Understanding early civilizations : a comparative study
Understanding early civilizations : a comparative study
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了解早期文明：比较研究
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发表时间：
2003
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通讯作者：
B. Trigger
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作者：
B. Trigger
本书首次对七个有据可查的早期文明进行了详细的比较研究：古埃及和美索不达米亚、商代中国、阿兹特克人和墨西哥山谷的邻近民族、古典玛雅人、印加人和约鲁巴人。与以往的研究不同，本次研究同样关注他们的社会政治组织、经济体系、宗教和文化的异同。这项研究的许多发现令人惊讶且具有启发性。农业系统、技术和经济行为比预期更加多样化。然而，只有两种基本类型的政治组织——城邦国家和领土国家——而且它们对经济行为的影响至少与环境差异的影响一样大。各种宗教信仰的基础是一种单一的、独特的模式，这是早期文明所独有的，并且一定是在世界不同地区独立发展的。许多其他共同的宗教信仰似乎是早期共同遗产的转变。一种早期文明与另一种文明截然不同的受人尊敬的生活方式影响着人类的行为，尽管物质和政治环境发生了变化，但这些生活方式往往持续存在。这些发现和许多其他发现不仅挑战了当前对早期文明的理解，而且挑战了现代考古学和人类学的理论基础。理解早期文明的关键不在于它们的历史联系，而在于它们能告诉我们人类行为的异同。
This book offers the first detailed comparative study of the seven bestdocumented early civilizations: ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Shang China, the Aztecs and adjacent peoples in the Valley of Mexico, the Classic Maya, the Inka, and the Yoruba. Unlike previous studies, equal attention is paid to similarities and differences in their sociopolitical organization, economic systems, religion, and culture. Many of this study’s findings are surprising and provocative. Agricultural systems, technologies, and economic behaviour turn out to have been far more diverse than was expected. Yet only two basic types of political organization are found – city-states and territorial states – and they influenced economic behaviour at least as much as did environmental differences. Underlying various religious beliefs was a single, distinctive pattern that is unique to early civilization and must have developed independently in different regions of the world. Many other shared religious beliefs appear to have been transformations of a shared heritage from earlier times. Esteemed lifestyles that differed idiosyncratically from one early civilization to another influenced human behaviour in ways that often persisted despite changing material and political circumstances. These findings and many others challenge not only current understandings of early civilizations but also the theoretical foundations of modern archaeology and anthropology. The key to understanding early civilizations lies not in their historical connections but in what they can tell us about similarities and differences in human behaviour.