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Blog Archive
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2010
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February
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- Map, Land Cover (click)
- The Big Questions, part 1: Geography and Human Eco...
- Cosmopolitan Culture 2: reused post
- Map, Language and Ethnicity (modern) (click)
- Map, Sargon's empire (click)
- Map, Sumer and Akkad
- Map, Sumer/ Sumeria (click)
- Map, Climate
- Empire and Cosmopolitan Culture
- Map, Iran-Egypt in Babylonian times
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February
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Followers
Two questions on the nature of authority in the arid zone:
ReplyDelete1) A few reasons given so far concerning how peasants were coerced to produce an agricultural surplus for urban consumption are: protection from raiding nomads, organization and investment in complex irrigation farming, and scientific prowess concerning seasonal sowing and harvesting and efficient agricultural technique. What about private property? Would the urban authorities give peasants a material reason for growing a surplus by legitimating individual peasant claims to private property, specifically large landowners?
I should qualify that with a second question: Were peasant villages in antiquity socially stratified between rich and poor peasants or was this a later development?