charcoal, which increased the demands of the Surnerians iln the vegetative cover of the region. 19

This was unfortunate, because flooding was a continual danger for the Mesopotamian dries, and deforested mountain slopes higher up in the drainage of the two rivers allowed faster and more silt-laden runoff to swell the inundations. The Tigris and Euphrates some- rimes rose high enough to break the levees, destroying villages and fields. Cities tried to misc themselves above the flooded plains by adding to the accumulated mounds upon which they were built. They placed the temple dwellings of the gods on platforms, and then fvcn higher on ziggurats. The system of canals and dikes was in constant danger of disrup- tion by flooding and erosion. The silt and mud carried by the waters settled out wherever they slowed, and constant dredging was required to keep the canals open. The "spoils," or l'XC:ess material, piled up along their banks until the canals were 10 rn (30 ft) or more above

38 The great divorce of culture and nature

the surrounding fields. This hampered their ability to drain the land and was a danger in time of flood.

Salinization is a danger wherever irrigation is practiced in warm, dry climates, and was disastrously prevalent in lower Mesopotamia. When irrigation water raised the natural water table and evaporated, salts accumulated; Poor drainage, made worse by the silt that had been deposited, made it hard to correct the situation by leaching salt from the fields with fresh water. Ground water became more and more saline. Farmers increasingly turned from the sensitive wheat to barley, which is more salt-tolerant. Over large areas the ground became so saline that white salt crystals could be seen on the surface and cultivated plants were unable to grow. Those fields had to be abandoned, and it became more difficult to find new areas for irrigation and cultivation. A survey by Thorkild Jacobsen and Robert Adams found evidence of increased salinity and declining yields in southern Mesopotamia between 2400 and 1700 BC. Speaking of the area where the first cities arose, the investigators con- cluded, "That growing soil salinity played an important part in the breakup of Sumerian civilization seems beyond question. "20

The once flourishing cities of ancient Sumeria - Uruk:, Ur, and the others - are now abandoned mounds in a desert environment. Satellite photographs indicate that the fertile land of Mesopotamia today has shrunken significantly from the extent it covered in Sumer- ian times. This is not the result of climatic change alone, although both rainfall and tem- perature have varied from one period of time to another. They represent an ecological disaster caused by overuse and eventual exhaustion of' the land. In Mesopotamia, of all regions studied by ancient historians, there is the clearest relationship between environmen- tal devastation caused by humans and the decline of cities and their civilizations. But it is, unfortunately, not the only example.

The Nile Valley: ancient Egypt and sustainability

Ask a fairly well-read person about labor conditions during the construction of the pyra- mids, and you will probably be told that the workers were slaves toiling under the lash. In fact, they were agricultural laborers whose work was commandeered during the off-season, and they were provided with lodging and food - what amounted to wages in the days before coinage.21 Inscriptions record the pharaoh's boasts at how well he treated the workers. The laborers' own graffiti show they were organized into teams that competed to fill th~ir quotas. Conditions were not always to their liking, however; laborers on tombs in the Valley of the Kings went on strike for reasonable wages.

The technology Egyptian workers had at hand was rudimentary. With the pyramids, it was a matter of stone on stone, supplemented by wooden mauls and wedges. Later the Bronze Age came to Egypt, and stoneworkers could use metal tools, but since granite is harder than bronze saws, they needed powdered quartz as an abrasive. A relief from the Middle Kingdom shows 172 workers moving a huge stone statue, pulling it with ropes.22 It is on a sled (no wheels), and a man stands on the runner pouring lubricating liquid on the ground. With methods such as these, the Egyptians constructed what the Romans, thinking of their own useful aqueducts, would call "the idle pyramids,"23 and decorated tombs hidden in the desert, intended never to be seen again by human eye.

But the Egyptians also had a useful, sophisticated technology that kept their civilization operating well. That was the system of water management that used the natural flooding of the Nile River, with irrigation works and careful planning, to keep the agricultural base functioning. It was an appropriate technology for the ecological situation of a rainless land

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The great divorce of culture and nature 39

\:il;ltered by an exotic river flowing from East Africa. No other ancient civilization lasted so Jong while maintaining a relatively stable economic pattern. Some historians talk about the ~~>Ostancy of Egyptian culture through so many centuries in a disparaging tone, attributing hkk of change to absence of creative thought. But the long-lasting stability of Egyptian

. J;l\'Jlization may have come from the sustainability of Egypt's ecological relationships. Karl fhttzer said that a history of flood-plain civilization in the Nile Valley offers a test case of • JHJman-land relationships, adding, "It has become difficult to ignore the possibility that lJ)iijOr segments of ancient Egyptian history may be unintelligible without recourse to an ~t;6logical perspective. " 24

, . The Egyptians lacked science in the modern sense. But they expressed an understanding t.ifthe workings of nature in religious images, and they explained technologyin terms of the JJiii!'Cd. In this perspective, irrigation was an activity originated by the gods. Sacred geome- Jry, sacred astronomy, and sacred records were marshaled to assure what we would call · · ability. Geometry, elaborated through trial and error to reestablish boundaries

veen fields when markers had been swept away in the flood, was regarded as a hallowed J~j;.\'.llpation devised by the wise god Thoth and entrusted to trained priest-scribes. Temples 5vcl'c oriented to keep watch on the revolutions of the sun and stars, which would tell when Jl) open canals. Papyri containing these arcane branches of knowledge were kept in temple JHmiries. }} Indeed, early pieces of art show that irrigation was practiced by the pharaoh himself The

. fin,1: .. dynasty Scorpion-King mace head shows the king digging a canal, and "Canal-digger" ·

1i,•M an important administrative title. Canal building was believed to be a major occupation · ti/' those in the blessed world beyond death. Some scholars think that the monarchy of the

· · l}lwraoh was an outgrowth of the need to direct hydro-engineering on a· country-wide .· .. )rale,25 although most irrigation work was supervised by local officials in the nomes, districts

