Government has been defined by what it does, by the type of system it is, or by the people who are part of it. Government is the exercise of authority over a state, district, organization or region, if it is defined by what it does. If it is defined as a type of system, then it is a system of ruling, controlling, etc., or an established system of political administration. Government is the people or agencies that administer or control the affairs of state of a nation state, or institution, if it is defined by the people who work for it.
As a practical matter, governmental origins begin with the human demand for governmental services. The demands of early hunter-gatherer peoples basically revolved around food, clothing and shelter. Prior to the emergence of cities, the domestication of animals, and the organization of agricultural production, demands were probably kept to a minimum. It was not because food was always plentiful or the climate mild, but because the ability of the tribe or family to satisfy needs was limited. Once agricultural technology proved to be reliable and societal organizations capable, governments and the need for their services began to emerge. If governments could neither bring rain nor control the level of rainfall, they could at least make plans to survive periods of drought or to limit the damage from floods. Grain could be stored in granaries and dams could minimize the dangers posed by flooding. Whether writing was essential to all governmental planning, it certainly contributed to the efficiency of operations.
Water, it might be said, has been the key to human development. People cannot survive without water. They will starve if their crops fail from lack of water. Too much water and people will drown or homes will be destroyed. Water-related problems, as a result, probably were some of the earliest problems governments were called upon to solve. While solutions were difficult, they were well within the organizational and technical capabilities of early governments.
The Iranian plateau is an extremely dry region of salt deserts surrounded by rugged mountains. Rainfall is sometimes as little as four inches a year and rarely exceeds eight. Any hope of sustained agricultural production would rest on some form of irrigation system. The problem was that evaporation would doom any system relying on exposed above-ground canals, such as the aqueducts used by the Romans in Europe. Some form of underground conveyance would be needed. Persian engineers had the basic technology at hand, although it had originally been developed for mining, probably by the Urartians (a kingdom on the eastern border of present-day Turkey).
The underground tunnels, called qanats, were constructed on an incline, running from a water source in the mountains to the destination fields. Shafts would be sunk along the route to remove earth and provide ventilation. They would also provide access for the maintenance inspections needed in continuing operations. The qanats required a great deal of manpower to maintain, but they proved such a successful design that they were used in Egypt and India. The Persians were, if nothing else, adaptable. They did not replace the open irrigation system of canals in use in Babylonia with the qanat. Instead, they expanded the existing system. If the qanats were constructed out of necessity, agricultural innovation was an unexpected bonus of Persian administration. Darius I (the Great) encouraged experimentation among his administrators by rewarding them with land and wealth for improvements in productivity. The central government itself maintained a "research" program which continually provided experimental seeds for regional use. Alfalfa, a native plant, was introduced into Greece. Rice would be introduced into Mesopotamia, pistachio nuts into Syria, and sesame into Egypt.
Darius reigned from 522 to 486 B.C.. Outside of Persia, governmental administration of agricultural irrigation systems had begun long before his rule. The Babylonian king Hammurabi (1728-1686 B.C.) had undertaken an expansion of an already existing canal system in Southern Mesopotamia. The Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100-1950 B.C.), another Mesopotamian city had constructed canals, as well as temples. The Eridu, a prehistoric culture of Southern Mesopotamia had undertaken to drain local swamps and irrigate crops as early as 4000 B.C.. Mohenjo-Daro and its water system, date to around 2600 B.C..
Did the definition of government include or require writing skills, or was writing just a tool to make government operate more efficiently? The Egyptians, Persians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans relied on writing. The Anasazi, in contrast, left no written records, although this did not prevent them from constructing elaborate dwellings or from developing irrigation systems. Did that mean that Anasazi culture, while cooperative, had not developed into a true government, or did it suggest that government was possible without writing?
The domestication of animals and the development of an agricultural economy at a permanent location solved a major problem faced by early hunter-gatherers - the lack of a dependable supply of food. The emergence of cities simplified supply and distribution. Unfortunately, the solution to one problem often creates problems of its own. The granaries and storage facilities for food, even the fields themselves, were vulnerable to raids by individuals or marauding gangs or at the mercy of invading armies. Governments, which had invested so much in irrigation and flood control, now were called upon to maintain military and police forces to defend what had been created.
