Imagine the first human beings who decided to live from agriculture and abandon the nomadic way of life to settle in one place. Where would a group of humans first come together and start building their homes? In this article we trace the first town in history.
historians problems
When we speak of “town” we refer to two different definitions: the space where a small number of inhabitants live, dedicated to activities related, above all, to the primary sector; and it is also the group of people who live in a population, region or country, where they share knowledge, ideas and traditions that form the “culture” of that people.
If we ask about the first people in the world in reference to the second definition, it is clear to all of us: the Sumerians. But in this article we want to talk about the first town understood as the first of the definitions. This answer is no longer so simple.
From the outset, you should know that the terms “town”, “city”, “civilization” and many other related terms have generated and continue to foster intense debates among historians. It’s just that when we start to theorize, the situation gets a little out of hand and we want to impose exact definitions on something as lax as language. It will always be our biggest problem: we cannot tell the story with numbers. How lucky are these mathematicians.
But here we are going to use common sense. For those of us who live in cities, when we say “this weekend I am going to my town”, we are understood. What was that first town in history? Join me on this trip to the past.
It all started in Sumer
The area to look for the first people in history is clear: the Near East. Everything that has to do with the current human being was born there. When you go back to the most original and primal level of any human aspect, you end up between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, literally what Mesopotamia means: “the land between rivers”.
In this geographical area, the first civilization in history arose: Sumer. With the Sumerians a peculiar situation occurs. We did not know of its existence until the beginning of the 20th century. Until then it was believed that the Egyptian culture was the oldest and, furthermore, Egyptomania was in full swing, after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen, in 1922.
The short time that has elapsed since the discovery of the Sumerians has two consequences: our knowledge of civilization is very limited compared to other cultures (the history of Egypt was already studied by the ancient Greeks, for example). The positive part: there is still a lot to discover and investigate (if the wars and political problems in the area allow it).
Where do I want to go? Because here we are going to mention the first town known to date, but the archaeological findings to come will almost certainly change our history. Yes, another little problem for historians, we are obsolete at computing speed.
We have the where. What about when? Well, it will be necessary to point to the change from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, when the human being left the nomadic life to settle in a place and become a farmer and rancher.
At the end of the last ice age, between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the lowlands of Mesopotamia began to dry up, forming alluvial terraces of enviable fertility thanks to the rivers that bathed those lands with rich minerals. According to Babylonian tradition, at the mouth of these rivers, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, the first city was erected:
“Not a reed had grown
a tree had not been created
a house had not been made
a city had not been made
and the lands were sea
when Eridu was created”
The city of Eridú has an antiquity that some archaeologists have traced back to 4900 BC. C. But the archaeological evidence differs from the Babylonian tradition. There are agglomerations of houses previous to Eridú.
The first town in history is Jericho
Paradoxical as it may seem, the first settlements in the Near East did not belong to fully sedentary farmers. This situation was carried out in a process that lasted thousands of years. Rather, they were semi-nomads who had semi-permanent enclaves, to which they always returned.
The oldest and, therefore, our sought after first town in history is Jericho. Located on the Syro-Palestinian coast, it has buildings that are more than 8,000 years old. It is estimated that around 6500 a. C., Jericho had two thousand inhabitants. It had circular houses made of adobe bricks made by hand. Jericho was walled and, among its archaeological remains, a nine-meter-high tower has been found. Both constructions require the joint effort of a community. Which would also share beliefs, as demonstrated by human skulls decorated with shells, a possible indication of funeral rites.
References:
Liverani, M. 2008. The Ancient Orient. Criticism.
Martos, A. 2020. Brief history of the Sumerians. Nowtilus.