Jiu; size of American counties. Butzer, believing that they evolvel as local irrigation units, H),tintained, "These nomes, as basic territorial entities, originally had socioeconomic as well fl~ ecological overtones, but then became increasingly administrative in nature."26

ll'rigation works extended cropland area beyond the area naturally flooded. The two types ~if land were kept distinct: Rei fields were those ordinarily covered by flood; Sharaki land j•cquired artificial irrigation. Laborers dredged channels, dug ditches, built dams, con- Mn1cted dykes and basins, and used buckets to raise water. These·activities were considered purts of a holy occupation. Major projects sponsored by pharaohs were commemorated as M,OOd works; Pepi I (2390-2360 BC), for instance, cut a canal to water a new district. Inscrip- lJons boast, "I made upland into marsh, I let the Nile flood the fallow land," and "I brought !he Nile to the upland in your fields so that plots were watered that had never known water hclbre." 27 Kheti I (2100 BC) announced, "I initiated a channel ten cubits (5.2 m; 17 ft] wide ... I caused the water of the Nile to flood over the ancient landmarks."28 The flow of wMcr from the Nile into the great oasis of Fayum was controlled, and the level of Lake K.1run was regulated to permit irrigation above its shores.

Technological inventions were made, such .as the shaduf, a bucket on a long counterbal- i\nced arm. Nilometers were installed near the First Cataract and elsewhere to measure the height of the river and to help predict the extent of the annual flood. Egypt incorporated ,awh advances into the system of environmental regulation.

Egypt remained an agrarian rather than an urban society. As Adolf Erman put it, "Agri- nilture is the foundation of Egyptian civilization."29 It is necessary to look at agriculture in nrdcr to understand the ecological relationships of the Egyptians. Sustainability was pro- vided by the deposition of fertile alluvial soil containing mineral material and traces of

Figure 3.3 Salinization in the Fayum Oasis, Egypt. Evaporation of water used in irrigation in this basin below sea level has left crystals of salt in the soil in the foreground. Photograph taken in 1981.

organic debris brought down in the flood from the mountains and swamps further south. The Greek historian Herodotus, observing that the soil of Egypt had been formed by the river's sediment, pronounced Egypt to be the "gift of the Nile."30 The Egyptians were aware of this: an early monument reads, "The Nile supplies all the people with nourishment and food." 31 Their environment encouraged them to think of processes of nature as operat- ing in predictable cycles. The Nile flooded its banks at almost the same time every year (beginning in late July or early August). The only fertile land was what the river watered in the long, narrow valley floor of Upper Egypt and the broad Delta of Lower Egypt.

The flood was not totally predictable: a high Nile might wash away irrigation works and villages, or a low Nile might fail to water the land adequately. 32 In some periods when the river failed, rebels or invaders took advantage of weakness and unrest. As a result, Egyptian history was punctuated by times when pharaonic government collapsed. But traditional pat- terns of environmental relationships reappeared with phenomenal tenacity. As John Wtlson expressed it, "The Nile never refused its great task of revivification. In its periodicity it pro- moted the [Egyptians'] sense of confidence; in its rebirth it gave [them] a faith that [they], too, would be victorious over death and go on into eternal life. True, the Nile might fall short of its full bounty for years of famine, but it never ceased altogether, and ultimately it always came back with full prodigality."33 The natural regime, channeled by technology that was adapted to it, provided the environmental insulation necessary for a sustainable society.

Some difficult environmental problems appeared in spite of Egypt's record of success. A reliable food supply allowed overpopulation. When population increased to near the highest level that could be supported in a year of good harvest, any abnormally low harvest would

,igation in reground.

~r south. d by the ns were ;shment operat- ry year ered in

1s and :n the rptian l pat- 'ilson pro- tey], · fall ly it ·hat \ty. .A est ld

The great divorce of culture and nature 41

lWing the danger offamine. Reliefs on the causeway ofUnas at Sakkara show people starv- W;, their ribs conspicuous. The biblical story ofJoseph's interpretatior1of Pharaoh's dream, imd his advice to build granaries to prepare for hard times, is ueflection of the actual situ- iitlon in Egypt. 34 Fat years were interspersed with lean ones, and population. had ups and downs as a result. The pharaoh and governmental officials tried to even out fluctuations of ~~ff)ply and demand by storing a surplus in good years and distributing it when the harvest Jtll!td. Granaries have been excavated; one tomb at.Amarna records forty granaries with a

capacity of 1,120 cubic meters (39,580 cu ft). Prices fluctuated in difficult periods: in !l\.lJ fifty-five years between the reigns of Ramses III and VII (1182-1127 BC), for example,

price of emmer wheat rose from eight to twenty-four times base price, and then fell Jl,i1lfot' Ramses X, XI, and XII (c.1100 Bc). 35

, 'l'he Egyptians' joy in their work was captured in pictures· of plowing, hunting, and build- ·• 'Jng;, Active as these portrayals are, they show no realization that the environment was being

llt111•ed. Egyptian art has little feeling of progress, decay, or the destruction of nature. For th~m 1 time ran in cycles, not along an inexorable line. But destructive changes nonetheless

; !J~~urred. l~gypt suffered less from salinization than Mesopotamia because the regular flood leached

from the soil. Salinization did occur in irrigated areas above flood line, and was serious the Fayum, which is below sea level. Although Egypt is seldom thought of as tree-dad, deforestation was a probl~m. The

,Ikt~ert is more than 90 percent of Egypt's area, but the watered land had sections full of 'lrties. 36 Tomb paintings show trees being cut. Egypthad plenty of firewood and fine woods '(tir carving and cabinet-making, but few tall, straight trees, hence it imported timber from

:J*hoenicia, where thick forests of conifers flourished on the slopes of the Lebanon moun- {illns. Egyptian ships reached Byblos and other Phoenician ports as early as the reign of ~Mfru, first pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty (c.2650 BC), to obtain cedar, juniper, fir, pine, J!lld other timber trees for construction. In the Middle .Kingdom, Egyptian influence was dominant on the Phoenician coast; in the New Kingdom, the area was conquered. In Egypt llr.tlf'~ after cutting for fuel and other purposes, the destruction of forests was made perma- Mnt by grazing of domestic animals, especially goats, which nibbled all the small trees that n111ld form new forest.

