In the Paleolithic, humans began using the materials of their environment to give them a survival advantage. During the Mesolithic humans tamed animals in order to make life easier. During the Neolithic the land itself is tamed for the first time. While Mesolithic agriculture consisted of throwing seeds upon the ground, Neolithic farming is characterized by the cultivation of the earth. This included tending the land on an annual cycle.
Before going too deep into the so called ŌNeolithic revolutionÕ, let us point out that certain geography, as indicated earlier, lent itself to the agricultural development, specifically the fertile river valleys, while others didnÕt, the arid grass lands and the forests. Hence the pastoral cultures of the grass lands and the Hunter cultures of the forest chose the best culture to survive in their particular environment. The Neolithic Revolution was geographically based around fertile river valleys, where agriculture was possible. Hence Hunter, Herder, Farmer cultures are not part of any sequence. They are not stages but are environmental responses.
There is a tendency to say that the most advanced cultures have the most control of their environments. Under this rating system the agri-culture would be rated highest because they have tamed materials, animals and earth, while the herders would be considered lower having only tamed materials and animals, while the Hunting cultures would be considered most primitive because they only controlled the materials of their environment. This is indeed how agriculturally based historians rate the world between civilized and savage.
Indeed this is a Confucian trait. As we shall see those who know and are able to perform the ancient ceremonies are considered most civilized. Those who donÕt know the ceremonies are the barbarians. The most advanced, according to this view, are those most in control of their behavior, hence most civilized and the most tamed.
But if Wild and Spontaneity are rated highest then the Hunter cultures are rated highest. The cultures that domesticated the land, also domesticated themselves, while the cultures that only domesticated the animal, remained a bit wilder, less citified, less civilized, which suits these cultures just fine.
One undocumented[1] theory of transition to the farming culture is that Central Asian sheep-herds in contact with the proto-farmers of the Mediterranean settled down and merged cultures for mutual benefit. The farmers had the grain to feed the animals, allowing the shepherds to settle down. The Shepherds possessed the animals that would give a welcome supplement to the Farmer diet, as well as utilizing the waste products of farming as feed. Another byproduct of the herding animals was dairy products. Another byproduct of the grain crops was beer. A Marriage made in heaven. Maybe so. Thank you Mother Nature.
Another theory has it that the inspiration for farming itself was based upon the desire to feed the domesticated herds. Under this theory a shepherd tribe wants to settle down with their herd that has provided them with such a stable food source. They begin growing grain for their animals and then as a by product realize that they can also feed themselves with it, after a little food prep, grinding, cooking and such.
Another byproduct of grain agriculture is beer. Some hold that the desire for the intoxication of the early beers was the driving force behind the development of farming technology. The evidence for beer is simultaneous with the beginning of agriculture. To illustrate the primacy of beer, they have not yet determined which was invented first bread or beer. (Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Beer, 1997)
We have been talking about the driving forces behind the farming technology, but havenÕt addressed why early homo might like to settle down in an agri-culture. For those of us who have been thoroughly domesticated the answer seems obvious and underlying, security and warmth. While true, a stronger driving force is the rising dependency time of the human baby. The woman must have played a huge role in the decision to settle down. For it is primarily the mother who needs a stable environment in which to raise her children. While the nesting urge lasts only a season for the birds, it can last up to six years and more for the human species. The desire of the female of the species to nest is based upon the need to protect and shelter the young. As the need to protect and shelter the young grows longer and longer the need for permanent shelter grows proportionally.
A side benefit of the longer nesting time allowed by more permanent structures is that more cultural information, including technology, can be transmitted. This increase in transmission time accelerates the speed of cultural evolution based upon the products of the society including its technology. As an example, the rise in settled agri-cultures stimulated the development of both pottery and fabric technologies.
While the Female Nesting Urge would have to rate as a major force in the development of permanent settlements, the need for beer and domesticated herding animals would have to be considered contributing forces. Most probably all the elements played together to drive this farming technology which allowed humans to settle down.
This type of farming based upon domesticated herding animals, was such an effective cultural tool that it has spread almost everywhere that it possibly could. Its success was based upon the self-sufficiency that it introduces. The crops feed the humans and their farm animals. The farm animals in turn provide dairy products as well as meat to the diet of the Neolithic farmer. Once crop rotation was worked out, this was a fairly effective ecological system.
This system was in no way universal. Many locations in the world could not support herding animals. Some places, namely South East Asia farmed rice instead of the grasses preferred by grazing animals. Thus while the urge to agriculture seems to be a universal, just as animal domestication was, again the styles of land domestication vary considerably in different locations.
The Stone Age technology was homotaxial, i.e. always occurring in the same order, although certain stages may have been left out. The Hunter, Herder, Farmer technological sequence is in no way homotaxial. We are not sure how the sequence went in the Middle East but it seems that in China, they first hunted the pig – then simultaneous with the domestication of the land, they domesticated the pig. They caught him, penned him up, raised him for meat, and fed him the refuse, the garbage, of the village. In this Neolithic society, they went straight from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society with no herding in between. Nobody herds pigs. This emphasizes how Hunter, Herder, Farmer is in no way a technological sequence in the sense of the stone technologies. That these cultural developments are not homotaxial is one of the concepts that immediately follows from the theory of Mesolithic geographical cultural differentiation.
