The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History

The rise of civilizations in Eurasia and Africa between 3500 BCE and 200 CE birthed the Old World Web. The Indus-Valley Corridor included Sumerian cities that arose out of the intersection of overland and coastal communication webs. A stratified social structure and specialization characterized Sumerian cities. Canals, dikes, plows, wagons, and ships enhanced trade and communication networks. Less is known about the Indus Valley civilization due to the indecipherability of their script, but their key contribution was water management. In Egypt, the Nile offered unparalleled ease in internal transport and ecological sustainability, merging village and local webs into a metropolitan web that was unified politically, economically, and spiritually.

China developed differently from its Nile-Indus counterparts, primarily through the ritual, political, and military aspects of civilization inherent in older, well-developed villages of ancestral spirit cults. Bureaucracy in China and elsewhere in the Old World Web emerged as a result of endless military-political upheavals prompted by steppe conquerors of Eurasia and North Africa. Other key developments that emerged out of the political instability were alphabetic writing and portable, congregational religions.

Resurgent Indian, Chinese, and Mediterranean civilizations each had distinct features. In India, a caste system and deference to ascetics characterized civilization.