Page 25 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

1. Introduction

During the third millennium B.C., three highly complex social systems associated
with major population centers appeared in the Middle East, Each of these was
linked with a riverine and delta environment—Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus.
Each also made use of irrigation-based agriculture. Their common location within
the Saharo-Arabian arid zone between 25° and 30° north latitude often suggests
the existence of possible natural environmental factors as formative influences in
their development. Such an assumption is hazardous. This is especially evident
when the record of paleoenvironmental data from the Arabian Peninsula,
Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley is considered. Other than broad generalities,
little detailed knowledge is available upon which to base claims for natural
environmental influences on human populations.
The Middle East and the Mediterranean regions have often been used as
examples for simplistic claims for environmental determinism. Oversimplified
views were presented early in the century by Huntington (1917) and later by Brooks
(1949) who carried natural environmental interpretations to the point that the
development of complex societies implied otherwise undocumented environmental
changes.
It has been necessary for the critical researcher to explore other avenues
to avoid these pitfalls. Braidwood, for example, began an early multidisciplinary
approach to Near Eastern archeology that furnished physical evidence for
biological and geological changes in the area in tandem with his archeological
research. His views were strongly influenced by the geological work of Van Zeist
and Wright (1963) who saw little evidence for significant environmental change
during the post-Pleistocene time range. With this reinforcement, Braidwood
revoked the simple deterministic views common at the time. Since the

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