The need for wetlands, plants, wildlife in sustaining the ecology of this land threatened Ii)' desert should be evident. But the habitats of wild animals, birds, and aquatic creatures e1,•;1dually shrank and then disappeared, perhaps so slowly that few Egyptians were aware of What was happening. Eventually "the almost total disappearance of large game from the I Nile] valley, with increasing importation of captured anifuals for symbolic hunts by the uuhility, argues for eradication of the natural vegetation."37

The worship that the Egyptians accorded to animals did not prevent wild animals from lidng hunted; still less did it save them from the effects of habitat destruction. In predynas- ik times, as petroglyphs and other works of art attest, Egypt possessed a variety of species !IN rkh as that now found in East Africa. By the end of the Old Kingdom, however, elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, and gerenuk gazelle were missing or rare north of the First Cataract, and the wild camel was extinct. Barbary sheep, lion, and leopard survived, but in reduced 1111mbers. Some of this depletion was due to climatic change, but possibly more was due to h,1bitat reduction and deliberate destruction. Amenhotep III boasted on one scarab that he h,1d killed 102 lions with his own hand; lions were so honored that only kings could take il1cm as prey, but kings gained glory by killing them. 38 By the Middle Kingdom, the ranges or some of the antelope species had been limited and their numbers decimated.39

'he

pt at the end of the aAcient period was environmentally , arid. The Nile continued to bring sufficient water and sedi-

.. . iarantee good crops. Grain, other foodstuffs, and crops such as flax apyru~,for paper, were usually abundant enough to meet Egypt's needs and

. . .. ... :rted. Egypt was in most respects self-sufficient, so that the Egyptians were content .· with their land. Some modern writers have interpreted this contentment as an attitude that was "insular and self-satisfied. " 40 That this was not the case. is clear from the vigorous way in which they pursued the timber trade to ol?.tain a resource in which they were not well- supplied at home. Although later subjected to foreign conquest, the land of Egypt, with the time-honored technology of irrigation, continued to be productive. It was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.

That there might come a time when there would be no crocodiles or wild papyrus in their land was unimaginable to the ancients. But such a time was to come; indeed, it has come. Bird life is now at an ebb. The ibis is scarcely seen in Egypt, and of the fourteen species of duck in ancient Egyptian art, only one now breeds there.41 A similar fate awaited the fish of the Nile. Today, unfortunately, the natural cycles that assured Egypt's sustainability have been disrupted. The Aswan Dams, which finally eliminated the annual flood, are described in Chapter 7.

Tikal: the collapse of classic Maya culture

Before modern settlement had spread in the Peten region of Guatemala, the Maya site of Tikal was isolated in a vast jungle. I flew there with my wife and son in an airplane that had survived many flights; its cracked windows had never been repaired. Clouds gathered as we winged northward; when we neared Tikal they were solid beneath us. The landing strip had no guidance system, so we feared the pilot would turn back, but a narrow opening appeared, neatly framing the dirt airstrip, and the plane dove through it. Suddenly, we saw the towering pyramids of the Maya city rising above the canopy of rainforest trees that sur- rounds them. It is one of the truly spectacular archaeological sites. Then we were safely down. The central temples have been restored, but others are still covered by vegetation and look like high, abrupt natural outcroppings. The Temple of the GiantJaguar is tallest, lifting its limestone crest 44 m (144 ft) above its base. All around are other buildings, including palaces less impressive only by comparison with the steep pyramids beside them.

Tikal was one of the independent Maya city-states of the southern lowlands, numerous and populous, that elbowed one another for room across the moist tropical land between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. They flourished in a Classic Age from the third to ninth centuries AD, and then were abandoned. A brilliant culture disappeared, and the population shrank to a tiny remnant. As John Lowe put it in The Dynamics of Apocalypse, "In dealing with the Maya collapse, we are not describing socio-political eclipse, but rather a profound social and demographic catastrophe. " 42 ·

Before the effects of clearing for agriculture and building, the Southern Maya Lowlands were covered by tall rainforest interrupted by scattered savannas and wetlands. The forest had a multistoried canopy, with emergent trees rising as high as 40 m (130 ft) above the ground. The number of tree species was astounding, among them chicozapote, ram6n, mahogany, strangler fig, sapodilla, breadnut, logwood, avocado, mamey, and the sacred ceiba.43 The dry season lasts from January to May, when it becomes increasingly hot. The wet season, from May to December, produces rainfall as high as 3,000 mm (120 in).44 The

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The great divorce of culture and nature 43

Wtll'CI' that collects flows towards the Caribbean or the Gulf in river systems, the largest !wing the Usumacinta, which runs northwestward. A wide diversity of ariimals lived in the •iiitrnystems, including deer, peccary, tapir, paca, agouti, rabbit, and other herbivores, and 1m~dators such as jaguar, puma, smaller cats, coatimundi, and fox. Reptiles and amphibians hwluding frog, iguana, crocodile and snake were numerous. Various monkeys and scores of ~l)~cles of birds including the quetzal, parrot, toucan, curassow, quail and wild turkey also dmmged the forests. Insect diversity was staggering; only a small proportion has been given (tltmtific names.45

'rhe impression of Classical Maya culture (AD 200-900) held by scholars has changed l!\ldk:tlly since the mid-1950s. Previously, the dominant idea46 was that Maya cities con· ii!tt.~d of huge but sparsely populated ceremonial centers run by peaceful priests concerned ~1th calendars and astronomy, supported by peasants laboring at slash-and-burn agricul- ime. This picture emerged because earlier Mayanists concentrated on the elite and their ftJ!iiCt:acular structures, and because the only hieroglyphs that could then be understood jii;t)l'ded dates and time periods. But the archaeologists of the 1960s turned to remains left lly rhe lower class.47 The University of Pennsylvania conduct~d a scientific survey of Tikal ilnd its environs which discovered that occupation was far wider and denser than had been !11!8pected.48 A much larger population, and more intensive agriculture, had to be postu- J1mid. Similar results came from other sites. It appeared that Maya settlement was not spo· r,\dic 1 but was a dense blanket of habitation with population densities close to those of rural modern China .

