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The Great Transition — From Farming Villages to Urban Centers

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Climate Change — Environment and Civilization in the Middle East

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Abstract

The end of the last glacial period and the increasingly sedentary way of life that began in the epi-Palaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic periods profoundly changed the human experience. Although many cultural elements coming to the fore in the new ages were undoubtedly noticed, and perhaps even occasionally used, during the Palaeolithic periods, they could flourish only when people began to live in fixed abodes. All aspects of human life — from technology to religious concepts and profound changes in social structure, such as the growing distinctions in social status and the deteriorating role of women — began to form an inextricable and apparently seamless net leading the majority of the human race towards complexity and eventually into civilization, leaving only a few marginal groups of hunters and gatherers.

“And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron...”

(Genesis V:22)

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  1. J. Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 84990, Sede Boker Campus, Israel

    Professor Em. Arie S. Issar

  2. 13 P.O.Box 82548, 90805, Maoz Zion/Mevaseret Jerusalem, Israel

    Dr. Mattanyah Zohar

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Issar, A.S., Zohar, M. (2004). The Great Transition — From Farming Villages to Urban Centers. In: Climate Change — Environment and Civilization in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-06264-7_4

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