Mapping Early Civilizations and States of Antiquity || Society & Culture Worldbuilding Guide Part 4
Vložit
- čas přidán 23. 07. 2024
- Welcome to the fourth part of my societies and culture worldbuilding guide series, which is a sort of season 2 of my worldbuilding guide series. These videos build off the physical world building we've already done. Part 4 will include talking about state-building, hunter-gatherers, and creating an antiquity map!
Worldbuilding Guide Playlist: • Worldbuilding Guide
Worldbuilding Guide Blog: www.madelinejameswrites.com/b...
00:00 Intro and Plan
02:19 Guide Updates/Resources
05:12 State Definition
08:34 Crop Domestication and Sedentism
10:38 Substinence Barbarians Overview
13:32 Early State Overview
17:36 Why and How States Formed
20:03 Agriculture, Coercion, Taxation, and Centralization
24:37 Prevalence of States and Traders
27:09 Condition for States
28:51 Let's Start Mapping
30:54 Mapping States
43:26 Mapping Traders
45:21 Mapping Settled Groups
46:57 Mapping Migratory Groups
48:28 What's Next
---- LINKS ----
Website: www.madelinejameswrites.com/
Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/madelinejameswrites - Zábava
Finally someone who doesn't glorify the state!
Your channel is definition of perfection. Really appreciate what you do!
I didn't see a different perspective until I started this new wave of research and it has definitely fundamentally changed how I think of civilization!
@@madelinejameswrites well obviously the state would do anything to make itself look like the only possible and perfect reality. We saw it at its worst during the colonialism era.
@@egomaniac7230 it'd definitely a problem that runs pretty deep, and really makes research tricky!
Wow! what a beautiful and concise lecture on the "why" civilisations have formed! As a modern electronic-age non-magic city builder, this episode drew me in. Thank you and see you in the discord.
So glad you enjoyed it!
It's now a requirement that glaciers feature in some way, shape, or form in every video.
😂 honestly, I think they have to. Challenge accepted! They're surprisingly relevant in so many ways!
the stuff about nomadic groups is so interesting!!! I'm building a dnd campaign set post bronze age collapse and this super antiquity history is such a well
Oh so glad it's helpful! If you're into reading non-fiction, the book The Creation of Inequality that I mentioned would probably have a ton of inspiring and relevant stuff for you!
Your commitment to worldbuilding continues to astonish me. I couldn't imagine trying to write fantasy now without being intimidated by some of these considerations. 😅 Which makes me happy I'm writing contemporary right now.
😂 it's definitely a lot, but I will say for my story worlds I don't fully go into all this detail for the entire world. I typically try to focus my energy on the places that I'm going to be writing about, and what I do for each story is a bit different based on what I need. I think this process helps me to understand the fundamental processes though. Every story I write I include more and more depth for this kind of stuff, it's a growing process and I'm always learning!
I'd also recommend looking into David Graeber's anthropological work, particularly Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Dawn of Everything. He's also a colleague of James C. Scott. A colleague pf him is also Michael Hudson, who did economic archeological work that he adapted into a trilogy of works: ... and Forgive Them Their Debts, The Collapse of Antiquity, and Temples of Enterprise, all worth looking into. If you can find anything by him, Lewis Mumford's The Myth of the Machine gives a lot to grapple with.
I'll have to get Debt, I've heard good things about it! And I've read a bit on Dawn of Everything. I'll look into the rest! Thank you for the recommendations!
As an Anthropologist with a deep interest in geology, this series is an absolute gem. Thank you for creating the content that you do!
I'm so glad you're enjoying it 😊 it's been a blast to create
Another banger
This channel was a huge discovery for a history major building a post-cataclysmic fantasy world (roughly steampunk -> medieval). Thank you for all the great content, this is a true trove of treasure! Now where did I put my coffee and notebook...
That sounds awesome and I'm so glad I could be of help!!
I am writing for a late bronze/early iron age setting, so this part of the guide is getting really exciting for me. Can’t wait to see what nuances you’ll explore in there early establishing eras of civilization!
That'll be a really fun video! Glad you enjoying
@@madelinejameswrites Just finished the episode, lots of interesting considerations to take in. I always thought states formed out of the attractiveness of a stable lifestyle rather than as a form of subjugation that people were coerced into. Was this something that came up in later stages of civilization formation? I'm also curious about whether or not you'll be doing episodes on how to form "personalities" for your states, things like hierarchies and beliefs.
