Complex hierarchical structures of government may have emerged in antiquity through the use of crops. Article about it published In the Journal of Political Economy.
For many years, researchers were inclined to believe that tax collection was necessary to create a complex state system, and for this to increase agricultural productivity.
Yoram Maishar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleagues believe that the fertility of farmland does not play a key role in the formation of states. The main thing, in their opinion, was the cultivation of cereal crops. Unlike other crops, grains can be stored centrally and for long periods of time and are therefore easy to count and tax.
Root crops are difficult to store and therefore taxed. Therefore, even if they are produced enough for food, it does not cause the emergence of tax-collecting nobility and state structures. “Only where climate and geography favor grains can a social hierarchy develop. According to our data, the greater the productivity advantage of cereals over tubers in the region, the more likely the emergence of complex forms of social organization,” they write.
Scientists came to such conclusions after analyzing data on the distribution of cultivated plant species in different regions in different historical periods and considering several historical cases.
Earlier archaeologists discovered An ancient settlement in Chile destroyed by the tsunami.
Source: Gazeta
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