Egypt, in some ways, was in a very precarious position geographically. It was sandwiched between two desert regions so hostile that they had effectively confined the country to a ribbon of land only 2 to 14 miles wide along the 700 miles between the first cataract at Aswan and the Delta which emptied into the Mediterranean. Had the Nile changed course Egypt would have been finished. A desert location offered one distinct advantage. It provided a formidable natural defense. An invading army would have to survive the desert before it could even launch an attack. So long as an invasion was by land Egypt was safe. The desert offered little protection if the invasion came by sea.
Sometime before 1300 B.C., a nomadic seafaring group of people began to invade and settle the lands around the southern Mediterranean. The Egyptians referred to them as the Sea Peoples and described them as having blond hair and blue eyes. Their exact origins are unknown, but they did not come from a single nation or region. Many came from Greece, Sicily, Sardis or Sardinia. Others had been forced out of the Balkans or the region of the Black Sea. The first waves appeared to pose little threat to Egypt. In fact the pharaohs often employed them as mercenaries. However Seti I (c. 1303-1290 B.C.) became alarmed when they established themselves in Libya. He led several military campaigns against them but secured only a temporary respite. By 1227 they had recovered and the Libyan king Merai mounted an invasion. The Egyptian army under Pharaoh Meneptah confronted them at Per-Ir, north of Memphis. The Egyptians captured 9,000 prisoners during the six-hour battle and forced a retreat. The victory bought Egypt another 25 years of peace.
In 1194 B.C. the Sea Peoples launched an attack against Egyptian garrisons at Canopus. The attack was repulsed by an army under the command of Ramses III, and the army was annihilated in the swamps. In 1191 the Sea Peoples planned a major invasion by sea. However the Egyptians met them with a fleet which sank most of their ships at the mouth of the Delta. Egyptian infantry regiments had been posted at newly-built forts. The invaders retreated, but not before losing 12,500 killed and 1,000 captured. Though defeated, one of the Sea Peoples, the Mashouash, under their king Kaper, would launch another invasion three years later. Again they would suffer a major defeat, with more than 2,000 killed. They would no longer threaten Egypt.
If someone wanted to find the true origins of government, how far back in time would they need to travel? Only as far back as the first agricultural settlements or early cities? - back to 2600 B.C. and Mohenjo-Daro, or 3200 B.C. and the clay tablet writing at Uruk, or 4000 B.C. and the settlement at Ur, or 5000 B.C. and the Neolithic settlement at Nineveh, or 5500 B.C. and the agricultural settlements near Ur, or even to 8000 B.C. and the very beginnings of agriculture? Were cities a necessary component of government, or just the earliest physical proof of its existence? Was complexity a requirement or just another measure of the stage of development?
Governments, as service organizations, are defined by the services they provide. Unfortunately, the power to "define" government does not give "services" power over government and it does not make an individual service indispensable to the definition of government. Governments can expand or contract the definition of what they are by providing additional services or by eliminating services they already offer. Perhaps the problem is that, once a defining service has been named, it becomes just an example of the range of services available, not the total definition of governmental services. The Egyptian government, for example, could define itself in terms of the irrigation systems and armies it maintained, but these examples excluded domestic police work and foreign trade. If examples of government services did not totally define government, neither did the tools government used to operate. Writing and bureaucracy were almost essential to any governmental function, yet they were mere tools in the hands of government, not government itself.
Reduced to its basic components, government comes down to just two things: a demand for governmental services and an organization capable of delivering them. (Government probably also involves some form of group, i.e., there is likely to be more than one individual involved.) While a military organization on a par with that of Egypt under Ramses III was evidence of a well-advanced society, it was not a requirement of government. The failure to build cities or irrigation systems did not necessarily mean that Stone Age peoples were without a governmental system. A prehistoric "government" might provide a limited range of services. Given that set of criteria, would a search for the origins of government need to journey even further back in time, to 200,000 B.C. and the emergence of Homo sapiens, or possibly as many as 1.9 million years further back, to Olduvai Gorge, in Africa, or even further back to 2.5 million years ago and the shores of what is now Lake Rudolph in northern Kenya?
