Why did so many early advanced civilisations emerge in the middleeast...

Why did so many early advanced civilisations emerge in the middleeast? I can't see how a resourceless desert would've been the ideal place for civilisation to form

The middle east isn't one big desert you fucktard.

Flood plains and rivers you dipshit
There are some parts of Iraq that look like Nam
Source: I was there in '12

>what is the fertile cresent .

Most of it is however
I understand that, but Spain and Italy must've had a better climate and more resources

Nile River
Euphrates and Tigress River

Fertile crescent was called that for a reason. It was really good place before climate warmed up and their fields turned sour from salt (result of centuries of irrigation).

>What is climate change
In addition to having the largest swath of the most fertile land in the entire hemisphere at the time, things were a lot colder in the era three quarters of ten thousand years ago of which we are speaking. Large swaths of the area were still temperate. Indeed, a lot of that desert was created by the over farming of the earlier primitive agricultural attempts salting the land and flattening landscape. Once irrigated, it nearly all remains fertile, dates and grapes being common farm stuffs in the region, sometimes maintained almost entirely by portable water.

Meanwhile, in Europe, it wasn't uncommon to see it snow well into June. They were better off than the folks in the warmer parts of Africa, sure, but it wasn't conducive to agriculture and thus creating permanent settlements and cities.

1. Deserts are good at preserving ruins.
2. We know advanced civilizations exist by looking at ruins.

Do some math.

>resourceless desert

is this what americans think the middle east is?

the climate was a lot milder a few thousand years ago and it's one of the most fertile places in the world

When was the sand ever fertile? Wtf?

Sorry if it's a stupid question. The fertile parts of today obviously used to be a lot bigger but the desert was always desert no?

And they both made incredibly tenable and generative civilizations. In Italy there were the various Etruscan tribes, eventually becoming the Romans that we study today, and in Spain were the Iberians whom created lasting trade (proof by their Phoenician and Greek cultural icons, along with other Assyrian, Hittite and other crescent cultures's icons) Along with their obvious skill in stonework and bronzeworking, I would honestly say they were at par with civilizations of their time.
I have an opinion that not many people like about the middle-east pre-1200. If it wasn't for Genghis Khan and Islam eventually moving into the power vacuum created by him, I would argue that they would have as generative and productive society as the west turned out to be.

>Why did so many early advanced civilisations

Just like Judeo-Christian Theology, Archaeology and History suffer from same form of rigid dogmatism that does not accept change - easily.
The mainstream academia insists that since everything came out of Africa and since every culture HAVE to start from "Culture 0", middle-east is always seen above all else. It also has to do with the early 19th and 20th century Academics which still has a stronghold on Western Academic Circles.
It was in the recent decades, after the discovery of Gobëkli Tepe that Archaeologists had no choice but to push back the definitions of the beginning of advanced civilization. Now, you will point that Gobëkli Tepe is technically in Middle-east but there have been claims of advanced civilization in the same time period, quite far away from Middle-east. But the Archaeologists who excavated such sites had the misfortune of doing it much earlier and had their career destroyed as mainstream rejected their peer review, universities cancelled their grants and Governments cancelled their permits.

The Americas have many sites, some excavated and some supposed to be under dirt but they are yet gain mainstream traction - reason - The Out of Africa migration. The older layers of Indus Valley and Central Asian Yamanaya Cultures exceed the 7000 BCE mark but extensive studies have not yet done.

The Malaysian-Indonesian Island groups recently were found to house ruins purportedly of same or earlier time period.

SECOND: The older cultures always developed near water sources and it has been found that sea level rose - many cultures are definitely under water. The supposedly out of nowhere Sumerian culture attest in their own history (even though it is, of a mythological scale) an antediluvian presence of their culture.

>resourceless desert
>the fertile crescent

t. someone who knows nothing about the Natufians

Conti...

The climate has changed over the course of 10 millennia. Just recently, as recent as 9500 BCE, Egypt used to be somewhat of a grassland because of seasonal rain.

The geography of Desert is such that is encroaches on all lands and trigger a feedback that either bring in more rain or make the area more dry. The expansion of Sahara greatly changed the climates not only in N Arica but the area around it as well.

The Indus Valley used to be like Mediterranean in climate but the Monsoonal winds shifted, tectonic movements shifted Glacial rivers to the east and it took merely 4-3 thousands to turn the area into a desert.


A desert can revert back to being productive but it take time naturally, to the point of appearing as irreversible from a human lifespan point of view. But under a changing climate, grasslands can very quickly turn into desert.

There are many such areas where grasslands, highlands are bordering desert and desert is ever-marching, encroaching.


Sahara would have extended further south, had it been not on equator. Equatorial torrential rains act as a natural barrier.

>why did so many early civilizations emerge in a temperate climate where seasonal flooding of large river systems makes agriculture absurdly easy

really makes you think

>Natufians

Jericho has a very peculiar cycle of abandonment and re-establishment of not continuous but block of cultures. It is a unique case on its own - it is not considered an expansive civilization by the generic definition. That is why I did not include it here. It doesn't mean I don't know about it.

It wasn't dessert back then.

The only difference between dry desert sand and arable dirt land is the amount of filthy water in it. Remove the water and plants, and farmland turns to sandy dust, same in reverse.

It was colder the sea level was higher, and thus most of it was dirt back then, some of the richest soil in the world at that - and close to the rivers, much of that remains so to this day.

You utter weapon.

...

No dessert? No wonder they fell.

Americans should be banned from posting

Edgy.
d
g
y
.

That's a common opinion bud

>resourceless desert

Because not all of it's desert. In fact, deserts like the one you posted makes up only about 15% of all the land in the Middle East