為什麼歐洲沒有像美索不達米亞、埃及等古代文明一樣的文明？_風聞

【來源龍騰網】

評論原創翻譯：

Matt Riggsby

When you say “like Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc.”, I assume you mean a pristine civilization, one which arose spontaneously and without outside influence. It looks like there are a few conditions preconditioning the rise of civilization. Europe didn’t have those conditions at the time when civilizations were appearing nearby, and the expansion and influence of those civilizations made the question moot shortly thereafter.

當你説“像美索不達米亞、埃及等”時，我想你指的是一個原始的文明，一個自發產生的、沒有外部影響的文明。看起來有幾個條件可以為文明的崛起做準備。當文明在附近出現時，歐洲並不具備這些條件，而這些文明的擴張和影響使這個問題在不久之後變得毫無意義。

Civilization requires a large subsistence base. Civilizations have to support significant numbers of centrally located non-farmers, so there needs to be a significant agricultural surplus. At the time the first civilizations were arising in Egypt and Mesopotamia, Europe was in the process of switching from hunting and gathering to agriculture, so most places in Europe weren’t even remotely ready to support urban populations.

文明需要一個龐大的生存基礎。不同文明必須支持大量位於中心的非農民，因此需要有大量的農業盈餘。當埃及和美索不達米亞出現第一批文明時，歐洲正處於從狩獵和採集向農業轉變的過程中，因此歐洲大多數地方甚至還沒有做好支持城市人口的準備。

Another significant theme in early civilizations appears to be resources which it’s difficult for people to walk away from. In most cases (Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus, Peru; the early Yellow River civilization is a little iffy on this point), civilizations seem to rise in river valleys going through deserts. They’re great places to live with easy transport and fertile land, but they’re surrounded by hostile wasteland. This leads to denser populations because people can’t spread out easily to avoid conflict and do their own thing. People have to come up with some way of mediating conflicts and otherwise dealing with one another when they can’t just leave. They end up inventing government and civilization. Similar mechanisms involving capital investment may be in play as well (if you’ve spent years working on an irrigation network or grape vines, you’re likely to accept more complex society than abandoning it all), but the point is that civilizations tend to arise from situations where people would prefer to stay in situations of increasing social complexity and population density than strike out on their own. And Europe, which doesn’t have deserts keeping people in fertile river valleys and hadn’t developed large holdings of capital-intensive resources like vineyards and irrigation networks yet, wasn’t nudging people towards civilization at the time.

早期文明中的另一個重要主題似乎是資源，這些資源對人們來説很難放棄。在大多數情況下（美索不達米亞、埃及、印度河流域、秘魯；早期的黃河文明在這一點上有些不確定），文明似乎在穿越沙漠的河谷中興起。這些地方是宜居的地方，交通便利，土地肥沃，但周圍都是充滿敵意的荒地。這導致人口密集，因為人們不能輕易地分散以避免衝突和做自己想做的事情。人們必須想出某種方法來調解衝突，否則彼此相處時。他們最終發明了政府和文明。類似的機制也可能參與了資本投資方面（如果你花了數年時間修建灌溉系統或葡萄園，你會接受比放棄更復雜的社會），但重要的是，文明往往出現在人們寧願留在日益增長的社會複雜性和人口密度的情況下而不是獨立闖蕩的環境中。而當時的歐洲沒有像沙漠那樣的地方讓人們待在肥沃的河谷中，並且尚未開發出資本密集型資源，例如葡萄園和灌溉網絡，因此並未激勵人們走向文明。

Now, you may have noticed that I keep saying things like “at the time” or “when civilization was arising in Egypt and Mesopotamia.” That’s another significant issue for a potential pristine European civilization. Left to its own devices, could Europe have built its own completely native civilization? Perhaps. It is no accident that the first urban society in Europe arose not just where Europe had the most sophisticated technology, but also where it was in direct contact with not one but two other civilizations. Contact with Egypt across the Mediterranean and the Mesopotamian cultural sphere in next-door southwestern Asia kickstarted European civilization, which combined elements of both with its own native cultures. Civilization came in from the outside before it could start inside.

你可能已經注意到了，我一直在説“當時”或“當文明在埃及和美索不達米亞興起時”。這是潛在的原始歐洲文明的另一個重要問題。如果讓它自行發展，歐洲能否建立自己完全本土的文明？也許可以。歐洲第一個城市化社會的出現並不僅僅是因為歐洲擁有最先進的技術，而且還因為它與不只一個文明直接接觸。通過地中海與埃及的聯繫以及毗鄰西南亞的美索不達米亞文化圈的聯繫，啓動了歐洲文明，該文明將兩者的元素與其本土文化相結合。文明在其內部開始之前就已經從外部進入。

Suzanne Marie Redalia Sullivan

Early European civilizations were not exactly like Mesopotamia or Egypt, but the Vinca culture of Eastern and Central Europe (5th and 6th millennium BC) appears to have had a writing system, similar to that of the Dispilio tablet, (5202 BC, Macedonia) and the Vinca culture developed into the Cucuteni culture, with writing similar to Byblos scxt, and agriculture, animal care, ceramics, stylized statues like those of the ancient Cyclades islands, woven textiles. In Varna, Bulgaria, a graveyard was found, dating from 4600–4100 BC, full of gold obxts amassed by people who had established a weapons trade network that stretched all the way to Spain. These people at Varna were also cattle breeders and some of the gold artifacts in the graves were buttons shaped like cattle. Another remark about the Cucuteni culture, some really large towns were built in their time, towns which held thousands of people. So if civilizations were just beginning in Eastern and Southern Europe during the Neolithic, what is known about Mesopotamia and Egypt during the Neolithic? Their civilizations were also just beginning then.