Fossil remains found at Olduvai Gorge, indicate that Homo habilis, an early human species, was using simple stone tools 1.9 million years ago. Stone tools made by '1470 Man' at Lake Rudolph are 2.5 million years old. Whether stone tools are concrete proof of the existence of government, they are an indication of cooperation within a group. Between that date and the first agricultural settlement in 8000 B.C., tribal needs and governmental services would have been simple, at least compared to later civilizations. The tribe would need to gather and collectively remember information about such things as food, safety, and weather. What plants were edible? Where was the nearest spring for drinking and when would game gather there? What type of stone was good for spear points? What was the best way to organize a hunt? Would cold weather last for a long time?
Whether the origins of government can be assigned a specific date, such as 8000 B.C., 1.9 million B.C., or 2.5 million B.C., depends on how government is defined. It also depends on how the word origins is defined or used. Origin can be used to refer to the "point (in time)," at which something begins or arises. Under that definition, governmental origins refers to a date when the first government began operations. Origins can be used in another sense which deals, not with time, but with causation. The causes operating before governments came into existence are considered the origins. In that context, origins has more to do with the forces driving hunter-gatherer peoples into agricultural settlements than the date of settlement, 8000 B.C..
Finding the origins of government is a headache when the problem deals with governments generally. It is a veritable nightmare when the question of origins is applied to specific types of government, such as democracy or dictatorship. The nightmare could quickly turn into a quagmire with just one additional variable or condition. What if the search has no time constraints? Additionally, what if human involvement is not a critical element? The time boundaries set by Olduvai Gorge, 1.9 million B.C. and Lake Rudolph, 2.5 million B.C., no longer apply. Would the earliest boundary be tied to the extinction of the dinosaurs, some 70 million years ago or could it go back even further, to the Triassic Period, when the dinosaurs emerged, around 225 million years ago? Could it go even further back, to the Devonian Period, 350 to 400 million years ago, when the first forests appeared, or even further back, to the Pre-Cambrian period, 4,500 million years to 600 million years ago, when life began?
Did geological variables play a role in democracy or dictatorship? Could plate tectonics, the theory that continental plates moved apart to form the Atlantic Ocean 150 million years ago, be involved? Would the success of future governments be determined by geological processes which distributed iron or copper or gold in different geographical locations? Would changes in climate millions of years in the past determine the amount of coal or oil available for energy or even its location? Would the formation of mountains determine future settlements by controlling regional rainfall? How was it even possible to measure human achievement, given the scale of the geological timescale and the magnitude of the forces involved? Was the story of human civilization one of triumph in the face of overwhelming odds or a case of going unnoticed while trying to get by.
Nowhere was the interplay of the two themes better illustrated than in Egypt. Herodotus called Egypt, "the gift of the Nile," and its ancient name was Kemet or To-meri, the "Black Land." Egypt was fortunate in two ways. It not only received a new layer of silt when the Nile flooded each year, crucial to continued agricultural productivity, but also drew water from one of the few supplies available. The Nile was defying the odds. Of all the ancient streams which had watered the Sahara region, it alone survived. Between 10,000 B.C. and 2000 B.C., the entire Sahara had benefited from monsoon rains. For some reason however, the rate of evaporation began to outpace the flow of water around 3500 B.C.. What probably saved the Nile was an accident of geology. It is the world's longest river, with a drainage basin of 1,293,000 square miles, about one-tenth of Africa's land area. In contrast to the 3,000 miles of the Sahara west of Egypt, the Nile's source is Lake Victoria, in central Africa. The southern boundaries of the western Sahara are more mountainous, serving as a potential barrier to western rivers.
The "Red Land," as the desert was called by the Egyptians, was considered the realm of the dead. If the desert, an accident of climate, confined them to a narrow strip of land close to the river, it also served to protect them from other peoples. Egypt had no standing army until the New Kingdom (1573-1085 B.C.). Military forces were created through provincial summons when needed.
