The MESO Model (10,000BCE - 0BCE) Mesopotamia

 

This Page is UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Mesopotamia (-10,000BCE - 0BCE) is an historical region of the Middle East that touches on the modern areas of Iraq and the transition from the Arab World to Iran. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, from 2003-2011, the US invaded Iraq and from 2026-Present the US (and Israel) have been bombing Iran and fighting over the Straight of Hormuz. In other words, what was once Mesopotamia and Iraq has been a contested area for the last 2000+ years.

The graphic above shows the (Overall Growth) and Malthusian (Q-N) state variables for the MESO model.

From the 0-2000 AD Data (below), we might predict that data from the BC period would (1) show little growth, (2) show no technological change, and (3) be controller by Malthusian dynamics. The problem is testing these hypotheses.

I have developed a WBC Model (see below) for the variables Population (N), Production (Q) and Global Temperature (T) using available data and a number of assumptions.

Notes

• Stone Age a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, with the advent of metalworking. Because of its enormous timescale, it encompasses 99% of human history.
• Bronze Age an archaeological and anthropological term defining a phase in the development of material culture among ancient societies in Asia, the Near East and Europe. An ancient civilization or culture is deemed part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system, following the Stone Age and preceding the Iron Age.
• Iron Age the final epoch of the three-age system of technology after the Copper Age and Bronze Age.
• Mesopotamia a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran.

MESO Data

The Mesopotamia period (-10,000BCE - 0BCE) includes the  Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. The variables N (Population), Q (Gross Domestic Product) and Global Temperature (T) were generated by queries to ChatGPT. The data are considered speculative but reasonable. The data were generated in variable increments from 1000 years to 250 years. Missing data were estimated using Nonlinear Spline Interpolation to a consistent interval of 250 years.

 Part of the evaluation of the data involves the Measurement Matrix and State Space model generated from the data.

MESO Model Measurement Matrix

The MESO Model has three component state variables that explain 100% of the variation in the indicators: W1 =  (T-Growth) a TEMP Controller, W2 = (Growth) and W3 = (Q - N),
a Malthusian Controller.

MESO AIC Statistics

MESO Global Temperature Input

MESO BAU Model 

MESO WBC-Input Model

MESO WBC BAU Model

MESO Model Shock Input

Global Temperature

AD Data

From the graph of GDP above (W_Q) for the World System, it can be seen that economic growth from the year 0-1500 was basically flat. The period of British Capitalism (after 1500) had a small plateau of growth. Takeoff does not happen until the Nineteenth Century.

Links

• World Population the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion (8,000,000,000) on November 15, 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 218 more years from there to reach 8 billion. As of 2026, the world population is approximately 8.3 billion. However, this figure is only a very rough approximation
• World Production also known as gross world income (GWI), is the combined gross national income (previously, the "gross national product") of all the countries in the world. Because imports and exports balance exactly when considering the whole world, this also equals the total global gross domestic product (GDP).
• Global Temperature  the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. 
• AMOC Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is the main ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean...Because the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is dependent on a series of interactions between layers of ocean water of varying temperature and salinity, it is not static but experiences small, cyclical changes and larger, long-term shifts in response to external forcings. Many of those shifts occurred during the Late Pleistocene (126,000 to 11,700 years ago), which was the final geological epoch before the current Holocene. It also includes the Last Glacial Period, which is colloquially known as the "last ice age".
• Agricultural Civilizations The development of agriculture about 12,000 years ago changed the way humans lived. They switched from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to permanent settlements and farming.
• Roman Warm Period or Roman Climatic Optimum, was a period of unusually-warm weather in Europe and the North Atlantic that ran from approximately 250 BC to AD 400.
• Roman Empire a state that dominated the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa during the classical period. 27 BC – AD 395 (unified), AD 395 – 476/480 (Western), AD 395–1453 (Eastern).
• Dark Ages a term, now deprecated by most historians, for the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th centuries), or occasionally the entire Middle Ages (c. 5th–15th centuries), in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which characterizes it as marked by economic, intellectual, and cultural decline.
• Middle Ages  (c. 5th–15th centuries) comparable with the post-classical period of global history. The medieval period is the middle epoch of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.
• Feudalism also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, religious, and political institutions and customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
• Capitalism  an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.
• Mesopotamia a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran.
• Grecian Empire Under the reign of Philip II (359–336 BC), the Argead kingdom of Macedonia, initially at the periphery of classical Greek affairs, came to dominate Ancient Greece in the span of less than 25 years, largely thanks to the character and policies of its king.
• Three-Age System The division of human prehistory (with some overlap into the historical periods in a few regions) into three time-periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, although the concept may also refer to other tripartite divisions of historic time periods. In some systems, a fourth Copper Age is added as between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. The Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages are also known collectively as the Metal Ages.
• Stone Age (3.4MYA - 3,000BCE) a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, with the advent of metalworking. Because of its enormous timescale, it encompasses 99% of human history.
• Copper Age (6,500BCE - 3,000BCE) The Chalcolithic (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. 
• Bronze Age (3,000BCE) An ancient civilization or culture is deemed part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere.
• Iron Age (12,000BCE - 550BCE) the final epoch of the three-age system of technology after the Copper Age and Bronze Age.
• Akkadian Empire (2,334 BCE - 2,154 BCE) an ancient kingdom established around 2300 BCE, often seen as the first empire in world history, succeeding and unifying the long-lived city-states of the Early Dynastic period and exercised significant influence across Mesopotamia.
• Third Dynasty of Ur (2,112BC - 2,004 BC) a Mesopotamian dynasty based in the city of Ur in the 21st century BC (middle chronology). For a short period they were the preeminent power in Mesopotamia and their realm is sometimes referred to by historians as the Neo-Sumerian Empire.
• Babylon (2,200 BC - 1,000AD) an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about 85 kilometres (53 miles) south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-speaking region of Babylonia.
• Assyrian Empire (2,025 BC - 609 BC) a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed from the 21st to the 7th century BCE which conquered and administered most of West Asia from the Assyrian heartland in Upper Mesopotamia.
• The Persian Empire typically refers to the Achaemenid Empire, which existed between 550 and 330 BC. Assyria was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed from the 21st to the 7th century BCE which conquered and administered most of West Asia from the Assyrian heartland in Upper Mesopotamia.