Write a brief note on the sources and urbanization of the Bronze Age.

 Sources for the Bronze Age: The Bronze Age means the pre-historic period in which bronze was used for the first time. We know about this period from written records available and from its material remains.  The material smains tell us about its widespread use by the people of the period. The practice of writing was started in a number of cultures of the Bronze Age.

The cuneiform writing of Sumerians, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Cretan hieroglyphs, Chinese logographs, etc. were among these. Cuneiform is the Mesopotamian writing and the Egyptian form of writing is known as hieroglyphs. The other forms of archaeological evidences include monuments, art and different other objects such as pottery, ornaments, tools, etc, which were being used by these people.

The material remains are organic or inorganic. Organic materials are cloth, wood, etc. which do not remain intact for a long time and these do not survive. The inorganic materials such as stone, metal and clay, etc. do survive for longer durations. A number of texts belonging to the Mesopotamia and Egyptian civilizations have survived. These have also been read and understood.

We get a lot of information from these texts about the histories of these two civilizations. The Egyptian pyramids and the temples, palaces, graves, etc. belonging to Mesopo-tamian cities have been studied by archaeologists. The houses and other archeological remains of the things being used commonly by the people also inform us about the societies and the lives of its various sections. The Bronze Age was characterized by its association with urbanism. There has to be a good agriculture base for urbanism. 

On the basis of some archaeological evidences, the growth of urbanism in the Bronze Age has been termed as the Urban Revolution by Gordon Childe. A number of cities, for example, Ur and Uruk in Mesopotamia and Mohenjodaro and Harappa in South Asia, were typical Bronze Age cities which had different types of monumental architecture, writing, art, etc. and there was a growth of various non-agricultural occupations, specialists as well as growth of trade covering different regions.

The Fertile Crescent comprises of the areas from the Levant to Iran. About 10000 to 8000 years back, in the northern mountainous regions of the Fertile Crescent, there was a beginning of farming and animal breeding. But urbanism did not start in these areas and the people had gone to the alluvial plains of south Mesopotamia. Urban development had begun thereafter, starting from the mountainous region and gradually moving towards the northern alluvial areas in modern day Baghdad.

Thereafter again, people had moved in large numbers from the northern part of alluvium to the southern alluvium during the Early-Middle Uruk period about 4000 to 3400 BCE and by the Late Uruk period around 3400 to 3200 BCE, such significant shift had become easily noticeable.  According to Robert Adams, the growth of cities in the southern alluvimn in mesopotamia can be attributed to a combination of factors including the southward movement by a large numbers of villagers and also due to the adoption of sedemary Lifestyle by the nomadic poenie.

Because of all this, there wes rapid increase in the population of cities (for example Uruk) in the southern alluvium which can be said from the increase in the size of the area of Uruk city which grew from 70 hectares (during Early Uruk period) to about 100 hectares (during Late Uruk period) and thereafter to ghout no hectares during Early Dynastie period from 3000 2350 BOD f the same way, in South Asia, the population had moved from the hills of the Baluchistan region to the Indus valley.

It is also believed that a greater increase in agricultural productivity did not take place in the small areas of hilly valleys. But in the larger plains of the great rivers, there was large increase in productivity. We know that there were small Harappan settlements in the hilly areas. But after the movement of people into valley areas in the Mature Harappan period, there were larger settlements.

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