Introduction

One of the great questions about human societies is how they emerged and transformed – and sometimes decayed – in the face of environmental change.With increased capabilities to use animals, store food and manage water supplies came a surplus of food exceeding the needs for bare survival. This allowed the rise of warriors and priests, administrations, palaces and temples – at least so the story goes. It has been related in previous chapters as the process of agrarianization, with many linked driving forces specific to given cultures and ecological regimes.Within each group of humans there would have been individuals with different skills and traits. Each group was confronted with different environmental opportunities and threats – and neighbours – and evolved in a continuous process of response and adaptation. Among some, the dominant trend may have been to live ‘the good life’. Among many, the increase in social complexity occurred in response to the need and wish to bring forth food, water and shelter from an exacting and unpredictable natural environment. In the process, some groups settled down and developed forms of agro-pastoralism that developed into large-scale land clearing and irrigation efforts; others never settled down remaining mobile nomads with large animal herds. Often neighbouring groups of humans became an ever greater enemy and war and migrations – as well as trade – intensified.

In previous chapters the natural environment has been described as a background against which the first steps into the second, agricultural regime were set.We now focus on the further unfolding of social complexity because it is an essential component of any meaningful understanding and interpretation of the human-environment relationship.1 Both extensive and intensive growth of human populations and their activities led to more intense and widespread interference with the environment and to the spreading and spatial concentrations of populations. The natural environment was the setting that provided the means for such an increase in complexity – or failed to do so. What was the role of the natural environment as a formative resource and as a constraining force?