Cultural crucibles: for 6,000 years, cities have been the engines of cultural and economic advance.

The word city comes from the Roman idea of civitas, the community, and civis, a citizen. This is true of French - cite, Italian - citta, and Spanish - ciudad. The same Latin root gives us the word civilization. So, the concepts of cities and civilization are closely linked.

People living in isolation in the boonies have created very few of what we think of as civilization's advances. Writing, a legal code, and the use of money began in Ur, Lagash, and other Sumerian cities, 5,500 years ago. From Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenicians mastered ocean sailing 3,000 years ago. Democracy was born in the Greek city states of 800 to 300 BC. The greatest music of the ages was written in cities such as Milan and Vienna. Some of our civilization's finest painters lived and worked in Paris, Florence, and other cities. The explosion in productivity and rapidly rising living standards that came with the Industrial Revolution were only possible in cities where there was a large supply of labour. Architecture and community organization developed in the urban landscape.

All of these things happened because large numbers of people came together in one place. Ideas could be readily exchanged and commerce could expand as never before. The whole was truly much more than the sum of its parts.

The origins of cities go back to the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. The climate change brought on by the retreat of the ice altered the kind of plants and animals available to the humans living in western Asia. Instead of hunting and gathering their food these people began to plant crops and domesticate animals. This meant settling in one place in villages of, perhaps, 200 to 500 people. There were plenty of nomadic bad guys around looking to lift a community's store of food, so defence was important. Thus hilltops were favoured over valleys; added security was provided by a city wall.

The earliest settlements had to be close to a reliable water supply. An example is Jericho in Israel. It was built on top of a rare, year-round spring in the Jordan Valley and seems to have been home to about 2,000 people. Its first wall has been dated to about 7350 BC, which gives Jericho bragging rights to being the world's earliest town.

The first communities that we can recognize as cities were in Mesopotamia, now Iraq. They date from about 4000 BC. Tens of thousands of people lived in these cities which had elaborate religious, political, and military functions. These cities were built on the floors of river valleys, particularly those of the Tigris and Euphrates.

By about 3400 BC, people in these Sumerian cities were specializing in crafts (pottery, weaving, metalwork etc.). Soon, trade among cities grew as the weavers of one community might trade goods with the potters of another. Then, traders began going farther afield in search of business. So, a good harbour became important in locating a settlement. Cities grew around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and as far east as Pakistan.

A growing priesthood added to the intellectual life of the city. Art and learning prospered as never before. The energy, commercial success, and development of ideas that came with cities were the starting points for all the world's great civilizations.

Elsewhere, other peoples were building cities. The Shang Chinese (1600-1027 BC) built major cities at Zhengzhou, and Anyang. On the Caribbean coast of Mexico, the Olmec civilization (1000-600 BC) was centred on Tenochtitlan and San Lorenzo. To the south of them, in what we call Peru, the Chavin people (1000-200 BC) had developed sculpture, pottery, and metalworking.

In the Old World, the Romans brought city life to new heights. As the Roman Empire expanded northwards it came across societies that hadn't yet developed cities. People lived together behind massive protective earthworks, but these weren't true cities.

The Romans changed that. Borrowing the town-planning concept from the earlier Greek civilization, they built streets on a grid pattern around a marketplace, government buildings, and temple. These cities became economic centres as well as military headquarters.

As the Roman Empire declined, some of its cities vanished. However, others were transformed into the social and commercial centres of the Middle Ages. A good example of this evolution is the Roman city of Emburacum, which became Jorvik, the Viking capital of Britain, which became York of the Middle Ages and today.

The huge cities of today can trace their roots back to smaller settlements that evolved thousands of years ago.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES.

1. Among the great cities of ancient times were the following, listed in the order of their development: Thebes, Memphis, Babylon, Nineveh, Susa, Tyre, Carthage, and Jerusalem. Appoint a team of students to research each of these cities and present short reports to the class.

2. Identify the reasons why your community is located where it is.