早期的歐洲文明並不完全像美索不達米亞或埃及，但東歐和中歐的文卡文化（公元前5和6千年）似乎有一個書寫系統，類似於Dispilio碑（公元前5202年，馬其頓），文卡文化發展為庫庫特尼文化，有類似於比布魯斯文字的書寫，以及農業、動物護理、陶瓷、像古代基克拉迪羣島的風格化雕像、編織的紡織品。在保加利亞的瓦爾納，發現了一個墓地，時間為公元前4600-4100年，裏面堆滿了黃金製品，這些人建立了一個武器貿易網絡，一直延伸到西班牙。瓦爾納的這些人也是養牛的人，墓穴中的一些金器是牛的形狀的紐扣。關於庫庫特尼文化的另一個説法是，在他們的時代，一些真正的大城鎮被建造出來，這些城鎮可以容納成千上萬的人。因此，如果新石器時代東歐和南歐的文明剛剛開始，那麼新石器時代美索不達米亞和埃及的情況又如何呢？他們的文明在那時也是剛剛開始。

I think we should not overlook the Hittites, their civilization was contemporary with that of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but they lived in what is now eastern Turkey, which is part of Europe. The oldest buildings in Europe, carved with bas relief art of lions, scorpions, bulls, ducks and wild boar, are at Gobekli Tepe, Turkey, and are 11,500 years old. The people of Gobekli Tepe, too, could read and write. Stamp seals with writing similar to Proto-Canaanitic were found there.

我認為我們不應該忽略赫梯人，他們的文明與埃及和美索不達米亞同時代，但他們居住在現在的土耳其東部，那裏是歐洲的一部分。歐洲最古老的建築是在土耳其的戈比克利特佩，用浮雕藝術雕刻了獅子、蠍子、公牛、鴨子和野豬，有1.15萬年曆史。戈比克利特佩的人們也可以讀寫。那裏發現了類似於原始迦南文字的印章。

Southern European ancient civilizations included the Minoans, who had a king, palaces, writing, trade, monuments, agriculture, and so forth. Similar cultures existed in pre-Roman Italy, which was occupied not just by Italian tribes, but also by Phoenicians in the south, Etruscans in the northwest, and Italo-Celts in the northeast.

南歐古代文明包括米諾斯人，他們有國王、宮殿、文字、貿易、紀念碑、農業等等。前羅馬時代的意大利也存在類似的文化，不僅被意大利部落佔領，南部的腓尼基人、西北部的伊特魯里亞人和東北部的伊塔洛凱爾特人也佔領了意大利。

Dinu Bogdan Marius

Maybe the correct answer is the Europe have had this kind of civilizations but the research work related isn’t yet completed.Recently (in 2017) the ruin of an very old town was discovered in Romania (Turdas area).Seems that is the oldest town in the SE Europe (dated 4200 BC with almost 2000 y before Egyptian pyramids). The surface of the town was estimated at 100 ha (means that is larger then Troy was) . The problem is that this huge area request too much money to made a full archaeologically work…

也許正確的答案是歐洲曾經有這種文明，但相關的研究工作尚未完成。最近（2017年）在羅馬尼亞的圖爾達斯地區發現了一座非常古老的城鎮遺址。似乎這是東南歐的最古老城鎮（公元前4200年，比埃及金字塔早了將近2000年）。該城鎮的面積估計為100公頃（比特洛伊還大）。問題是，這個巨大的區域需要花費太多錢來進行全面的考古工作……

From another point of view the place where ‘Tartaria’ tablets was find (the tablets are considered as the first form of writing ) is situated into the same region and the dates seems to be in sync from the same period.

從另一個角度來看，“塔爾塔里亞” 石板的發現地（這些石板被認為是第一種書寫形式）位於同一地區，而且日期似乎與同一時期相符。

原創翻譯：龍騰網 http://www.ltaaa.cn 轉載請註明出處

However without a strong research work is difficult to have a correct picture about what it was Europe., from civilizations perspective with more than 5 or 6 millennial’s ago.Basically any new discovery must be cheeked ,reviewed and reassessed . Based on this reuation the conclusions can be very different in comparison with what we know today about old Europe.

然而，如果沒有強有力的研究工作，很難對歐洲有一個正確的瞭解。，從文明的角度來看，超過5或6個千年前。基本上，任何新發現都必須受到重視、審查和重新評估。基於這種重新評估，與我們今天對舊歐洲的瞭解相比，結論可能會大不相同。