Let us return to the Hunter Gatherer societies of the Neolithic. They have evolved with the rest. They have improved their hunting and fishing techniques, and their botanical knowledge, for food and medicine.
The Hunter Gatherer societies tended to be based upon a balanced sexual polarity. The Hunter tended to be male, because of his explosive muscle groups, available for momentary bursts of energy. The Hunter could leave the home for extended absences whether on fishing or hunting trips. The Gatherer tended to be female because of her need to stay close to the home to raise the next generation. The Hunter was a dominator because of his function of killing game. The Gatherer was the first Cultivator because of her involvement with raising plants and children. This male female dichotomy had a different balance in different societies depending upon geographical conditions.
These Hunter societies are characterized by their ability to live off the land without cultivating it. This has vegetarian and carnivore connotations, but tends to be omnivore with vegetarian leanings because of the unpredictability of the Hunt.
While pottery tends to be associated with agri-cultures both the hunter-fisher cultures of Japan and Scandinavia produced some fairly sophisticated pottery. The hunter-fishers of these areas were able to develop a fairly stable and sophisticated culture based upon fishing and hunting. Some of the cultures practiced a limited agriculture based upon the geographical potentials, thus confirming the theory that humans tend to use their technology to the maximum of geographical potential.
The Hunter-gatherer cultures of the forest, mountains and sea, domesticated neither animals nor land. The others always considered them the most primitive of societies, presumably because of their closeness to nature. While the Shepherds and Farmers had separated themselves from the Wild of Nature by domesticating her, the Hunters had embraced the Wild of Nature as a way of life. Hence the Hunters were never as citified, civilized, as the Farmers, and so were referred to as the opposite of civilized, savage. While the term has a pejorative connotation, it was used in a descriptive sense. As in the following sentence: the savages didnÕt possess an advanced technology but treated each other in civilized way while those with the advanced technology treated their fellow humans in a savage way.
In matter of fact the more control the humans had over their environment the less uncertain their life became, with longer life spans and a more secure existence. The Hunter culture, however, thrives on the absolute excitement of the Hunt. Without a wild prey, there is no Hunt.
ŅWhatÕs the point?Ó says the Hunter. ŅWhy would I want to domesticate my prey? I would rather hunt it.Ó
The hunter-gatherer societies were not necessarily nomadic although they could be. Hence there were migratory Hunter cultures that moved seasonally. But there were also sedentary Hunter cultures that hunted or fished locally. The Shepherds were nomadic by necessity. The Farmers who tended the soil were sedentary while the Farmers who tended the crops were mildly nomadic.
We will call this idealized state, when each culture is allowed to develop independently with relatively little conflict, the Neolithic. This was a time when the earth was big enough for the small populations as to seem endless. They were each able to develop in their own ways without conflict.
For ease of reference we will, initially at least, refer to these cultures based upon the hunting of fish and game, and gathering food, as Hunters. We will refer to the pastoralists as Shepherds and the agriculturists as Farmers. These categories are only for ease of reference and in no way meant to reflect the incredible diversity of cultures lumped under each of these categories, especially that of Hunter-Gatherer, which, like Taoism, is the rest.
The Hunters were happy in their permanent ecological heaven, living off the forest, mountain, or sea, wherever they were. Then came the Shepherds, who loved the stability of Herding on the endless grassy plains. However they didnÕt appreciate the raids of the Hunters on their flocks, when their times were tough. The Shepherds learned to defend themselves against the Hunters.
Then some Shepherds and Hunters decided to settle down and become Farmers. The Hunters followed their Gatherer side for security, stability and comfort. They came in touch with their feminine side. The Gatherers became Farmers. With the Shepherds, some decided to return to their Gatherer roots, get the pun, but in much improved shape. Now the Farmers have all these domesticated animals to go with the plants.
As an aside the Farmers who used to be Shepherds, have carnivore leaning, because they have all those herd animals. The Farmers who derived from Gatherers have vegetarian leanings. Additionally dairy is associated with the Shepherd/Farmers, with the herding animals supplying milk. As they have no herding background the Gatherer/Farmers have no domesticated animals that supply milk. This will have important implications in the development of prehistoric China.
These Neolithic splits were to prove crucial in the Metal Age that followed. Those Shepherd nomads, who had tamed the animal but not the soil, those Farmers, who had tamed both animal and the soil to their material comfort, and those Hunters, who had tamed neither and were proud of it, would come into conflict with their increasing populations and self-confident cultures in the ages to come.
Why couldnÕt these different cultural groups learn to get along? There were different conflicting cultural ramifications to each lifestyle. WeÕve already mentioned the cultural differences based upon animal domestication. Let us now examine the cultural ramifications of their land use policy.
The Hunters do not like the Farmers.
