Labor and Economic Production - Ancient Mediterranean History

agrarian economy

Ancient world is an

consequences of a complex agrarian economy

Levels of productivity are low, Services are small, Food portions are small, Majority of population must be productive in a primary economic sense, Majority of population lives in the countryside, No mass education (Not enough time or resources for many people to engage with learning, No mass literacy)

There cannot be shared culture

beneath the level of the literate elite

Huge wealth disparity

Not many avenues for upward social mobility

Highly differentiated rural landscapes

Countless micro regions in different ecological settings, Huge variations spatially and graphically

Uses of uncultivated land

Grazing livestock, Collection of nutrients, Extraction of minerals, Extraction of metals, Extraction of wood/timber, Riverine products

Land ownership

Single nuclear family cultivating a small farm with some hired and slave labor, Some seasonal laborers as well

Productive industries in Roman countryside

Ceramic production, Textile production, Brick production, Mining 

Public building was important

Required sustained inputs of human labor, Nature of labor behind big public building (Monumental complexes are evidence for coordinating function of the central state)

Egypt

Pyramids not built by aliens, Neighborhood found next to Valley of Kings where workers who built the pyramids lived, No evidence that pyramids used slave labor, more likely were skilled laborers (Receiving salary to do these buildings, Shows possible middle class)

Rome

A lot of free salary labor for building, Predominant mode