. .. · At the same time, scholars achieved the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics after a break- . rough by Yurii Knorozov, a Leningrad linguist who had never visited the Maya sites. This

... was forwarded by the energetic Linda Schele of the University of Texas, who con· k /\ttncd seminars of leading experts. The inscriptions spoke not only of gods, planets, and the · · dar; they also recorded events in the reigns of Maya kings, including wars, conquests,

ire and sacrifice of enemy leaders, and the letting by kings of their own blood as an ing and a way to obtain visions.49 The Maya elite emergedthrough the glyphs as a

~l~mboyant and bloodthirsty set, more human ifless likable than before. · D'. As wider-ranging surveys, including sophisticated aerial photography, looked at the 1itmthern lowlands, evidence came to light for agricultural methods other than slash-and- hm:11, a method that requires long fallow and cannot support high population densities. lni::rcasingly intensive agriculture utilized virtually all the available soils. Drainage and irriga· Jkm canals had been constructed in wetlands. For example, in the oddly-named Pulltrouser '8w11mp, crisscrossing channels were dug, with raised fields or platforms between them where ~rnps could be grown. 50 Other surveys found evidence of terracing on hillsides, as the Maya i\tl'Ctnpted to use varying soils in marginal situations. 51

The principal crops were maize, beans, and squash, supplemented by amaranth, manioc, ~lid chili peppers, and cotton and sisal for fiber. Tree crops such as breadnut. and cacao, g1·owing in longer-lasting orchards, were also utilized. It appears that the variety of crops llll'.reased as the Maya, faced with an increasing population and limited land, experimented in im attempt to increase production.

The dense and increasing population is evident in the size of the great centers. The population ofTikal in the eighth century is estimated at between 40,000 and 90,000, com- p,irable with the 50,000 in Shakespeare's London. 52 Water was supplied to the city from i'Ht)rmous reservoirs and catch basins.53 There were extensive residential areas; thousands of mounds locate houses of the lower class, who labored in agriculture, but also in quarrying, ,tonemasonry, woodworking, and ceramics manufacture.

Figure 3.4 The Temple of the Giant Jaguar (Temple I) rises above the plaza in the ancient Maya city of Tikal, Guatemala. This represents the Classical Phase of Southern Lowland Maya civilization, with high population and intensive use of environmental resources. Photograph taken in 1974.

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The great divorce of culture and nature 45

l'ikal was not the capital of a great empire; it and its rivals were city,states with limited ,Hfi\6 of political control. They entered into alliances and engaged in frequent warfare. 'lmVeys found fortifications, a surprise for believers in Maya pacifism. The monuments , lfchu•e that these wars glorified rulers, but the underlying reason for them was a desperate ,1Ht~gle for limited resources of food, fuel, and fiber. The first W<l:f recorded in presently 1n1dable texts took place between Tikal and Uaxactun in AD 378. 5,.,:A.s the Maya reached the jli?+\k of population and material culture in 750, warfare increased, becoming more cele- H,\l'iHi - and more destructive. 55

The collapse, when it came, was relatively sudden. It happened within fifty to a hundred \\',II'~. The last date on a stela at Tikal is 869. No dates anywhere in the classical calendrical il¥1item are recorded after 889. These facts are symptoms of a cessation of every aspect of M,tya elite culture.56 No more monuments were built; no elaborate tombs, no temples, no piihil;!CS, no offices for the bureaucracy. No fine polychrome pots were thrown, no beautiful !;Hf~ jewels carved. The classical writing systems disappeared. Where were the ceremonies? Whtire the ball games, processionals, and visits of rulers? All 'gone, with the elite class that h,id performed them. What was lost? "An entire world of esoteric knowledge, mythology, ,!!HI ritual. " 57

There is more, however. It was not just the decapitation of a culture. By AD 850, two- . thirds of the population were gone, and the eventual loss is estimated at 75-85 percent. 58 in Tikal for a time, only one-tenth of the residential platforms were occupied. Then not rmly the classical centers were abandoned, but the countryside as well. Second-growth forest !ilV,\ded exhausted farmlands. Millions of people disappeared from the southern lowlands. ,Ml gocial, economic, and political systems collapsed. Eventually, rainforest returned. It was ,~iifl of the greatest demographic disasters in history.

What were the reasons for the collapse? This question was the subject of a seminar at the ,fMmol of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970. The proceedings were . .fifaed in a landmark volume by T. Patrick Culbert. 59 At the time, there were many compet- Hl!li explanations, and Richard E.W. Adams gave a review of previous theories, ranging from !ii\i'thquakes and hurricanes through diseases to ihvasion. With the new information from #W'Veys and decipherment, an opportunity to move toward consensus appeared. Almost a ij!HU'ter of a century later, an explanation had emerged that, in broad outline, the majority · \W Mayanists could accept. Culbert stated it: "Most concur that centuries of uninterrupted : p;i'Owth put the Maya in a perilous position from which almost any disaster - drought, ', ntrnion, or social disorder - could have triggered a decline. "60 What were the elements of pl!'!'iU Insights came from a team that studied the valley ofCopan.61 They found that under lli1,1 pressure of population growth, agricultural intensification resulted in deforestation and i'rthiStrophic soil erosion. The society degraded its environment in the attempt to increase jit,1dnction of food and fuel. Of course, scholars still disagree about the weight to be given th1; various factors that helped to bring about the collapse, and, as often in history, it is 1,rnbably a case of multiple causation.

