Proto- Neolithic (8,500 7,000 BC)

Transitional Villages Fully sedentary lifestyle but no agriculture Genetic manipulation underway First evidence for trade in exotics First sites outside Fertile Crescent

By 7,000 BC the Neolithic Package is in place

Domesticates Sedentism (Village Life) -Jarmo -Jericho -Catal Huyuk Pottery

The Neolithic Package

ECONOMY: Domesticated grains

Wheat, Barley Sheep, Goats

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Sedentary Settlements Village Society

Domesticated animals

150 300 residents Extended-Family Households Microlith sickles Groundstone Pottery Storage & Cooking Features

Imported Trade Goods

TECHNOLOGY

Obsidian, Turquoise, Cowrie Shells Ancestor veneration Preserving of skulls

IDEOLOGY

V. Gordon Childe
Neolithic Revolution

Foraging to Farming Hunting to Herding Chipped to Ground Stone Nomadic to Sedentary Life Sedentism allowed for:
Leisure Time Craft Specialization

Marshall Sahlins - Stone Age Economics (1972)

The Original Affluent Societies Study of modern hunter-gatherer societies

Ethnography; ethnographic archaeology

How to achieve affluence: Infinite material wants Come to me, my precious vs. finite material needs Zen road to affluence: by desiring little and meeting needs with what is available, h/g societies are wealthy with time

Sahlins:

The Original Affluent Society p. 19:

It seems that hunting and gathering can afford extraordinary relief from economic cares. The Fish Creek group maintained a virtually full-time craftsman, a man 35 or 40 years old, whose true specialty however seems to have been loafing: He did not go out hunting at all with the men, but one day he netted fish most vigorously. He occasionally went into the bush to get wild bees nests. Wilira was an expert craftsman who repaired the spears and spear-throwers, made smoking-pipes and drone-tubes, and hafted a stone axe (on request) in a skillful manner; apart from these occupations he spent most of his time talking, eating, and sleeping (McCarthy and McArthur 1960:48)

Questioning the Myth of Leisure Time

McCarthy & MacArthur (1960)

Hours of leisure during daytime hours (all nights off):

Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Male leisure (hrs.) 2.25 hrs. 1.5 hrs. all day off intermittent tasks all p.m. off all day off several hours 2 hrs. 5 hrs. Female leisure (hrs.) 2.75 hrs. 1 hr. all day off intermittent tasks all p.m. off all day off several hours 2 hrs. 5 hrs.

Questioning the Myth of Leisure Time

McCarthy & MacArthur (1960)
Nutrition (% of U.S. recommended allowances from two Aborigine communities)

Calories
Hemple Bay

Protein 80% 544%

Iron

Calcium Ascorbic Acid 394% 365% 47%

116% 444% 104%

128% 33%

Fish Creek

Weaning & Birth Spacing

In transitioning horticultural populations, lactational amenorrhea is shortened due to earlier weaning Result is more children, more frequently The role of children changes with food production:

Birth spacing for !Kung, Hutterites, & modern USA. See also Price & Feinman, pp. 258-259.

Children become economic assets

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

English clergyman & professor of economics Lived during agricultural revolution: feudalism to private property Onset of Industrial Revolution

Malthusian Dilemma

Population increases geometrically

Doubles each generation

But Resources can only increase arithmetically (incrementally). When population outstrips resources, Nature reestablishes equilibrium through:

War Famine Disease

Problem: Population increases shrink before reaching resource limits

Chayanovs Rule

Russian agrarian economist Household production will not exceed needs Within households, ratio of CONSUMERS to PRODUCERS matters. Producers in households with more consumers must work harder to keep up with demand. Result is inherent damper on population growth

V. Gordon Childe
Neolithic Revolution

Foraging to Farming Hunting to Herding Chipped to Ground Stone Nomadic to Sedentary Life Sedentism allowed for:
Leisure Time Craft Specialization

"Worst mistake in the history of the human race."

Jared Diamond (1987)

When compared to foraging populations agriculturalists have:

Higher levels of infection. Chronic malnutrition. More anemia.

Shorter statures.
Shorter lives. Increased warfare and violence.

Such a dramatic shift in cultural evolution requires explanation..

Oasis Theory (V. Gordon Childe)

1) Environmental change caused plants, animals and humans to cluster in confined areas near water: PROPINQUITY

2) Only successful solution to the competition for food in these situations would be for humans to domesticate plants and animals.

3) Domestication emerged as a symbiotic relationship for the purpose of human survival.

Robert Braidwood

University of Chicago Excavated site of Jarmo (Iran) in the 1950s Hilly flanks of the Zagros Believed that Zagros is where domestication first took place.

Nuclear Area Hypothesis (Robert Braidwood)

Also called Natural Habitat Hypothesis Earliest domesticates should appear where their wild ancestors lived. Considered farming to be a highly desirable and welcome innovation, providing security and leisure time for prehistoric people. Once human societies recognized the possibilities of domestication, they would have immediately started farming.

Ester Boserup

20th Century Danish agricultural economist Turns Malthus idea on its head. Population pressure is engine driving intensification. Intensification leads to Cultural Complexity

Boserups Population Pressure Hypothesis

Populations expand with diverse and ample food supply produced through climate change As population reaches CARRYING CAPACITY (max. pop. for given resources & technology), must choose one of two strategies: Extensification

Spread geographically Upgrade productivity by investing labor in land

Intensification

Boserups Population Pressure Hypothesis

Examples of Intensification:

Cultivation Domestication Agriculture Irrigation systems

Result is that at each step of the way, production is increased Avoids Malthusian Dilemma

Marginal Zone Hypothesis (Lewis Binford & Kent Flannery )

Aka Edge hypothesis 1) By Early Neolithic, all the areas with the best resources, called the NUCLEAR ZONE, are settled. 2) Populations grow due to abundant natural resources 3) POPULATION PRESSURE forces some groups to settle more MARGINAL ZONES, areas with less plentiful resources

Marginal Zone Hypothesis (Lewis Binford & Kent Flannery )

4) Marginal zones are outside the natural habitat of future domesticates, so settlers forced to begin CULTIVATION & HERDING.

Think Mureybet & Ganj Dareh

5) DOMESTICATION occurs when species population is limited and is dependent upon humans for survival

Natural selection Artificial selection

Conscious & unconscious process

Result is that domestication occurs first NOT in the Nuclear Zone, but in the more limited Marginal Zone.

Once increased production is recognized, technology of domesticates are rapidly spread, colonizing the nuclear zone.

Fertile Crescent

Social Hypothesis
(Barbara Bender & Brian Hayden)

Transition to farming and food storage and surplus cannot be understood simply in terms of environment and population: There is an inherent SOCIAL aspect to the process Related to the ability of certain individuals to accumulate a surplus of food and to transform that surplus into more valued items (rare stones, metals etc.)

How?

Social Hypothesis
(Barbara Bender & Brian Hayden)

COMPETITION for surplus drove move toward domestication Agriculture was a means by which SOCIAL INEQUALITY emerged and egalitarian societies eventually became hierarchical

No single accepted general theory for agricultural origins.

Consequences of Agricultural Development

Sedentism
Population Growth Increased Social/Political Complexity Destruction of Natural Environments Population Movement