# 1st landlocked (or at least inland) civilization? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 26, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139 "2012-05-26T04:13:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/1 "2012-05-26T04:13:43Z")
What was the 1st civilization to crop up away from a major body of water? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/2 "2012-05-26T04:22:09Z")
Does major rivers count? If so I’d be very surprised if there is any. All of the great ancient cities of the world are on rivers for a very good reason. If Rivers don’t count then I nominate Sumer: > **[Sumer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer)** > > Sumer (/ˈsuːmər/) is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of civilization in the world, along with ancient Egypt, Elam, the Caral-Supe civilization, Mesoamerica, the Indus Valley civilisation, and ancient China. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of... ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/3 "2012-05-26T04:25:23Z")
Rivers count! (excludes: Egypt, India, Mesopotamia, among others) ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/4 "2012-05-26T04:33:42Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Rivers count! (excludes: Egypt, India, Mesopotamia, among others) You’re not going to find any then, Civilizations need abundant fresh water. Even Timbuktu which was the centre of a major civilization on the edge of the Sahara had a major river 15km away (River Niger). Unless you mean “modern cities” and even then Las Vegas is in the middle of the desert and its only 15km from the Colorado river. Check out the capitals of landlocked countries with ancient civilisations like Tibet and Mongolia, they’re on rivers… ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/5 "2012-05-26T04:36:33Z")
Shouldn’t be surprised. Thought it’d be hard to find one. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/6 "2012-05-26T04:41:42Z")
Jeeves claims Ethiopia ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/7 "2012-05-26T05:14:03Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Jeeves claims Ethiopia Theres plenty of Rivers in Ethiopia and I can’t find the locations of where the ancient civilizations capitols were but I’ll bet you they were on River banks. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/8 "2012-05-26T06:55:26Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Jeeves claims Ethiopia I’m pretty sure they haven’t always been landlocked, considering that Aksum used to be a major trade empire. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/9 "2012-05-26T07:18:17Z")
Several Mesoamerican civilizations, well advanced by late Preclassic times (around the time of Christ), did not have coastline nor navigable rivers --the Zapotecs (early developers of writing) in highland and high-valley Oaxaca, and the early Teotihuacanos of central Mexico among them. Trade mainly by humans walking. In the Andes at the same time – that is, over a thousand years before the Incas – you had some rather advanced landlocked civilizations as well, like the Tihuanacus and the Huari. In Eurasia, the first thing that came to my mind were the Buddhist speakers of the easternmost Indo-European languages, Tocharian A and B – but they were actually quite late, around 8th or 9th century AD, something like that. Silk road stuff. Long-distance traders without rivers or oceans (this time, by pack animal). I don’t think anyone defines “landlocked” as excluding rivers simply big enough for drinking water or irrigation, as a previous poster implied. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-landlocked-or-at-least-inland-civilization/623139/10 "2012-05-26T07:46:56Z")
Axum had access to the coast, the earlier “Ethiopian” civilisations were Sudanese and based on the Nile. I’ll say the Tarim basin civilisations. Riverine, maybe, but not a major river and a river than didn’t flow into the see but just disappears in the desert. If the OP just wants to exclude access to maritime trade, then definitely Tarim. Otherwise, maybe the early Hittites. They expanded to the coast and the Mesopotamian rivers later, but started up on the high plains of Anatolia, no see, no major rivers. Khattusas, their capital, is now just bleak moor.