liopulation increase is mentioned by virtually all Mayanists as a factor contributing to the ,x,!lapse. The evidence of dense occupation over a wide area found at Tikal is paralleled in

• · ~nt'l! all over the southern lowlands. As Peter D. Harrison remarked in regard to Pulltrouser '.iwamp, "The Late Classic period exhibits, here as elsewhere, the same explosion of occupa- \!rm that has come to be expected in all parts of the Maya lowlands. There is yet to be found :1 •lite that will adequately disappoint in this regard." 62 In an investigation of sediment cores iii Lake Salpeten, researchers found an increase in phosphorus loading from human excreta ni'9.6 times. 63 Similar results were obtained from other lakes.64 Don S. Rice estimates that

46 The great divorce of culture and nature

the Maya population increased by an order of magnitude from AD 300 to 800, with most of the surge after AD 650, and that the population density reached 25O/sq km (65O/sq mi), a figure comparable to that of rural China in the twentieth century. 65 Culbert's figures, slightly under Rice's, would yield a total population of 21,600,000 if applied throughout the region. 66 Undoubtedly that figure is too high, but the impression of a large, dense popula- tion is correct. "Population was spread thickly over the countryside as well as in proximity to urban centers," indicates Adams.67 Such levels were attained by exponential growth during tl1e Classic Period, and were followed by an appalling crash. The Maya used admira- ble ingenuity in attempting to sustain their expanding population, but it proved nonetheless to be unsustainable.

It is the classic economic problem of increasing food supply to feed a burgeoning popula- tion. The Maya extended agriculture into every part of their landscape that could be used for food production, using new methods to farm sw,amps and hillsides. Lacking animals that could be harnessed for plowing, they used human energy to develop production on increas- ingly difficult soils. In the process, they degraded the environment, exhausting nutrients and exposing the soil to erosion. Food production per unit population dropped as human numbers increased and yields declined. Importing food was hot a viable solution, since with humans as the only burden bearers, maize can be efficiently imported only up to 90 km ( 56 mi), and the entire region was suffering shortage.68 The land was unable to support the numbers of people that were living there by the mid-ninth century, and was even less able to provide for further increase. Culbert calls it "an exemplary case of [ecological] over- shoot."69

At the same time, there was an increase in monumental construction as temples were built, pyramids enlarged, and stelae carved. Perhaps the elite,,aware of the crisis, had decided to increase their use of the technology of sacrifice to gain the aid of the gods. This certainly was counterproductive, since it took workers away from food production, demanding more energy from common people who were receiving less food per capita.70 It also placed demands on resources, not least on forests, since wood was required as scaffolding in con- struction and as fuel for making plaster from limestone.71

These demands, along with clearance for agriculture, meant near disappearance of rain- forests throughout the Maya landscape. Pollen studies show a regressive loss of rainforest plants and an increase in grassland species, maize, and weeds from the time of Maya occupa - tion to about AD 1000.72 Additional evidence comes from studies oflake-bottom sediments, which show that sedimentation rates increased greatly during the Classic Maya Period, and the character of the sediments indicates that they resulted from erosion caused by defor- estation. 73 Regeneration of the forests would have been inhibited if, as some studies suggest, the climate in this period was unusually dry. 74 Recent studies, however, have not found archaeological evidence for drought in the southern lowland Maya heartland. 75 The forests were largely gone by the Late Classic Period. This was a subsistence crisis, because the average householder in the tropics consumes over 900 kg (about one ton) of wood per person per year in food preparation and other domestic uses, 76 The search for wood meant forest loss beyond the immediate environs. The effects of deforestation include erosion, salinization, loss of water-retaining ability, and decline in transpiration with consequent decrease in humidity and rainfall. Even with a marginal decline in rainfall, torrential rains would have occurred from time to time, perhaps as the result of hurricanes, washing away soil that had been deprived of forest protection. The removal of forests caused restriction or extinction of forest animals; wild animal foods to supplement the Maya diet may have decreased.

Phys 1he M; height uf a die il~ 8tllr'

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mrgeoning popula that could be used icking animals tha1 luction on increas hausting nutrients lropped as human ,lution, since with ' up to 90 km ( 56 1e to support the vas even less able xological] over·

as temples were lsis, had decided s, This certainly emanding more ' It also placed folding in con,

'I.ranee of rain• s of rainforest Maya occupa. im sediments, a Period, and ;e9 by defor, dies suggest, e not found ; The forests because the .fwood per rood meant de erosion, :onsequem ential rains 1hing away triction or may have

The great divorce of culture and nature 47

l111yskal anthropologists have detected disease and nutritional impoverishment among 1!.0 Maya. 77 Skeletons show deterioration in health through the Late Classic.7B Average !WIFjht decreased. Children's teeth show caries and enamel hypoplasia, signs of fasting and iii',, tllet in which proteins decreased and carbohydrates increased. D,iet-related diseases such "·" !iitUrvy and anemia appeared. Diseases characteristic of high population densities such as Ch!l;as' disease, Ascaris worms, and diarrhea, became common. 79 Average life span was in

thirties, with infant mortality of 40 percent. Alhir the collapse of the Classic Maya in the southern lowlands, the great cities were

,i1i;111doned and the rainforest returned, although for a time there were squatters in places hl\t;t Tikal; traces of their fires, garbage, and graffiti remain. A few cities survived with deci- ,nMttd populations, especially those located near water trade routes and with something to i~port, such as cacao or cotton.Bo But to the north, in the Yucatan, cities expanded and

· phliil)Cl'Cd for a time, and new cities appeared. Whether people fled from the south and twtll®d numbers in the north is unclear.Bl Later on, there were disasters in the north too;

{n,~!'.llll'CCS there, including water, may have proved inadequate .. Puuc Maya centers, such as I i!{tnal, Sayil, Kabah, and Labna, gave way around AD 1000, and Chichen Itza fell 200 years !~i(!-!', When the conquistadors arrived, they encountered a shadow of Maya civilization. The

··•• h~t Independent Maya kingdom, the Itza ofTayasal, resisted the Spaniards bravely and was · ,id~,tted only in 1697, 175 years after Cortez first encountered the· Mayas.