@@maxwellsimon4538 we'll get into it a bit in the next part, but states did get more attractive over time. There was still the issue of needing to keep the population in a state. And we'll be diving into cultural traits and beliefs more later! They will largely be from the perspective of ways societies can address challenges (both political and geographic).
@@madelinejameswrites Ah i see! I wasn’t sure by what exactly you meant by coping with environmental struggles, but that makes perfect sense!
This is excellent. This probably popped up on my feed due to my interest in actual states and history, but fills in a lot of information i was not aware of. Great job!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Another great guide!!! Your videos are so in-depth, yet I'm able to follow along without getting overwhelmed haha! Thank you so much for making this guide. Looking forward to the next video 💕
🎉 thank you so much!!!
Love your channel !
Thank you so much!
Notes for myself
states around more biome diverse areas
setttled areas where all requirements arent met
twin areas where trade routes occur or where state-demanded resources exist, or where "barbarians" exist alongside states
migratory areas with low biome diversity or just areas without a lot of habitability
Rewatched the previous parts to prepare for this one, I'M SO EXCITED!! When it first came out, I shared it with artist/writer friends like "!!!!!" like we do Artifexian videos too.
I hope you enjoy it, I'm particularly proud of this one! And it's an absolute honor to be hyped like Artifexian, he's amazing 😊
Great video! I didn't know about the difference between states and feudal polities.
Watching Artifexian lead me to you. This was a great video.
☺️ he's the best, and thank you!!
26:49 just a note that "q" in Chinese romanization is pronounced as a sound close to English "ch" so it should be something close to "ching dynasty". If you know the IPA the sound is /tɕʰ/. Great video though I can't believe I haven't seen your videos before, will definitely be watching more of them 🙏🏽
Oh good to know! I'm notoriously awful at pronouncing things so I appreciate the help! And thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it ☺️
Not sure what happened but I copied the description back in, so the chapters are back!
Although I think you’re right that emergencies and danger helped encourage people to accept authoritarian states (a tactic that still works today, unfortunately), I think another part of it may have been the astronomical expertise of the priest classes in states like Egypt or the Mesopotamian or Indus city-states. We unfortunately tend to think of ancient priests as mere spinners of superstition, and of course they did believe tons of stuff that we now know isn’t true, but that nonsense was mixed in with a lot of genuine observational knowledge of astronomy and its correlations with seasonal rains, frosts, and droughts. If your priests can tell the whole community that the position of the Sun is a sign from the goddess Inanna that she’s ready to bless the sowing of the millet crop (which happens also to be the exact date of the spring equinox and the start of the rainy season), it may make sense to the millet farmers to raise a little surplus to feed those priests, so they can get the planting time right again next year.
Ideology is definitely a really important factor in coercion and hierarchy. I saw it all over my research!
30:37 by 450 CE, much more of the Gangetic Plain, A cluster around the southern coast of India, and larger parts of South China should be states
I'll try and look into this, I suspect there are a lot of problems with my rough attempt at amap but I hope it at least works for.... Vibes I guess 😵
How could land degradation caused by agricultural be determined?
Specifically, the gradual desertification over centuries, unnoticed by the farmers, until their society suffers agricultural collapse (thinking of the Mayans).
Could this potentially be the outcome of most antiquity states?
Explore adventurers from the lucky faraway state would then discover vast ruins of lost civilizations all over the world :)
This is definitely an effect I ran into! Against the Grain talks about this with the increased salinization of their water, upstream logging, etc. basically destroying their local environment slowly until it can't support them anymore. And societies definitely did collapse from that, like you said! I have looked too much into this yet, but I would think the more a population is trying to optimize their use of land, the more at risk they'd be for this. So faster population growth, more restricted farming land, other needs for large amounts of lumber, etc.
What was the full name of this Ross guy? I can't figure out the rest of it.
He goes by @rossbaygeo here on CZcams!
Oh, thank you! I was under the impression that his work was public, but maybe not? I can't really find anything on him.
@@VincentWernerK I don't know if he's shared his real name and his academic work on CZcams. But if you look at Artifexian's latest videos, his guides are linked in there
@@madelinejameswrites Ah, thank you so much for your help! Your videos are fantastic!
@@VincentWernerK thank you 😊
This is interesting but as a new viewer chapters would be super helpful. Not sure I have the willpower to sit through a 1 hour video on a new channel.
Wait there should have been chapters... My description got lost somehow. I should still have that noted down, let me add it back in! Sorry about that!
They should be back now! Not sure how the description got cleared but hopefully it stays this time!