Role of environment

I have been reading a lot about the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant, Crete and Greece and the topic of their environment keeps coming up. Was a central role played by the environment or was it overemphasized? To what extent did it affect intercultural contacts, economic prosperity, political organization, or artistic production?

In the Mesopotamian question, yes - this is because of the soft, muddy and standy ground of the Tigris-Euphrates flood basin. The clay is baked hard by the sun and doesn't have much carrying capacity for water to begin with and therefore means that the Tigris and Euphrates rivers can switch and change dramatically over a period of time - unlike in Egypt - where the nile was constantly fed by sources up in Ethopia such as the highland snows and a series of large lakes, the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates were far more variable. Therefore, environment did play a very large part, especially in the history of Mesopotamia - although the land was fertile for crops and husbandry, the floods were wildly unpredictable and natural resources were few and far between - rock for building was a very rare commodity, as was timber, which was often traded in from Lebanon, the fertile cresent and Asia Minor. I would give a "yes" to that question in many respects - in fact, much of the Sumerian culture was developed directly by the environment - the attitude which George Roux (his book "Ancient Iraq" is a must) calls the "Sumerian paranoia" is the feeling of almost depression that one comes across in their epic and theological works due to the unpredicatable nature of the environment and politics of the region. In fact, one can say that the politics are in fact due to the environment as well - when comparing Persia, Asia Minor and Egypt to Mesopotamia, it would appear that the latter politically changes much more rapidly compared to the others. This is because we constantly see in ancient Mesopotamia states with a need for various materials which are easiest to just take from one's neighbours - moreover, new dynasties and the cultural and political diversity is constantly changed by nomadic groups of the "boarders" of the region that attempt to force their way in to gain the agricultural benefits of the Mesopotamian area. Mesopotamia appeared to have a just...larger amount of arable land for people to farm on, whilst Egypt had a smaller but on the whole, more safer and predicitable river, as well as a better geographical situation against invasion in the long run. In all "true" Mesopotamian empires (...meaning those actually based in the Sumerian and Akkadian areas) we see a very quick rise and then a very slow decline due to a sudden burst in power from invasion, but the unpredictable political and geographical nature of the land makes it very difficult to solidify rule.