!'he Maya as a people did not disappear. They tried to assert independence in wars against ~Fiinlsh, Mexican, and Guatemalan governments that continued sporadically into the 1990s. ll11;y number in the millions today, and their population is increasing. Non-Maya immi- !mHltS from outside are moving into the rainforest, felling it to make farms, and hunting the j!il!JHals. Rich landowners have taken over huge ranches, and poorer people are forced onto hlll!,ides where the soil is less rewarding. The Maya, who have lived there for millennia, have

'hide choice but to participate in the destruction of their landscape. Is it a repeat of the his- ~Hrkal tragedy of the Classic Maya collapse? The people who suffer most directly from

· ll'fiplcal deforestation, and have the most to lose from it, are local forest communities. If Hwy had the power to act in their own interests, they might provide an impetus for conser- 1,11 lon and sustained use, since they have a tradition of knowing the forest and how to live

'h'lih it. Unfortunately, they are seldom allowed to participate in the management of their · fntcsts by plantation owners, governments, wood products businesses, multinational banks 0 ,md l!Orporations, and sometimes even international conservation organizations.

Jlor untold generations the ancient Maya lived within and made cultural adaptations to .· Ow 1•ainforest environment. They invented agricultural methods to use diffedng parts of ,tlwlr landscape. With all their genius and civilization, however, they suffered an ecological H1llapse. Within the context of an ecosystem, no one species can succeed indefinitely by hHHIOpolizing as many ofits energy streams as possible, while increasing its numbers without !11nlt.

l'o the west 250 km (155 mi) in the Mexican state ofChiapas, we visited another Maya , Hy, Palenque. It is not as large as Tikal, and its buildings not quite as high, but it is set in Hnm of jungle-dad hills as if on a stage, calculated to impress. Its palace boasts a unique 1.0W\1r, and the Temple of the Inscriptions gives weight to the architectural assemblage. Tli,lt temple gained distinction as the first Maya pyramid known to have a tomb beneath it \,ht'i'I Alberto Ruz Lhuillier found the intact burial chamber of a Maya ruler there in the

, 1 ,H·ly 1950s. In the floor of the temple atop the pyramid is a rectangular opening, once hidden by a flagstone slab. We entered it and followed the stairway, under complex corbel \,Hilting, that slants downward toward the west side of the pyramid and then turns sharply

48 The great divorce of culture and nature

east, still downward, to the burial chamber. It took us a few minutes, but Ruz and his team had labored for four seasons to clear the passageway of stone rubble and concreted lime.82

There, underneath a beautifully carved basalt slab weighing almost 6 tons, they found a sarcophagus containing the jade-ornamented body of Pacal (Shield) the Great, ruler of Palenque in AD 615-83. Carvings on the sarcophagus sides show ten of his ancestors as personified trees, two each of five different species ( cacao, avocado, sapote, guayaba, and nance ), symbolically placing the king in the center of a sacred grove - the Maya protected certain groves of cacao and other trees as sacred places. 83 Pacal himself is shown in exquisite relief on the lid at the moment of death, being transformed into a ceiba, most sacred of trees, the symbolic World Tree.84 The evident i~entification of the Maya monarch with tree, grove, and rainforest is poignant. When he ruled; neither he nor his people could have pre- dicted that they and their descendants would bring down the living web on which they depended, and that when the city was emptied of human inhabitants, trees would return to fill the plazas of Palenque. ~ut today, outside the archaeological zone, around the raw new agricultural fields visible from the Temple of the Inscriptions, the rainforest is falling again_ss

Conclusion

When cities appeared in the landscape, a new split between culture and nature entered human minds. City and countryside were still parts of an ecosystem that embraced both, but it was a reorganized ecosystem in which forms of energy such as food and fuel flowed toward the urban center. Agriculture produced a surplus beyond the amount needed to feed the peasants who labored on the land, and this surplus fed the rulers, priests, soldiers, and workers in specialized occupations. When food supply increased, population also tended to expand, and the demand for resoµrces rose proportionately. This cycle of growth continued until it approached the limits of the local ecosystem. The. early cities had ways of postponing the inevitable crash - conquering neighboring lands and cities, engaging in trade over longer distances, importing metals and timber, and adopting more intensive agricultural technolo- gies such as irrigation. But the basic problem remained. That is, an exponentially expanding population and economy within a finite ecosystem. Conquest could deplete as well as expand resources, lengthening trade routes reached the point where the effort to bring in resources required more energy and wealth than was brought in, deforestation made flood- ing more serious and unpredictable, and intensive agriculture introduced erosion, saliniza- tion, and other factors that reduced production. Limits were exceeded, the food supply declined, and the fall of a civilization was typically more suddei;i than its rise had been. The same basic problem, in various guises, returned in later historical periods, and the following chapters contain examples to illustrate it.

Notes

1 J. Donald Hughes, "An Ecological Paradigm of the Ancient City," in Richard J. Borden, ed., Human Ecology: A Gathering of Perspectives, Baltimore, MD, Society for Human Ecology, 1986, 214-20.

2 Kwang-chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1977, 218,289.

3 Vishnu-Mittre and R. Savithri, "Food Economy of the Harappans," in Gregory L. Possehl, ed., Ancient Cities of the Indus, Durham, NC, Carolina Academic Press, 1979, 207.

4 One metric ton equals 1.1 English/US tons. Since the two units are relatively close in scale, only the weights in metric tons will be given throughout this book.

