towns and villages: Asia and the Pacific By 9000 b.c.e the town of Abu Hureyra contained several hundred inhabitants living in houses made of mud bricks The people grew their own grain in fields surrounding the town, and the women continued to grind wheat in their houses day after day The villagers also herded sheep and goats for milk, meat, and wool used to make cloth The entire community existed to grow crops and raise children, generation after generation Over the next several millennia people continued to build towns and live according to the same pattern By 6000 b.c.e most residents of the Fertile Crescent lived in small villages near ready supplies of water They were all located on or near sources of water that could be used to irrigate crops; most settlements rose along the Jordan, Tigris, Karkheh, and Euphrates rivers Mud was the main building material because both stone and wood were scarce The agricultural seasons and daily necessities determined the activities of the residents People experimented with and mastered irrigation techniques, such as canals, that allowed them to plant fields farther and farther from the rivers When a town became too crowded to support itself, people simply moved into a free space and built new settlements Towns were occupied by family groups that helped one another with the labor of farming and other communal tasks, such as building It would have been impossible for anyone to live alone; towns and villages made it possible to raise food and channel water in the harsh landscape Living communally also made it easier to arrange marriages and raise children Because they lived among relatives, village dwellers could always turn to someone for help Living in towns fostered the beginnings of spiritual thought Most towns remained in the same place for centuries, and many generations of dead were buried there The inhabitants came to believe that dead ancestors continued to watch over the living Beginning around 3800 b.c.e the towns at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates began to grow into cities such as Eridu, Ur, and Uruk The climate was drier than it had been, and populations were too large for people to support themselves on family or village farms because there was not enough water or cultivable land for everyone in the area to farm for themselves The people living in the cities developed governments to organize agriculture and distribute grain as well as to worship their gods For the next 800 years or so, however, many people continued to live in towns and villages Mesopotamian cities were surrounded by towns connected to the rivers by long canals extending in every direction from the cities These towns specialized in various products, including metalwork, pottery, and fishing They traded with merchants in the cities to get grain, and they relied on the cities for defense and religious ritual By 3000 b.c.e., however, most of these villages had been swallowed up by the larger cities, and the residents were coopted to work for the city’s irrigation canals and farms By the first millennium b.c.e towns and villages had been established throughout the Levant, Persia, and Anatolia as well 1089 as in Mesopotamia Towns continued to be located near water sources and cultivable land Most towns had a central area for people to meet and trade, and most contained a communal place of worship Towns often sprang up along trade routes, such as the Persian Royal Road that ran across the Persian Empire Some towns were quite small and simply organized, but as time went on they acquired more local government During the fift h and fourth centuries b.c.e the Greek model of town organization spread into Asia Minor Towns of this period were carefully planned, and the land was divided in a regular pattern Each town contained an agora—an open space where people could gather to exchange goods or conduct business The agora might contain a stoa—a building used for various purposes, including conducting courts of law and other civic activities Later towns often had several stoas surrounding the agora, marking the space as an official public area This type of town design spread throughout the Near East and Persia during the Hellenistic period, as Alexander the Great traveled through the region and founded numerous cities The Romans imposed their own form of order on Near Eastern towns during the empire Towns were built on a rectangular grid pattern and included a forum—an open square used for business and politics The local government organized the building of streets, sewers, and public water supplies Many towns had fortifications to protect the residents from enemy attacks The government also handled matters of taxation, grain distribution, and legal administration During the late empire Rome’s central administration deteriorated, and local people throughout the Near East took on more responsibility for their local government In Asia Minor and the Levant local religious rulers gained power over towns and took on the fi nancial responsibility of maintaining them ASIA AND THE PACIFIC BY KIRK H BEETZ The region of Asia and the Pacific encompasses vastly varying climates, and the towns and villages built in ancient times varied according to people’s needs for shelter from the weather, for protection, and for cooperative living As early as 9000 b.c.e., and probably much earlier, people in Siberia and central Asia were using bones and skins from animals such as mammoths to build shelters These people were cooperative hunters who probably gathered in small villages in order to easily form hunting packs for pursuing large game The villages also would have allowed for greater numbers of people to deal with injuries and to gather together to keep warm in the often frigid environment Far to the south, in Southeast Asia, people were dealing with a very different environment: one that was warm and wet and becoming wetter The coast offered opportunities for fishing, and people clustered together in villages to work together to harvest food from the sea Not much is known of