Most Important and Influential River in Human History?

[Chinese Regions]

Tigris
Euphrates
Rhine
Danube
Nile
Yangtze
Yellow
Ganges
Indus

[Chinese Regions]

Threeway tie between the Nile, Euphrates and Mississippi.

Niall is gettin some from issippi while Euphrates is all wet.

[Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un]

Tiber river.

[Jack Holland]

The Most Important and Influential River in Human History is the Santa Cruz River

[Chinese Regions]

People are a bit ignorant of the Indus.

[Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un]

The Most Important and Influential River in Human History is the Santa Cruz River

The santa cruz river is not important

[Jack Holland]

The Most Important and Influential River in Southwestern Native AmericanHuman History is the Santa Cruz River

The santa cruz river is not important

Yes it is, if you read my edit

[Etha]

The Rubicon.

[Jack Holland]

But realistically, I think the Euphrates and the Tiger Rivers are the most important since they make up the fertile crescent.

[Mkuki]

I'll go with the Yangtze/Huang He River pair.

[The Carlisle]

The Susquehanna for being the longest river without commercial boat traffic.

But to be serious, I think the Indus river is the most important river.

[Jack Holland]

The biggest question though to consider is where did man originate and what river did he originally live by? Whatever river that was, there you go, question answered. However, the problem is, since many disagree with the origin of man, this question can't be unlaterally solved

[Aryavartha]

There's no arguing that China is a monoculture, and has been such for thousands of years. It's the textbook definition of "uninterrupted political continuity", and both the Yangtze and Yellow River are relevant to China only. However, the Chinese civilisation and its values have not gone beyond their immediate neighbourhood, the Sinosphere. It's certainly a great contributor to human history and diversity, but on a global level, it has been outcompeted by other cultures.

India is a rather modern concept, barring a few early attempts to unify the sub-continent. Ashoka's Empire comes to mind. We could talk about a Hindu continuity and oikumene, and a unified Hindu monoculture, but it never achieved any particular success outside of its borders. Again, limited to its immediate neighbourhood. Plus, both Indian rivers run just through two countries each, India and Pakistan for the Indus, and India and Bangladesh for the Ganges. In addition, what do the local differences matter if they never managed to expose themselves and establish politically?

Mesopotamia certainly was a monoculture with shifting political regimes until it, like Egypt, was conquered by foreign political entities. In modern times, those two rivers go through three countries - Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, inc.

The Rhine is relevant to six countries, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, and partially Austria and Lichtenstein. That's already more diversity than either of the six rivers mentioned above, and those came in pairs. How about we properly pair up the Rhine with the Danube over the Main? You'd have a connection from the North sea to the Black sea. Perhaps as pairs, the Indus/Ganges, Tigris/Euphrates etc can be candidates for most important/influential, but the Rhine can hold up to them alone.

China is much more diverse than being a 'monoculture'. And India is even more so. what is the point of taking 6 small european countries and saying 6 is better than one giant subcontinental country?

[Etha]

The biggest question though to consider is where did man originate and what river did he originally live by? Whatever river that was, there you go, question answered. However, the problem is, since many disagree with the origin of man, this question can't be unlaterally solved

Even if we found the One Original Area, Humanity would have picked up somewhere else had it not been there.

[Vessalius]

The Syr Darya

[Chinese Regions]

On second thoughts, the Indus civilsation was lost wasn't it? Though I consider it a great civilisation, was the Indus influential?

[Shofercia]

They were sedentary, but if they were urban in a meaningful sense, it didn't last. Furthermore, they did not develop strong institutions of specialization and divisions of labor, nor is there any evidence for the existence of a social superstructure in the form of government, administrators, priesthoods, standing militaries, etc. They were ephemeral, and could have developed into a permanent recognizable civilization, but they ultimately disintegrated.

Whatever they were, their collapse was so complete that in a scarce amount of time, around one hundred fifty to two hundred years, none of the present inhabitants of the area knew anything about the people who had built the mounds, or what their civilization was like.

In essence this.

Even more irrelevant than the people on the river valleys of the desert on the Southwestern United States. Or, incredibly, the Tupí tribes.

First, by arguing so vociferously against the US rivers, you both implicitly state that every river cannot be the cradle of civilization. However, you also name the Yellow River, the Tigris & Euphrates, the Indus and the Nile, which simply proves their insignificance, because if you take away any one of them, the cradle of civilization would evolve in the remaining trio. And if we were to assume that Mesopotamia is said cradle, welp, you're still down to two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, making Nana's point, relevant, and your very own arguments, irrelevant. On top of that, rivers which determine boundaries through conquests, or aid in the migration of people, are important, as it's these rivers that carried Civilization from the cradle, to the rest of the planet. Trotsky stated that something might've evolved out of the Native Civilizations, but they were pwnd. However, wouldn't all of the people living in the cradles have been pwnd by Nazis, much like Native Americans were, perhaps even more grotesquely, had Hitler won? Wouldn't that make rivers contributing to Nazi defeat also, quite important?

The bottom line, is that it's a measure of degree. It's a subjective opinion, and to objectively argue for one river, even if you limit it to just rivers of the cradles, is still ludicrous, as we have Tigris & Euphrates, Nile, Yellow and Indus. That was my point.

[Nervium]

Rubicon is like that one river, that like that one dude crossed, and he said like, "alea iacta est", and then like became like this ruler, of this like city dude.

Mersey is the namegiver of the Mersey-beat, the music genre of the Beatles.

"That one dude"...Right. Julius Caesar is spinning around in his grave.

Doesn't have a grave...

[Rio Cana]

I forgot our islands famous Gran River of Añasco. That river proved to the local natives that the Spanish were not divine.

Añasco River was also the famous historical site of the Indian drowning of the Spaniard Diego Salcedo in 1511, proving the Spanish Soldiers were not Gods as had been earlier believed by the Taino Indians. A revolt soon arose being lead by the Taínos Cacique Chayoán and suppressed by Spanish soldiers

[Etha]

"That one dude"...Right. Julius Caesar is spinning around in his grave.

Doesn't have a grave...

This Grammar really hurts me.

[Nervium]

Doesn't have a grave...

This Grammar really hurts me.

You must have very soft and thin skin, one may assume.

[GrandKirche]

In all history totted up I'd say the Nile. The Tigris and Euphrates decline after the key advancers of civilisation move away from it to the Med. The Nile has been important from the Pharoahs through to the 1960s.

[Shofercia]

Doesn't have a grave...

This Grammar really hurts me.

If the case, that is:

You cannot survive, make your time!

Oh, and, also: all your base are belong to us!

Additionally: we need education, like and such as...

[Genivaria]

The Tigris-Euphrates obviously. Mesopotamia, the birth of civilization.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

The River of Loooooovve