Abstract
Urbanization had several cradles. It was preceded by the emergence of agriculture, transportation networks, and pre-urban cities, which developed in isolation without being part of a structured urban system. The development of transportation networks caused urbanization in a much more direct way than agriculture did. “Urban cities” (belonging to a structured urban system) first developed in Mesopotamia within the Great Corridor; second, in the Indus Valley, at the intersection of the Great and Asian corridors; and third, in the Loess Plateau of China within the Asian Corridor. An urbexplosion is an organic urban system that evolves through time and space in order to progressively include peripheral zones belonging to various regions, provinces, or countries. The first urbexplosion emerged in the Great Corridor; it was dominated by Babylon. Pre-Columbian urbanization appeared later in a context characterized by the absence of wheeled transportation.
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Notes
- 1.
Harari (2014), 11–30.
- 2.
Paleoanthropologists think that both Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens originated from Homo heidelbergensis that stemmed from Homo erectus. See Morris (2010), 60–62.
- 3.
Diamond (1997), 362.
- 4.
Ibid., 167.
- 5.
Hassan (1981).
- 6.
Knox and Agnew (1994), 144, and Jared Diamond, op. cit., 98 and 362–363.
- 7.
It must be remembered that the last ice age ended just around 7000 BC.
- 8.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 29.
- 9.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 181.
- 10.
Jacob (1969) went as far as suggesting that cities made agriculture possible and not the opposite. This is a defendable position as long as we refer to market-oriented agriculture.
- 11.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 255.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
Conolly (1999), 791.
- 15.
Shane and Küçük (1998), 43.
- 16.
James Conolly, op. cit., 798–799.
- 17.
Childe (1950).
- 18.
Oppenheim (1977).
- 19.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 278.
- 20.
Ibid., 22–23 and 62.
- 21.
Lemaire (2000).
- 22.
- 23.
Anthony Edwin James Morris, op. cit., 22.
- 24.
P. R. S. Moorey, op. cit. See also Kubba (1987).
- 25.
Hakim (1986).
- 26.
Anthony Edwin James Morris, op. cit., 27–28.
- 27.
Mollat du Jourdin and Desanges (1988), 98–100.
- 28.
Made of heterogeneous groups.
- 29.
Bairoch (1985), 26–27.
- 30.
- 31.
Michel Mollat du Jourdin and Jehan Desanges, op. cit., 190.
- 32.
Asali (1989).
- 33.
- 34.
The victory of Marathon took place on October 11, 490 BC, precisely.
- 35.
Michel Mollat du Jourdin and Jehan Desanges, op. cit., 113.
- 36.
de Vries (1984), 122.
- 37.
Starr (1979).
- 38.
Wycherley (1962).
- 39.
Paul Bairoch, op. cit., 107–108. Some historians estimate that the population of Athens reached 150,000 or 160,000 inhabitants, which is much more than Bairoch’s estimate.
- 40.
Miletus was not the first planned city, since the Harappan cities were planned. But Hippodamus is the first city planner whose name is known. See Anthony Edwin James Morris, op. cit., 43.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Michel Mollat du Jourdin and Jehan Desanges, op. cit., 55–57 and 62.
- 43.
Ibid., 46.
- 44.
Some people pretend that Rakotis was a Phoenician colony. See Anthony Edwin James Morris, op. cit., 30.
- 45.
Pirenne (1937), 71–74.
- 46.
When the worship of Athena was established on the Acropolis.
- 47.
In 86 BC, the Roman General Sulla razed Athens. Athens was rebuilt and regained her cultural leadership in the Mediterranean world.
- 48.
Diakonoff and Kohl (1991), 408–409.
- 49.
- 50.
Morris (1994), 15.
- 51.
Ibid., 31.
- 52.
Allchin and Allchin (1968).
- 53.
Diamond (1997), 329–331.
- 54.
Buddhism was not the only religion to have spread through the Silk Road. Nestorian Christianity, Christian Monophysite Christianity, Manichaeism, Mazdaism-Mazdakism, Zoroastrianism, Parsiism, and even the Egyptian cult of Osiris entered China through that route.
- 55.
Wheatley (1971).
- 56.
Paul Bairoch, op. cit., 43–44.
- 57.
Diakonoff and Kohl (1991), 367–368.
- 58.
Mackinder (1951).
- 59.
Chaliand (2005).
- 60.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 383.
- 61.
In pre-Columbian civilizations, metal technology was either extremely limited or yet to be discovered. See Street and Alexander (1998).
- 62.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 355.
- 63.
Ibid., 359.
- 64.
Paul Bairoch, op. cit., 92–93.
- 65.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 37.
- 66.
Ibid., 132.
- 67.
Adams (1980).
- 68.
Jared Diamond, op. cit., 162.
- 69.
The Maya calendar had leap year corrections almost as accurate as those of the present day.
- 70.
Opinions differ as to whether or not the Maya settlements amounted to “cities.” Some authors consider them as being just ceremonial centers.
- 71.
The Valley of Mexico lies at 2150 m above sea level. It is surrounded with high mountain chains. The great salt Lake Texcoco was fed at the south by two sweet water lagoons and at the northwest by two more and the northeast by a sluggish stream, which drained the fertile valley.
- 72.
Tenochtitlán’s name refers to the Tenochas that were a small but warlike group living on islands in Lake Texcoco who became the most successful of a number of competing predatory tribes.
- 73.
The Inca were in the Bronze Age when discovered by the Spaniards. Their craftsmen made knives, chisels, axes of a mixture of copper and tin, but these tools were often not hard enough to cut rock.
- 74.
Ibid., 211, but Paul Bairoch (op. cit., 211) estimates that the population north of the Rio Grande was only between one and four million. About the estimates of the populations in the rest of the Americas, see the same authors Jared Diamond (op. cit., 210) and Paul Bairoch (op. cit., 97–98).
- 75.
Midlarsky (1999).
- 76.
Pizarro landed in Peru in mid-January 1531. He arrived at Cuzco on November 15, 1533, and the day after, he conquered the city in a single afternoon. Pizarro founded Lima as the new capital city on January 18, 1535.
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Tellier, LN. (2019). From the Beginnings of Agriculture and Urbanization to the First Urbexplosions. In: Urban World History. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24842-0_2
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