I think we are undercounting how much silt gets deposited by major river systems over millenia. The ruins of Lothal, which was a Harappan port city contemporary with Ur are pretty far inland as well. Who knows? Maybe Giza was closer to the coast and was part of a major Nilotic coastal metropolis
We tend to underestimate how complex even pre Bronze Age kingdoms were. To rule them, our ancestors came up with an intricate way to let different combinations of symbols represent abstract thoughts.
Rights to privately acquire land, create corporations, and sell across markets were extant across different civilizations throughout history.
The Chola merchant guilds had formalized corporate structures that dissipated the risk of long voyages 2000 years ago. Seeing that the Romans traded with the Cholas, the Romans probably had corporate structures too.
Humans have been living in complex societies since the Bronze Age. It’s difficult to run a complex society without some sort of bureaucratic organization.
Ive always wondered this: has a species have an evolutionary history where they originated in land but adapted to living in water and then adapted to living on land again?
I know that’s it’s established that some of the oldest civilizations started in Anatolia/Mesopotamia. Could it be because the dry climate there preserves old structures better than damp Germany or tropical Southeast Asia?