Ruz and his team concreted lime.~ 2

tis, they found ;1 : Great, ruler or his ancestors as e, guayaba, and Maya protected ,wn in exquisite most sacred ol Larch with tree, ould have prc- :>n which they ould return w :l the raw new rest is falling

'.:Ure entered ed both, but fuel flowed :ded to feed )ldiers, and > tended to continued 1ostponing ,ver longer technolo- :xpanding 1s well as , bring in de flood-· saliniza- i supply :en. The 1llowing

Human :o. ·, 1977,

!ncient

The great divorce of culture and nature 49

Theodore A. Wertime, "The Furnace versus the Goat: The Pyrotechnologic Industries and Mediterra· mmn Deforestation in Antiquity," Journal of Field Archaeology 10, 1983, 445-52, at 451. Mol'ris Silver, Economic Structures of Antiquity, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1995, 97-9. N,W.F. Saggs, Civilization Before Greece and Rome, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1989, 123. Mal'k Nathan Cohen, Health and the Rise of Civilization, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1989, 116-22. Mttrvin W. Mikesell, "The Deforestation of Mt. Lebanon," Geographical Review 59, 1969, 1-28; 1 Kings 5. 1-10. Deuteronomy 20. 19-20. R.l:l. Mortimer Wheeler, Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1968, 72, N,K Sandars, ed., The Epi'c of Gilgamesh: An English Version with an Introduction, London, Penguin Books, 1972, 59. James B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, Vol. 1, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1973, 35. Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 94. ~"ndra Lin Marburg, "Women and Environment: Subsistence Paradigms, 1850-1950," Environmental .Rn11ie1v 8, 1, 1984, 7-22. Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, 188-9; Shcreen Ratnagar, Encounters: The Westerly Trade of the Harappan Ci11ilization, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1981, 99-156. Sliver, Economic Structures of Antiquity, 54-5. ('.;hades L. Redman, Human Impact on Ancient Environments, Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1999, 185-6. John Perlin, A Forest Journey: The Role of W~od in the Development of Civilization, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1991, 35-43. Thmkild Jacobsen and Robert M. Adams, "Salt and. Silt in Ancient Mesopotamian Agriculture," Science lZS, November 1958, 1251-8, at 1252. Mi\rk Lehner, The Complete Pyramids, London, Thames & Hudson, 1997, 224-5. This isan often-reproduced scene from the tomb ofThothhotep (Djehutihotpe) at Deir el-Bersha. C.R. l,,epsius, Denkmiiler aus Agypten und Athiopien, Berlin, Nicolai, 1849-56, Part 2, Plate 134; Ahmed f•akhry, The Pyramids, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1969, 13. ilruntinus, Aqueducts 1. 16. KMI W. Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976, l\6, Karl Wittfogel, Orienta/Despotism: A Comparative Study ofTotalPower, New Haven, CT, Yale Univer· ~lly Press, 1957. lhm:er, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt, 105; Michael A. Hoffinan, Egypt Before the Pharaohs, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1980 (reprint, London, Ark Paperbacks, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984 ), $0-2. l'llrnt Intermediate Period tomb inscription, Siut. Hofflnan, Egypt Before the Pharaohs, 313, from J.H. Breasted, Records of Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1906, 188-9. Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, London, Macmillan, 1894 (reprint, New York, Dover, 1971), 425. Herodotus, Histories 2. 5. H1'lllan, Life in Ancient Egypt, 425, from R. Lepsius, Denkmiiler aus Agypten und Athiopien, Vol. 3, Ucrlin, 1858, 175. llutzcr, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt, 51-6. John A. Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1951, 13. (lcncsis 41. 1-37. Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt, 55-6. tbid., 25. Ibid., 86-7. Herrmann Kees, Ancient Egypt: A Cultural Topography, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1961, 20.

I

50 The great divorce of culture and nature

39 Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt, 26-7. 40 Hoffin~, Egypt Before the Pharaohs, 24. 41 Kees, Ancient Egypt, 93-4. 42 John W.G. Lowe, The Dynamics of Apocalypse: A Systems Simulation of the Classic Maya Collapse, Albu-

querque, University of New Mexico Press, 1984. 43 A more complete list and description may be found in Arturo Gomez-Pompa, "Vegetation of the Maya

Region," in Peter Schmidt, Mercedes de la Garza, and Enrique Naida, eds, Maya, New York, Rizzoli, 1998, 39-51.

44 Don S. Rice, "Eighth-Century Physical Geography, Environment, and Natural Resources in the Maya Lowlands," in Jeremy A. Sabloff and John S. Henderson, eds, Lowland Maya Civilization in the Eighth Century A.D.: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 7th and 8th October 1989, Washington, DC, Dumbar- ton Oaks Research Library and Collection; 1993, 20.

45 John S. Henderson, The World of the Ancient Maya, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1997, 27-32.

46 This paradigmatic view is associated with the names of the respected Mayanists, Sylvanus G. Morley and J. Eric S. Thompson. See Sylvanus G. Morley, The Ancient Maya, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 1946 and subsequent editions, and J. Eric S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization, Norman, Oklahoma University Press, 1954 and subsequent editions.

4 7 Jeremy A. Sabloff, The New Archaeology and the Ancient Maya, New York, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman, 1990, 167-8.

48 See the comprehensive Tikal Reports series, including Coe?s Excavations in the Great Plaza, North Terrace and North Acropolis ofTikal, 6 volumes, Tikal Report 14, Philadelphia, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1990.

49 Linda Schele, "The Maya Rediscovered:_ The Owl, Shield, and Flint Blade," Natural History 100, 11, 1991, 6-11.

50 Peter D. Harrison, "Settlement and Land Use in the Pulltrouser Swamp Archaeological Zone, North- ern Belize," in Scott L. Fedick, ed., The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use, Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1996, 177-90.

51 Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach and Tim Beach, "Wetlands as the Intersection of Soils, Water and Indigenous Human Society in the Americas," in J.R. McNeil! and Verena Winiwarter, eds, Soils and Societies: Per- spectives from Environmental History, Isle of Harris, UK, White Horse Press, 2006, 91-118.

