A History and Prehistory of the Region Called Gaza Today

2 million years of humans to the present

I regard all history (storytelling based on written material, last 5–7 thousand years) as myopic. We know more details of the recent past, i.e. the last century to the moment before now. Many things happened, but other things, over the last six million years of hominin evolution, over two million years of Homo evolution, the last million years of H. sapiens evolution, the last 375 (350–400) thousand years of H.s. sapiens, and the last 55k (50k-60k) years of the expansionist form of H.s. sapiens (aka H.s. insapiens), also happened.

And of course understanding hominins is presumed impossible without understanding primates, mammals, vertebrates, and eukarya, bacteria and archaea, especially those eukaryotes that reproduced sexually. Being male, my brain knows that it’s all about sex. My concept forming brain shares that interest (confession of bias). Oh, I almost forgot, I’m also human, a major source of bias in my storytelling (and that of other humans).

So let’s go all out temporal biased, focus only on humans, and start with hot off the screen current events. Humans occupy the entire planet. Every place and person has a history up to “the present” as moving moment. I could pick a person living in Antarctica, chronicle their day so far, but I would need to mention the others they live with and depend upon, their group apart from which they would have no history, i.e. no existence yesterday, this year, and all prior years before they became Antarcticans (who was the first human born on Antarctica? I’ll guess none have been, but I could be wrong as “history” could have failed to note the first). There is no separate or permanent individual existence, not even for tardigrades.

Or perhaps pick a place and people not as much on the margins of “history,” one closer to a “crossroads.” Oh, I got it, it’s “in the news” of today, Palestine. Let’s focus myopically on Palestine, just because.

I could pick a person whose mother was killed in a hospital destroyed by munition in the third most densely populated area of the planet. This person, their extended family, their people, agree that their future security depends on there being more of their people to prevail over the other people who want to destroy them (as believed to be or actually out there).

Almost all other humans on the planet, being myopic and Provençal political animals, take sides, socially-construct the ‘reality’ they believe in and know to be true. They will live in and die (and kill) for what is indubitably true. Such constructs rarely map to actual history, biophysical reality (what’s in front of our pug-nosed faces), or other people’s constructs that are obvious falsehoods, fabrications, absurdities, willful ignorance, and delusive prattle, unlike true social constructs.

I consider the history of the last hundred years to be noise, or at least too noisy to be coherent, especially now (early 21st century) when change is happening so fast that it can be observed within the course of a individual’s lifetime.

Our evermore hyper-acceleration (the Great Acceleration) began among storytellers in Europe in the 18th century. Given the high rate of change, I suppose a closer look at the last century, the events of a centurion's lifetime, seems justified by modern humans, more so than the last 3,750 centuries.

Given that my brain sees time as moving forward, it seems odd to start with the present (the eternal now) and tell a story backwards, but you can skip the the end and read up. That would be the better way to counter the cognitive pathology that political animals swim in.

But from the top down (all details are from Wikipedia):

A political entity, established in Gaza in 1973 as a religious charity (associated with the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood), arose in 1987, as part of the First Intifada. Hamas grew in numbers and power, and took control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah in a coup d’etat following a civil war in 2007. Since then, it has run Gaza as a de facto autocratic and one-party state. Many/some “Palestinians” do not identify with Hamas or their “Palestinian state” just as many/some Jews do not identify with Zionism.

Okay, pick any place on the planet and the story differs in the details and number of dead bodies (zero in some places despite ferocious political contending — if words could kill…).

Look beyond the details to see the same story of expansionist humans contending.

