The Emergence of Elites

Specialization, needs to be defended, more intense population pressure, greater organization needs for labor projects all tended to place stress of societies. This is something Archaeologists call "scalar stress." The cultural response in turn led to social hierarchies and greater differentiation among members of the society. Different cultures and circumstances produced different kinds of organizations to those pressures, but typically certain forms of leadership emerged followed gradually by a whole class or classes of people who had managing roles.

For example, in the Near East, in Mesopotamia, the priestly figures who had knowledge of writing and the calendar formed the earliest known formal ruling class within the small city states that developed there. This priestly ruling class depicted themselves as stewards or servants of the gods, acting in behalf of the community. As time went on and population in the region grew and other rival city states emerged, the priestly rulers, called "Ensi" in the Sumerian language, came to rely more and more on military leaders who led the city's army and protected the city from external threats. Over time, the Ensi found their authority challenged by this new class of military leaders, who were called "Lugal"--translated as King in Sumerian.

As population in the region grew and competition for resources became increasingly severe, military crisis became almost a permanent condition of the area. Accordingly, military rule, by the kind of figure pictured at above--Sargon I of Akkad, a mercenary soldier and the world's first empire-builder--eventually replaced the priestly elite. The emergence of such leaders meant that warfare was becoming endemic in civilized life.

As the new way of life stabilized and spread, as trade networks developed to supply local needs, and as human populations continued to expand, villages grew into towns and then into cities.

For the first time in history, a truly urban mode of life emerged in the southern part of Mesopotamia, between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago.

This artist's depiction of Ur, one of the world's first true cities, shows some features of the new mode of life that was emerging. Space need to be divided in terms of public versus private spaces in the complex new living space which is the city. This brought with it immense changes in the way people lived and perceived their existence. Differing levels of economic strata emerged creating the very wealthy and the very poor and people in between. Life was very different than in the more simple early Neolithic farming villages or from the even earlier days of hunting and gathering life.

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