52 Sabloff, New Archaeology, 79. 53 Vernon L. Scarborough, "Flow Of Power: Water Reservoirs Controlled the Rise and Fall of the Ancient

Maya," The Sciences 32, 2, March 1992, 38-43. 54 Schele, "The Maya Rediscovered," 6. 55 David Stuart, "Historical Inscriptions and the Maya Collapse," in Sabloff and Henderson, eds, Lowland

Maya Civilization, 321-54. 56 Richard E.W. Adams, "The Collapse of Maya Civilization: A Review of Previous Theories," in T.

Patrick Culbert, ed., The Classic Maya Collapse, School of American Research, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1973, 22.

57 Michael D. Coe, The Maya, 4th edn, London, Thames & Hudson, 1987, 128. 58 T. Patrick Culbert, Maya Civilization, Washington, Smithsonian Books, 1993, 118; Richard E.W.

Adams, Ancient Civilizations of the New World, Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1997, 65. 59 T. Patrick Culbert, ed.,The Classic Maya Collapse, School of American Research, Albuquerque, Univer-

sity of New Mexico Press, 1973. 60 T. Patrick Culbert, "The New Maya," Archaeology 51, 5, 1998, 48-51, at 50. 61 Eliot M. Abrams, AnnCorinne Freter, David J. Rue, and John D. Wingard, "The Role of Deforestation

in the Collapse of the Late Classic Copan Maya State," in Leslie E. Sponsel, Thomas N. Headland, and Robert C. Bailey, eds, Tropical Deforestation: The Human Dimension, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996, 55-75.

62 Harrison, "Settlement and Land Use," 181-2. 63 Don S. Rice, "Paleolimnological Analysis in the Central Peten, Guatemala," in Fedick, ed., Managed

Mosaic, 193-206. 64 Don Stephen Rice and Prudence M. Rice, "Lessons from the Maya," Latin American Research Review

19, 3, 1984, 7-34. The Rices list other studies with similar results, at 25 and references. 65 Don S. Rice, "Paleolimnological Analysis," 196.

•!lapse, Albu

of the Maya >rk, Rizzoli,

n the Maya i the Eighth !,Dumbar

ess, 1997,

(orley and Jniversity •ilization,

1 Library,

·a, North iluseum,

i00, 11,

North• fee Use,

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Vand \ ~ T. tsity \ \ !w. ,. l fl'· l I

The great divorce of culture and nature 51

i\(i (]ulbert, "The New Maya;" 49. Rice's figures, similarly treated, would yield a peak total population for the southern lowlands of23,400,000. In 1964, the population of the Peten was only 25,910, but had risen to 200,000 by 1979.

,tf Adams, Ancient Civilizations of the New World, 56. ,!fl Lowe, Dynamics of Apocalypse, 120. -!'i-tj T, Patrick Culbert, The Lost Civilization: The Story of the Classic Maya, New York, Harper & Row,

1974, 116. ill Blliot M. Abrams, How the Maya Built Their World: Energetics and Ancient Architecture, Austin, Uni-

versity ofTexas Press, 1994. l)on S. Rice, "Eighth-Century Physical Geography, Environment, and Natural Resources in the Maya Lowlands,» in Sabloff and Henderson, eds, Lowland Maya Civilization in th,e-.Eighth Century A.D., ll-63, at 51. f)on S. Rice, "Paleolimnological Analysis," 198; Julian C. Lee, "Creatures of the Maya: The Impact of Pre-Columbian Agriculture Can Still Be Seen on Many of the Yucatah's Frogs, Lizards, and Snakes," Natural History 90, 1, January 1990, 44-51, at 48. l)on S. Rice, Prudence M. Rice, and Edward S. Deevey, Jr., "Paradise Lost: Classic Maya Impact on a Lacustrine Environment," in Mary Pohl, ed., Prehistoric Lowland Maya Environment and Subsistence Economy, Cambridge, MA, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1985, 91-105. l)avid A. Hodell, Jason H. Curtis, and Mark Brenner, "Possible Role of Climate in the Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization," Nature 375, 1 June 1995, 391-4. · Nicholas Dunning and Timothy Beach, "Stability and Instability in Prehispanic Maya Landscapes," in David L. Lentz, ed., Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the Precolumbian Americas, New York, Columbia University Press, 2000, 179-202, at 198. Don S. Rice, "Eighth-Century Physical Geography," 28. Ibid., "Eighth-Century Physical Geography," 43. Adams, Ancient Civilizations of the New World, 64; Frank P. Saul, "Disease in the Maya Area: The Pre- Columbian Evidence," in Culbert, ed., Classic Maya Collapse, 301-24. Demitri B. Shimkin, "Models for the Downfall: Some Ec-O!ogical and Culture-Historical Consider- ations," in Culbert, ed., Classic Maya Collapse, 269-300, at 279, 282. Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Ancient Civilization in Space and Time," in Schmidt, Garza, and Naida, eds, Maya, 53-71, at 70. Just how "thriving" the remnant towns may have been is questionable; they certainly lacked monumentality and many aspects of classic Maya culture. Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Interpreting the Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization: A Case Study of Changing Al'cha:eological Perspectives," in Lester Embree, ed., Metaarchaeology: Reflections by Archaeologists and

, 'Philosophers, Boston, MA,•Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, 99-119,"at 108. Alberto Ruz Lhuillier, "The Mystery of the Temple of the Inscriptions," Archaeology 6, 1, Spring 1953, 3-11. Arturo Gomez- Pompa, Jose Salvador Flores, and Mario Aliphat Fernandez, "The Sacred Cacao Groves of the Maya," Latin American Antiqu#y 1, 3, 1990, 247-57. L:inda Schele and Peter Mathews, The Code of Kings: The Language of Seven Sacred Maya Temples and 'Tl>mbs, New York, Scribner, 1998, 113-25.

. Philip Howard, "The History of Ecological Marginalization in Chiapas," Environmental History 3, 3, July 1998, 357-77, indicates that a disaster similar to the classic Maya collapse is happening today, accompanied by civil strife along ethnic and economic lines.