RIVIER VALLEY AS THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION

- w.r.t CHINA

The cradle of civilization is a term referring to any of the possible locations for the emergence of civilization. Four of the world's ancient civilizations emerged along large rivers in dry climates, around 6000-4000 BCE, and it was not by chance. The rivers played a key role in the emergence of ancient China, the Indus Valley civilization, Mesopotamia, and ancient Egypt. Broadly speaking, the rivers not only made the civilizations possible by making food plentiful but also made them necessary by giving the people in those four areas new challenges that only "civilization" could solve. The world's climate became drier and cooler between about 8000 and 6000 BCE. This ended a period of successful hunting and gathering by early humans in places like the Sahara, and resulted in the global pattern of deserts and fertile areas we are familiar with today. The process was slow, and the people adapted, until they found themselves largely concentrated around dwindling resources, such as large rivers in dry regions. In those regions, because of the dwindling opportunities to gather and hunt food, the people had great need of concentrated sources of food, and this is the period of time in which people around the world, in similar circumstances, made the transition from gathering and hunting for food, to farming and husbandry. These new methods of food production allowed for more people to live in a small area than was possible without food production. The four early river-based civilizations emerged in special cases of this, where the farming and husbandry was especially productive, and this is because of flooding. The Yellow River in northern China, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq, the Indus River in Pakistan, and the lower Nile in Egypt are all famous for flooding. The floods were of different characters Chinese have historically referred to the Yellow (Huang) River as "China's sorrow" for its destructive power, and the ancient Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt the "gift of the Nile," because its floods were regular and fairly gentle. But all of the floods magnified the agricultural advantage by enriching the soil annually, allowing for greater concentrations of population in those four areas than around other rivers. Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations. The written history of China can be found as early as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1700 1046 BC), although ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and Bamboo Annals assert the existence of a Xia Dynasty before the Shang. Oracle bones with ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been radiocarbon dated to as

early as 1500 BC. Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BC). The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China (after the Yangtze) and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 kilometers (3,395 mi).[1] Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into the Bohai Sea. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a cultural center, where the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of those was found at Banpo, Xi'an. The Yellow River was so named because of loehss forming its banks gave a yellowish tint to the water. The Yellow River is notable for the large amount of silt it carries1.6 billion tons annually at the point where it descends from the Loess Plateau. If it is running to the sea with sufficient volume, 1.4 billion tons are carried to the sea annually. The Yellow River is called "the cradle of Chinese civilization" as its basin specifically, the Wei valley that cuts across the long Ordos loop was the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilizations and the most prosperous region in early Chinese history. However, frequent devastating floods and course changes produced by the continual elevation of the river bed, sometimes above the level of its surrounding fields has also earned it the unenviable names "China's Sorrow" and "Scourge of the Sons of Han." River valleys were important to ancient civilizations, and water was essential to the development and growth of societies. Early civilizations were dependent on river valleys for survival in many respects. River valleys played a pivotal role in the revolution of food production, population and economic growth, and eventually, structured governments. The emergence of food production, made possible by a reliable water supply, had a profound effect on the evolution of human society. Initially humans obtained food through hunting and gathering methods to meet individual needs. However, when they discovered the usefulness and practicality of using water to produce and distribute food, relying solely on hunting and gathering was no longer a necessary act to survive. Since food production is essentially what makes civilization possible due to the fact it opens up avenues for trade and economic development, it is easy to see why early civilizations were so dependent upon the rivers. The emergence of food production affected the development of societies from a social, economic and political perspective. With the introduction of manipulated food production, avenues of trade opened up, larger societies materialized and the intermingling of diverse peoples. All of this revolution was made possible because of the abundance of water located in the nearby rivers in ancient civilizations. It's interesting to think about how civilization would have evolved without the proximity and availability of the river valleys. Water was an essential

component which initiated the tremendous growth which occurred throughout early civilization.