(The source text of this series is “In Search of Lost Modernity” by Akio KAWATO.
The English edition of this book (originally written in Japanese) is on
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hiRK7kjbX0Hxd2NOxPqtQlVWgjDHgKCr/edit
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MB0Me9P5Lpa2HGceuJUdMqqQ2CRHQSxa/edit
The copyright belongs to the author, Akio Kawato
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This installment of the series challenges the long-held belief that “the world’s civilizations emerged almost simultaneously in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, and the Yellow River Basin.” In fact, traces of even older civilizations have been discovered elsewhere, and the true picture remains unclear.)
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Ancient Civilizations Beyond the “Four Great Civilizations”
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Civilizations arise when production expands, people gather, and a leader emerges to unify them. The definition of “civilization” isn’t fixed, and the term itself didn’t come into use until the modern era. The word “civil” (referring to urban residents aware of their rights) was used in the Greek and Roman periods, derived from the Latin word civis. In other words, the process of people becoming more advanced in both material and spiritual aspects is called civilization.
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There’s also a related term, “culture,” which refers to people’s customs and art, regardless of their level of material development.
In this discussion, we’re focusing on civilizations. Let’s begin by exploring ancient civilizations beyond the well-researched “Four Great Civilizations” of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River.
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Ancient Civilizations in Europe
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In what is now eastern Turkey, archaeological sites dating back around 10,000 years suggest the use of irrigation for agriculture—much earlier than the traditionally accepted start of farming.
On the shores of the Black Sea, in the modern-day Bulgarian port city of Varna, a cemetery and settlement dating back to around 5000 BC were discovered in 1972. Over 3,000 artifacts made of gold, copper, and ceramics were uncovered in the cemetery, with a total weight of around 6 kg. The craftsmanship in the gold objects was particularly advanced. There is also evidence of trade with the Aegean Islands, the northern Caspian Sea, and the Mediterranean’s Aegean region.
Further south, on the Mediterranean island of Malta, numerous megalithic temples have been discovered, dating from around 4500 to 2500 BC. These temples are larger in scale than the Varna ruins, but no settlements have been excavated nearby, leaving much about this civilization a mystery.
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Even during the Roman Empire, Europe north of the Alps was considered little more than forested wilderness, yet evidence of ancient civilizations has been found in this region, too. While Stonehenge in southern England (thought to have been built between 2500 and 2000 BC) is widely known, another significant site is Newgrange in modern-day Ireland. Built between 3000 and 2900 BC, Newgrange is about 500 years older than Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza and roughly 1,000 years older than Stonehenge. However, since no other structures have been discovered at Newgrange, its purpose—whether astronomical or funerary—remains unconfirmed. Unlike ancient Egypt, it seems the people of Newgrange did not have a highly organized state.
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What we can gather from these discoveries is that long before the unification of Egypt around 3000 BC, early civilizations resembling city-states were emerging across various parts of Europe, engaging in long-distance trade. This suggests that civilization did not suddenly appear in Egypt out of the darkness of a primitive age.
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This does not mean that European civilization is older than Egyptian civilization. In Egypt, agricultural civilization had developed even before the kingdom was established. Although excavations have not progressed very far, it is known that agriculture began in the Egyptian region at least by 5000 BC.
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In any case the traditional “world history” narrative, which claims that civilization began simultaneously in four regions—Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China—across the vast Eurasian and African continents, seems as questionable as the Big Bang theory. The Eurasian landmass is continuous, and there are no clear boundaries between the “four great civilizations.” Let’s explore some examples of this interconnectedness.
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Ancient Civilizations of Central Asia
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It is likely that a civilization once existed in Central Asia and around the region of modern-day Turkey, serving as a bridge between the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River. While southern Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are largely covered by vast deserts today, remnants of past capitals can still be found on hilltops scattered throughout these areas, once nourished by rivers that no longer flow. Many ruins likely remain buried beneath the sands.
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One notable group of ruins is associated with the “Oxus Civilization,” an urban culture thought to have emerged around 2400 BC during the Bronze Age. Excavations led by Soviet archaeologists after World War II uncovered a vast area spanning southern Turkmenistan along the Amu Darya River into southern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and northern Afghanistan.
In southern Turkmenistan, the Oxus River, which flowed from east to west until the 16th century, supported an irrigation-based agricultural civilization. The Oxus River, originating in the Hindu Kush mountains, splits into the Amu Darya, which flows west into the Aral Sea. From there, it cuts across modern-day Turkmenistan through the Uzboi Valley before eventually emptying into the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, near today’s Turkmenbashi. In 1557, English merchant Antony Jenkinson passed through this region, observing that extensive irrigation was depleting the Oxus and transforming the once fertile area, abundant in fruit trees, into an encroaching desert.
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The “Oxus Civilization” is also referred to as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), with Bactria referring to northern Afghanistan and Margiana to areas in modern Turkmenistan. This civilization thrived on irrigation farming and bordered the Andronovo culture to the north, a society of nomadic tribes. Artifacts from the Bactria-Margiana culture show similarities with those of the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and early Persian civilizations.