In some ways the geographical advantages provided by the Nile made the Egyptian experience with water unique. In other ways the Egyptian response, particularly in the design of the technological structures relating to dams and irrigation systems, was similar to that of other cultures. The Egyptian canal, the Sumerian irrigation system, the Roman aqueduct, and the Persian qanat, all mimicked nature in design, i.e., each used a system of inclined channels to carry water, and all relied on gravity. In 6,000 years the Egyptians did not significantly expand into the desert, but confined their agricultural activity to the narrow strip of land along the Nile. It was as if it was more cost-effective to raise an army and conquer new lands for agricultural production than it was to challenge natural forces by trying to claim land from the desert.
Nature had a vast array of weapons at its command. It could be both dangerous and helpful as well as generous and stingy. It could create conditions hostile to life at the high end of the temperature range, with deserts such as the Sahara, Gobi, or California's Death Valley, or at the low end, with the freezing conditions found in the Arctic and Antarctic. Geologic forces could be gentle, when they came as spring rains or acted through erosion or they could be devastatingly direct, when they took the form of earthquakes or hurricanes. Nature could produce slow-moving glaciers massive enough to produce an Ice Age, or she could bring sudden, violent change in the form of volcanoes.
Around 1550 B.C. an eruption of the volcano on the Aegean island of Thera (modern Santorini) turned one-third of the island into a crater. The tidal waves which hit the island of Crete, only 68 miles away, may have reached 650 feet in height. While the inland capital of Knossos was not destroyed, the ports in the immediate path were pulverized. The volcanic ash which covered the island destroyed the crops while rendering the soil unusable. Crete, as a major civilization, was finished. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. buried the Roman towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis. When the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa, located between Java and Sumatra, erupted in August 1883, 36,000 people died. Nature did not need to launch a direct assault or make spectacular statements. It could unleash disease by creating wet, favorable conditions for insects, such as mosquitoes. It could destroy productive land by turning it into desert or into a swamp. Agricultural systems and food supplies were surprisingly vulnerable, even where people had proved indestructible.
Where did resources rank on the scale of geological importance? As large as they loomed for human conduct, they were almost an afterthought in the wider geological world. Metals were randomly deposited by the flow of magma, igneous rock, or even by water. Coal beds were the product of soil and climate favorable to forests in the ancient past. Petroleum had been another accident of climate and conditions on prehistoric sea-floors. Modern forests were another combination of climate and soil.
Where did the destructive nature of the universe and the seemingly random distribution of resources leave governments, such as democracy and dictatorship? In the long run, it left them at the mercy of forces over which they had little control. In a universe governed by chance, democracy and dictatorship were simply random events. If there appeared to be a connection between an abundance of resources and prosperity, the availability of resources depended on the random accumulation of metals or the creation of fuels. That connection suggested that rules of economic determinism ultimately governed political outcomes. Democracy and dictatorship, in that context, were no longer random events, just predictable products of resource levels.
A quick resource survey of the ancient world would probably include the gold mined in Lydia or Nubia, in the case of Egypt, the silver at Athens, the purple dye produced by the Phoenicians, the rich grain-producing soil of Egypt, together with some gold, possibly the iron produced by the Hittites, the cedars of Lebanon, and the frankincense and myrrh at Ubar. Did some countries have an "advantage" even though they did not possess a particular resource? Egypt's desert location proved almost as effective as an army. The only problem was that it could not be easily valued, at least, that is, until the time Egypt actually had to expend funds to maintain it. The Hittites were protected by the mountain ranges of Anatolia. The Chinese had to construct the Great Wall because they had no natural barrier to invasion. Rome enjoyed protection from the Alps, although Hannibal challenged that assumption. His success was an exception, however. Armies could be a tangible symbol of wealth, and military success an important resource, or conversely, a drain on a nation's treasury, as much an expense as a benefit.
Portugal's success in the spice trade proved that geographical location, could, at times, be a resource. Portugal's experience also showed how quickly an "overwhelming" advantage could be lost. The fall of Spain's Empire showed how an abundance of a single resource was sometimes not sufficient to offset, or make up for, deficiencies in other areas.
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