Land Fertility Essay

Land Fertility as a Key to the Increase and Decrease of Social Complexity
Archaeologists theorize on which factors and environments produced past civilizations. What these archaeologists are really looking for is what allowed people to transition from one level of social complexity to another. This paper will use empirical data specific to large cities of ancient civilizations, such as the Olmec’s San Lorenzo and the Harappan’s Kot Diji, along with more general archeological theories and patterns to describe the Fertile Crescent model’s capacity to explain and possibly predict changes in social complexity. The Fertile Crescent model provides the stimulus for four of Childe’s primary traits of early civilization to appear, which demonstrates
Childe’s five primary traits of early civilization are a) city and density of cities, b) full time specialization of labor, c) state organization/territorial boundaries, and d) concentration of surplus. The Fertile Crescent model recognizes the base in which the tools that are helpful in the creation of a civilization come from. These tools, such as the ability to create a surplus and to support a large population, come from the remarkable fertility of the
This paper has applied the Fertile Crescent model to San Lorenzo and Kot Diji in an effort to evaluate the theory’s capability in explaining increases and decreases in social complexity. The Fertile Crescent model and Childe’s primary traits analyses’ conclusion is that having fertile land to create surplus leads to changes in social complexity. On the other hand, a more general second part of the conclusion is the acknowledgement that having fertile land is not the only factor in creating and losing social complexity. Per usual in archaeology, there is not definite answer for what exactly affects social complexity. Nonetheless, exceptionally fertile lands from rivers and flood plains and the resulting surplus allow small groups, bands, and communities to become much