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Meanwhile, the nomadic tribes of the Andronovo culture may have been precursors of the Aryan civilization, which later spread to Persia and northern India. Although this civilization helps fill the geographic and cultural gap between Mesopotamian and Indus Valley civilizations, research on the Oxus sites is still in its infancy, largely due to limited excavations and the absence of written records, which only became possible after the fall of the Soviet Union.
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Moving forward in time, Sogdian merchants from the Sogdiana region (southern Uzbekistan to southern Tajikistan)—whose kingdom was eventually destroyed by Genghis Khan—played a key role in trade between China and the Middle East. These merchant families formed trade networks that operated at the termini of caravan routes, pooling funds to purchase goods and then distributing profits to their investors.[2] This form of long-distance trade mirrored Mediterranean trade practices, such as Venetian maritime ventures, but relied on camels crossing deserts. Such trade has likely existed for thousands of years, as evidenced by records of lapis lazuli from Afghanistan reaching Mesopotamia and Egypt as early as the 4th millennium BC.[3] This may explain why the Bronze and Iron Ages unfolded almost simultaneously across the distant cultural regions of the Yellow River, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.
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Scythia
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Civilizations often spread to other regions in two main ways: through trade and conquest. Nomadic peoples, in particular, spread civilization by conquest. When they began using horses and bows, nomadic tribes became formidable military forces, leading to the formation of vast empires. The Mongol Empire is a well-known example, with the Timurid Empire in Central Asia being one of the last.
Since ancient times, various nomadic tribes have inhabited the northern half of the Eurasian continent, but we know very little about their histories. Tracing the movements of each tribe, or how Bronze and Iron Age technologies spread across regions, is nearly impossible.
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One of these nomadic tribes was the Scythians, who were active primarily in what is now southern Ukraine. They are thought to have been Indo-Iranian-speaking, often referred to as Aryans. The term “Aryan” originally referred to a group associated with Caucasian lineage and has since been co-opted by supremacist ideologies and other groups claiming ancient lineage. However, the term remains vague and lacks a precise definition.
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Some believe that the Scythians intermarried with early Germanic groups (another ambiguous term) to form the Slavic people. Genetic analyses of the Slavs suggest this might be possible, but there is much diversity among Slavic and Germanic groups, making it difficult to determine the exact truth.
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What we do know is that the oldest artifacts from Scythian culture have been found in Tuva in southern Siberia, dating back to the 9th century BC. Scythian metalwork in gold and silver—preserved in collections like the Hermitage Museum in Russia—is of notably high quality, primarily dating from the 8th to 4th centuries BC. However, these dates are later than the advanced metalwork of the Zhou Dynasty in China (circa 1046-256 BC). And Scythians who controlled parts of what is now Iran were eventually expelled by local powers, as their rule was based on plundering, suggesting their level of civilization may not have been particularly high.
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Thus, while nomadic tribes likely acted as intermediaries among the “Four Great Civilizations,” the Scythians may not have played a significant role in this. Even if Scythians were skilled metalworkers, their achievements came after the Zhou Dynasty, by which time Chinese metalwork had already reached high levels of refinement. This makes it unlikely that the Scythians were key in transmitting these technologies, especially since bronze work in China dates back to the earlier Shang Dynasty.
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The Hittites: A People of Iron
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Even today, iron is foundational to weapons and industrial machinery. The Hittites are thought to have laid the groundwork for ironware. Known as Hattu, Hete, or Hetu, their exact homeland remains uncertain, but they were part of the Indo-European language family and built a significant empire centered in what is now central Turkey. Founded at the end of the 17th century BC, they conquered Mesopotamia in 595 BC using advanced iron weapons.
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At the time, the Hittites were a powerful force in the Mediterranean, alongside Egypt, Babylonia, Cyprus, Mycenae, and others, forming alliances and engaging in trade. Numerous diplomatic documents (cuneiform on clay) have been uncovered, particularly in Amarna, the ancient capital of Egypt. Among these are exchanges between the Hittite king and the Egyptian pharaoh, but the communications mostly involve simple requests for doctors and medicine, showing that diplomacy wasn’t particularly elevated.
Setting that aside, the Hittites are credited with inventing the method for producing steel. While pig iron existed earlier, it was the Hittites who developed steel suitable for weapons by adding carbon.
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Although they kept this technology to themselves, their civilization fell around 1177 BC, possibly due to the mysterious “Sea Peoples” who swept through and destroyed many Mediterranean societies. This collapse may have led to the spread of steel-making knowledge across the world. The fact that the eventual use of iron weapons started in China only during the Warring States period (5th century BC), before the unification under the Qin dynasty, supports this idea.
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Thus, it seems there was an exchange among the “Four Great Civilizations”, or between the Mediterranean, the Orient and China. However, questions remain about exactly who was involved in these exchanges and whether they were driven more by conquest than trade.
Just as there is “dark matter” between stars whose nature we do not fully understand, there may have been a similar, unexplained “dark matter” on the Eurasian continent.
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