1. Hamas rules the Gaza Strip (2007-present).
2. Before Hamas the Fatah party ran Gaza 2005–2007.
3. Before Fatah the area came under Israeli military occupation following the 1967 Six-Day War and they administered the territory until 2005 when Fatah, rival party to Hamas, attempted to manage the area as a Palestinian state of, by, and for Palestinians (no Jews allowed).
4. Before the Israeli military occupation (Egypt lost the Six-Day War), the area was ruled by the United Arab Republic (UAR), a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 until 1971 and administered by an Egyptian military governor since 1959.
5. Before UAR the area was claimed by the All-Palestine Government, established by the Arab League in 1948. The All-Palestine Government was managed under the military authority of Egypt, functioning as a puppet state, i.e. no “Palestinians” were asked to run the show by the Arab League.
6. Before the Egyptian All-Palestine Government’s puppet rule, the modern state of Israel arose to the north and east of the area that was occupied by the United Kingdom (1918–1948) as decreed by the League of Nations after WWI (somebody had to administer the area), the rule was by “the British mandate.” which was not a Palestinian state (note that there was never a Palestinian state before 2005).
7. Before the British mandate there was the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922).
8. Before the Ottoman Empire there was the Islamic Mamluk Sultanate, an Islamic state that ruled Egypt, Syria, and parts of Anatolia, Upper Mesopotamia, and the Hejaz from 1250 to 1517. The Mamluks were a class of slave warriors who seized power in Egypt in 1250.
9. Before the Islamic Mamluk Sultanate there was the Ayyubid dynasty established by Saladin in 1171.
10. Before The Ayyubid Sultanate, Godfrey of Bouillon, a Christian and a pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade, conquered the area in 1099 on behalf of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem.
11. Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem there was the Fatimid Caliphate that also ruled much of North Africa from 909 to 1171 CE.
12. Before the Fatimid Caliphate there was the Byzantine Empire (395–1453 CE).
13. Before the Byzantine Empire there was the Roman Empire (27 BCE–395 CE).
14. Before the Roman Empire there was the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE).
15. Before the Hasmonean dynasty there was the Seleucid Empire (312–64 BCE).
16. Before the Seleucid Empire there was the empire of Alexander the 3rd of Macedon (336–323 BCE).
17. Before the empire of Alexander the 3rd of Macedon there was the Persian Empire (550–330 BC).
18. Before the Achaemenid Empire there was the Babylonian Empire (550–330 BCE).
19. Before the Babylonian Empire there was the Kingdom of Judah (930 BCE–c. 587 BCE).
20. Before the Kingdom of Judah there was the Kingdom of Israel aka the theocracy of the 12 tribes of Israel (1047 BC to 930 BC).
21. Before the theocracy of the 12 tribes of Israel there was Ramesses III of Egypt who built a monument after driving out the Peoples of the Sea (c. 1194 BC) .
22. Before Ramesses III of Egypt was the Late Bronze Age collapse Sea Peoples who occupied the area (c. 1206–1150 BCE).
23. Before the Sea Peoples the region operated as a colony of the New Kingdom of Egypt as a source of slave labor (16th–11th centuries BCE) except during the New Kingdom of Egypt Dark Age, lasting 405 years, 1069 BCE — 664 BCE.
24. Before the New Kingdom of Egypt was an Egyptian-ruled colony the Middle Kingdom (2050–1710 BCE) used as a source of slave labor except for the Middle Kingdom of Egypt Dark Age, lasting 100 years, 1650 BCE — 1550 BCE.
25. Before the Middle Kingdom the area was used as a source of slave labor by the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BCE) except for the Old Kingdom of Egypt Dark Age, lasting 126 years, 2181–2055 BCE.
26. Before the Old Kingdom of Egypt were the Akkadians (2500–500 BCE) and assorted Canaanite kingdoms, a semitic people whom the Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians enslaved.
27. Before the Akkadians were the Early Bronze Age (3300–2000 BCE); “Old Syrians”.
28. Before the Old Syrians was the Kish civilization or Kish tradition, or the early East Semitic era starting in the early 4th millennium BCE ending when the Akkadians took the region (the Levant).
29. Before the Kish was the Ghassulian culture of the region, the first Chalcolithic culture of the Levant 5600 BCE. People pre-history are known only through archaeology sites and so whether they ended because they exceeded carrying capacity or they were conquered may be unknown as is what name they called themselves.
30. Before the Ghassulians were the Harifian hunter-gatherer cultures (which lasted from 8500 to 7500 BCE)
31. Before the Harifians were Isnan and Helwan hunter-gatherer cultures of Egypt (which lasted from 9000 to 4500 BCE).
32. Before the Isnans and Helwans were the Natufian culture (12,500–9,500 BCE) who founded the first sedentary settlements, supporting themselves from fishing and the harvest of wild grains prior to transitioning to low intensity agriculture.
33. During the Natufian period, pastoralists from the southern region of the Fertile Crescent passed through the Levant with goats on a back to Africa return of the expansionist form of humans about 11,000 years ago. Some late Natufians adopted goats and grain agriculture.
34. Before the Natufians were the Kebaran culture (18,000 to 10,500 BCE) associated with the use of the bow and arrow and the domestication of the dog.
35. Before the Kebarans were the Halfan culture of Egypt (c. 24,000 — c. 17,000 BCE).
36. Before the Halfans were the Levanto-Aurignacian Ahmarian culture, lasting from 39,000 to 24,000 BCE, who spread widely out the the Levant.
37. Before the Levanto-Aurignacian Ahmarians were the the Boker Tachtit Upper Paleolithic culture, from 52,000 to 50,000 BCE, as out of Africa migrants whose culture was that of aggressive expansionists (omniscient conquerors, aka modern humans).
38. Before the Boker Tachtit Upper Paleolithic culture were the Neanderthal Levalo-Mousterian culture who occupied a cooling Levant 60,000 BCE who were exterminated by c. 42,000 BCE.
39. Before the Mousterians were the first out of Africa K-strategist Homo sapiens sapiens who displaced Neanderthals 90,000 BCE to 60,000 BCE.
40. Before H.s. sapiens left Africa 100 kya as migrants was another subspecies of Homo sapiens, H.s. neanderthalensis whom modern expansionist humans typically fail to view as human. Between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago there was gene and meme flows between Neanderthal and African populations of H. sapiens. For over a hundred thousand years the two subspecies coexisted in the Levant without genocidal contending…. Future humans could too, but not as the aggressive expansionist form of humans that 99.999% of modern humans are.
41. Before H.s. neanderthalensis was Homo sapiens, aka Homo sapiens heidelbergensis whom most modern humans fail to view as the species they are a subspecies of together with H.s. denisova and an unnamed West African subspecies. Heidelberg Man was the first H. sapiens who evolved from the East African form of Homo erectus ergaster about 1 million years ago who occupied the Levant on their way to occupying Eurasia and becoming Neanderthal and Denisova subspecies while those in East Africa evolved into H.s. sapiens about 375k years ago.
42. Before H. sapiens (Heidelberg Man) in the Levant was H. erectus ergaster who had spread from East Africa 1.75 million years ago.
43. Before H. erectus ergaster was Homo erectus who as a K-strategist left Africa and spread widely, including the Levant, about 2 million years ago.
44. Before Homo erectus there were no campfires and no humans in the Levant. But there were plants and other animals, more than since expansionist human domesticants with livestock came to the area to contend after the Natufians were made to go away by competing agrarian cultures, goat cultures, later cattle cultures/fossil fueled cultures, and their history of aggressive contending, taking, and killing.
45. Before humans and vertebrates, the Levant (sometime before 650 mya during the Cryogenian period, there was a Snowball Earth event lasting 15 million years) was covered in ice and there was peace among the sponges and jelly-like creatures in the sea (and eubacteria and archaeons).