Week 1 Blog Post

            My group members and I walked into class Thursday, unsuspecting of what Professor Sanchez had in store for us. We trusted him to guide us down the monotonous path formally known as “the history of cities and how they have changed over time.” But, this mundane, commonly trodden, dirt path – before our eyes – transformed into a lively park filled with adventure and knowledge. This experience is what we make of it. And, being my group’s first blog post, we intend to make the most of this situation. In todays post, we hope to guide you - as the reader - through the roles of hierarchy, record keeping, and walls in ancient cities (and we hope you learn something along the way).

            In class, our professor described hierarchy as “an innate human creation.” He said it was created because of human’s desire for power, and it also helps to organize people into distinct groups. Essentially, it rewards people for their hard work (hopefully), and puts people in a specific class that way, specialization can occur, increasing the overall efficiency of a body/city.  On the other hand, an article from learninggeneralist.com claims the word hierarchy is hated by many modern organizations because it tends to slow decision-making and undermine exceptional people. I will attempt to cover up my bias in this post; however, I feel it is clear what side most people will take on this issue. Historically, hierarchies were employed because a king could not run a kingdom alone, thus he employed advisors. These advisors, employed people to help them, and so on and so on until we get down to the very bottom of the social pyramid – the slaves. “The hierarchy was in place to achieve a set of organizational objectives and for leader to actually spend more time with their people. So the purpose of hierarchy in the first place, wasn't really to add process or slow down decision-making -- in fact it aided decision-making in a big way. Nor was this to undermine exceptional people - in fact it was put in place to get the best out of them and to ensure that there was someone empowered to help them remove blockers and look at problems differently” (http://www.learninggeneralist.com/2009/01/history-of-hierarchy.html).Yet, history has assured us that the goal hierarchies were meant to fulfill was not achieved… sadly enough. Now… onto the role of record keeping!

            A need for record keeping has always existed; whether it be orally, written down, etc.… In early times, record keeping was conducted mainly through spoken word, passed down from generation to generation. This need for record keeping was also described as “instinctual” by our professor: Humans wants to learn from their mistakes and do not want to forget their accomplishments. Records often did not have exact information such as dates and places (http://undeception.com/ancient-vs-modern-history/). As time and technology progressed new forms of record keeping have been created, such as writing down history and information on paper. This allowed historians to become much more exact in their accounts of historical events such as times, places, and people involved. Lastly, lets talk about the role of walls in historic societies…

The wall was one of the earliest forms of defense because nomads, wild animals, and other cities surrounded historic urban societies- some with the goal of taking over these establishments. Nomadic peoples knew that cities had food and water and never hesitated to form raids in an attempt to obtain such supplies. Kings often wanted to take over other cities for food, territory, and slaves, but were prevented from doing so by one of the simplest, yet effective structures—the wall. This important structure also acted as a tool for order along with a Citadel. The wall, while normally meant for keeping unwanted visitors out, was also used to keep uncooperative people in who retaliated against the king. The Citadel also was used to represent a central authority. With authority comes order. 
The following website talks of the Great Wall of China and how “its purpose was to protect China from outside aggression, but also to preserve its culture from the customs of foreign barbarians” (http://www.globalmountainsummit.org/great-wall-of-china.html).