"For decades, school children have learned that human civilizationemerged about 5000 years ago along the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia,along the Nile, and along the Indus River. But archaeologists working in a broad arc from the Russian steppesthrough Iran and onto the Arabian Peninsula are finding evidence that acomplex network of cities may have thrived across the region in roughlythe same era, suggesting a dramatic new view of the emergence of humancivilization."This is significant because up to this point, Euro-centric, Biblical archeology and (to a small degree) Nazi propaganda have skewed the view of civilizations origins and minimized the contribution of non-near eastern and non-semitic speaking cultures.
Mesopotamian Sandwich
Mesopotamia (Iraq), being regarded as "The Cradle of Civilization" and the proposed location of "the Garden of Eden", was sandwiched in the middle of Afro-Asiatic and Indo-European language families, each with their own culture and belief systems. 1600 BC or the Late Bronze age is an important date both for Anatolia (Turkey) and the Harrapan Civilization (Pakistan) [to the north west and south east of Mesopotamia (Iraq)] because those areas cultures show a marked change around that time probably as a result of Indo-European language speaking migrations from the area north of the Black and Caspian Seas and additionally Egypt experienced the immigration of the Hyksos semitic speaking people from the north.
He With the Most Toys Wins
That period is about the time the use of the spoked wheel chariot spread from Central Asia. There is a correlation between technology and human migrations around that time. It has been shown that there was a robust network of commerce between the Egyptians, the Harrapans (Pakistani) and the Anatolians (Turks) prior to that time putting the Levant/Fertile Crescent (Syria, Israel, Jordan, Iraq) in the middle and putting the modern day areas of Saudia Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Greece, the Persain Gulf, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea at the edges. The obvious inference is that cultures to the north were looking for raw materials to improve their situations, some of which would have been used for weapons to help them acquire more material.
My God! No, My God!
Areas of modern day Greece, Turkey, Palestine, and Pakistan all had a similar type of War/Storm God after that time. In my view, one of them probably evolved into the beloved Yahweh of the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which correlates to the story of Abraham coming from Ur in Mesopotamia (traditional sources have it being Northern Mesopotamia corresponding to Edessa in Southeastern Turkey, and academic sources have it being in southern Mesopotamia close to the Persian Gulf) between 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE as recorded in the Tanakh/Old Testament.
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
There should be no doubt about how important the Near East was to the development of Agriculture and Civilization, but since it was so important, it made a good place to get raw material for those less fortunate to the north either by trade or force. See "The Kurgan Hypothesis" for more information.
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