Hunter: ŅThose Farmers keep taming Nature, while we Hunters prefer our Nature Wild. They keep cutting down our forests.Ó
The Shepherds donÕt like the Farmers, either.
Shepherd: ŅThe Farmers keep fencing our lovely grass lands in. Then they irrigate and cultivate them, totally destroying them for grazing. Besides that, those sedentary Farmers always choose the best places. We, Shepherds, donÕt believe in Fencing in Nature, she belongs to everyone. The Farmers, however, want to claim certain places for themselves, normally the best ones.Ó
The Farmers didnÕt like either the Herders or Hunters.
Farmer: ŅThey seemed too unsettled. Besides they both steal and raid our livestock, trample our fields, knocking down our fences that took us so long to build. We must start building walls to defend ourselves.Ó
Mother Earth is still huge for these Neolithic populations. Each of her Children is allowed to develop independently fulfilling their own individual destinies. But as the Neolithic winds down and space becomes scarcer, those little conflicts, which could be avoided with lots of resources to go around, canÕt be avoided anymore. Enter the Age of Metals.
The actual success of the Neolithic cultures is at the root of their coming problems. Each of the separate cultures developed technologies that allowed them to survive and thrive in their respective ecologies. As their technologies allow them to cope more effectively with their environments, their populations began growing. This population growth inevitably led to conflicts, as the different cultures would run into each other.
While the Herding and Hunter cultures just spin off more competing tribes who come into increasingly conflict with each other, the Farming begin accumulating in larger groups to facilitate crafts and trade. The settled Farmers introduce the first larger communities called cities. With more effective means of domination these agricultural cities grow into civilizations in the Age of Metals that follows.
Certain beliefs emerged from the nomadic pastoral cultures that were somewhat inherent to their system. One of those is the notion of detachment. The farmers were settling down, becoming attached to their families, homes, crops, and crafts. On the other hand, the nomadic cultures couldnÕt become attached to anything. Their homes were tents. No location was permanent. The land when they arrived was filled with green grasses and when they left was brown stubble. They couldnÕt accumulate material possessions because of their nomadic lifestyle. They were always moving on. For those of you who have changed locations regularly, this mentality is easy to understand. One learns what one can live without. One learns to detach.
This belief structure based upon detachment was to lead to one of the worldÕs great belief systems. It was based in southern Asia, i.e., India, and is at the heart of the Yoga/Hinduism, Buddhism religious complex. Classic Chinese religion is many times characterized as the three Doctrines. This Indian way of thinking reached Chinese thought late in the game, and yet has become one of the three doctrines of Chinese beliefs.
As mentioned the Neolithic farmer had a fairly ecological system. Because of this the farmers could settle for longer periods of time. While the herder culture led to this philosophy of detachment, the farmer culture led to the philosophy of materialism, in both its higher and lower manifestations. In its higher manifestation, it is playing with the sacred materials of nature to create tools, music, art, medicine, and science. In its lower manifestations, materialism leads to a desire for possessions, greed, accumulation for accumulationÕs sake, and power.
While Confucianism has or had nothing to do with farming, the philosophy was heavily focused upon this life. They werenÕt concerned with detachment, but were instead concerned with how to manipulate, or using a farm analogy, how to domesticate the wild political world. In this way only Confucianism addresses the materialism of the farmer culture.
The Hunt is of moments. If the focus is not complete enough, the Hunt is lost. Hence the Hunter attempts to develop his focus on the Here and Now. If he loses himself in worries about tomorrow, he might lose the dinner for today. Neither the shepherd or farmer culture demands that much focus. We will see that the Hunter becomes the Warrior, and the Hunt becomes the Battle in the Bronze Age. The meditative focus on combat evolves into TÕai Chi in modern times.
While Taoism is no more Hunter than Confucianism is Farmer, it does address this aspect of the Hunter. While the Confucians tend to focus upon the rituals of the past to solve the problems of social chaos, the Taoists prefer to emphasize a spontaneous approach to existence, unbounded by social convention. In their meditative practices, the Taoists are not seeking detachment as much as they are seeking to reach that spontaneous original self. the self who can respond immediately and effectively to different circumstances.
WeÕve mentioned the Christmas tree, Easter eggs and Easter bunny as Paleolithic symbols. Thanksgiving celebrates the annual harvest of the Farmer. The death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter is linked with agricultural ceremonies, as is the birth of the baby Jesus at Christmas time. Thus many of our most popular celebrations are linked with the Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures that preceded the civilizations of the Metal Ages.
It should be easy to see that with all these qualifications that no absolute dating is possible for the stages weÕve discussed. The times would vary from area to area. Howevere when two cultures come into conflict, the New Stone Age, Neolithic, mentality has ended and the Metal Age mentality has begun, by definition. But, as might be already apparent, the change in mentality has nothing to do with metal and stone. However, as we shall see, the change in mentality tends to be connected. Hence the metaphor remains a good one.
This chapter doesnÕt know the details of the next cultural transition, the Reader will have to proceed to the next chapter to find out what happens next.