HUNTERGATHERER
S TO
FARMERS
HUNTER-GATHERERS TO FARMERS
Doing what comes naturally
The Neolithic Revolution
The first farmers
Farm animals
Draught animals
Neolithic burials
Diet, salt and trade
Doing what comes naturally
Lions and wolves communicate well enough to hunt as a
group. Bees can tell each other where the best pollen is.
For almost the whole of human history, from at least 3 million
years ago, mankind has lived by carrying out these two basic
acitivities of hunting (or fishing) and gathering edible items of
any kind (from fruit to insects). We are unusual among
animals in combining the two functions, and we have been
greatly helped in both by the development of language. But
basically, as hunter-gatherers, we have lived by doing what
comes naturally.
It is true that human beings have dignified both activities with
elaborate ritual and with much attention to the spirits of
nature. And it is true that in human societies the business of
hunting and gathering has involved specialization, with men
doing the hunting and women much of the gathering. And
humans, unlike most animals, carry the food home and share
it, rather than consume it there and then.
But all this is a result of our ability to communicate, to
speculate, to rationalize. It does not alter the fact that for 3
million years Stone Age man, the hunter-gatherer, engages in
an activity as natural as the swoop of a hawk or the grazing of
a horse.
The Neolithic Revolution: 10,000 years ago
The change comes a mere 10,000 years ago, when people first
discover how to cultivate crops and to domesticate animals.
This is the most significant single development in human
history. It happens within the Stone Age, for tools are still flint
rather than metal, but it is the dividing line which separates
the old Stone Age (palaeolithic) from the new Stone Age
(neolithic). It has been aptly called the Neolithic Revolution.
The strange thing is that this revolution occurs independently
in separate parts of the world - the Middle East, for example,
and America. How can this unlikely coincidence occur?
Part of the reason may be the ending of the most recent cold
phase of the present ice age (see Ice Ages). This creates new
temperate regions, in which humans can live comfortably. By
contrast many of their main victims in the chase cannot
survive in the changed climate.
Herds of bison move to colder regions. Mammoths become
extinct. But plants of all kinds grow more easily in the new
temperate zones.
It is not hard to imagine, in these circumstances, a strong
human impulse to abandon the pursuit of the bison and to
stay, instead, in a region where edible plants are now growing
in sufficient profusion to seem worth encouraging and
protecting (by weeding around them, for example). Some
human groups adapt to a new way of life. Others go after the
bison.
If the impulse is to settle, there is also a strong incentive to
ensure that animals remain nearby as a supply of food. This
may involve attempts to herd them, to pen them in enclosures,
or to entice them near the settlement by laying out fodder.
The first farmers: from 8000 BC
From weeding around a plant, or perhaps watering it in a dry
spell, it is a small step to collecting its seeds and planting them
in a protected spot where they will have a better than average
chance of growing. From penning in animals, to kill them when
needed, it is a small step to keeping them until their offspring
are born.
In any one place the process will be gradual. Cultivated crops
or domesticated animals form at first only a small part of a
community's diet, most of it coming still from hunting and
gathering. In each place where the change happens, its
pattern is no doubt different. But in the Middle East, in
America, in China and southeast Asia, the change does occur.
The earliest place known to have lived mainly
from the cultivation of crops is Jericho. By around 8000 BC this
community, occupying a naturally well-watered region, is
growing selected forms of wheat (emmer and einkorn are the
two varieties), soon to be followed by barley. Though no longer
gatherers, these people are still hunters. Their source of meat
is wild gazelle, cattle, goat and boar.
It is no accident that Jericho is also the first known town, with
a population of 2000 or more. A pioneering agricultural
community, surrounded by other tribes dependent on
gathering food, offers easy pickings which will need vigorous
protection. Jerico has protective walls and a tower.
Sheep and goats, cattle and pigs: 9000-7000 BC
The first animals known to have been domesticated as a
source of food are sheep in the Middle East. The proof is the
high proportion of bones of one-year-old sheep discarded in a
settlement at Shanidar, in what is now northern Iraq. Goats
follow soon after, and these two become the standard animals
of the nomadic pastoralists - tribes which move all year long
with their flocks, guided by the availability of fresh grass.
Cattle and pigs, associated more with settled communities, are
domesticated slightly later - but probably not long after 7000
BC. The ox may first have been bred by humans in western
Asia. The pig is probably first domesticated in China.
Draught animals: from 4000 BC
Of the four basic farm animals, cattle represent the most
significant development in village life. Not only does the cow
provide much more milk than its own offspring require, but the
brute strength of the ox is an unprecedented addition to man's
muscle power.
From about 4000 BC oxen are harnessed and put to work.
They drag sledges and, somewhat later, ploughs and wheeled
wagons (an almost simultaneous innovation in the Middle East
and in Europe). The plough immeasurably increases the crop of
wheat or rice. The wagon enables it to be brought home from
more distant fields.
With these developments in place, the transition to settled
communities is complete - from hunter-gatherer to farmer. But
the Neolithic Revolution only spreads to areas which are
suitable for farming. In the jungles of the world, hunting and
gathering remains the standard way of life for human
communities until the 20th century. An intermediate stage,
that of nomadic pastoralism (moving with the flocks to new
pastures), prevails in semi-barren regions.
The use of a draught animal is a valuable but not an essential
part of this farming revolution. No beast powerful enough for
the purpose is available in America, but this does not prevent
agriculture and civilization from evolving.
Neolithic burials: from 8000 BC
As soon as communities remain settled in one place, as a
result of the Neolithic Revolution, the burial of their dead
becomes a matter of intense concern. An early solution is to
keep them within the family home, buried beneath the floor or
even under the bed.
In Jericho, from about 8000 BC, burials are found under the
floors of houses as well as in nearby vacant lots. In Catal
Huyuk, 1500 years later, the more normal place is within the
house - under the brick and plaster platform which is used for
sleeping and other everyday purposes.
The procedure in Catal Huyuk is for the dead body to be
exposed outside the town, where vultures - with the
subsequent assistance of insects - strip the bones dry. When
the skeleton is ready for burial, the sleeping platform in the
house is opened up; the present occupants are rearranged to
make space for the newcomer; and the platform is bricked up
again and plastered over.
A society with elaborate shrines must certainly have
accompanied such an event with considerable ritual. The
majority of burials are without funeral gifts, but in a few cases
the jewels of women and the weapons of men are buried with
them.
Diet, salt and trade: from 4000 BC
The new diet of settled farmers - predominantly vegetarian,
with meat now an occasional luxury - results in one small but
significant development. Salt becomes an important
commodity in human trade.
A physical necessity of human life, salt exists in sufficient
quantity in a diet of milk and of raw or roasted meat. It is not
present in vegetables, grain or boiled meat. Agriculture in
many areas of the world (freshwater districts without mineral
deposits of sodium chloride) only becomes possible if a trade in
salt is established. As a result salt features in many of the
most important trading systems of the world. The caravan
routes crossing the Sahara are a prime example.
Language and custom reflect this central role of salt in human
civilization. In English it is a term of praise if a man is
considered 'worth his salt' or is judged to be 'the salt of the
earth'. In a medieval banquet an inferior guest, seated at the
bottom end of the table, is described as being 'below the salt'.
The importance of this simple mineral during two millennia is
even reflected in an English term for wages. A Roman soldier is
given an allowance to buy his salt (sal in Latin). This allowance
is his salarium. Office workers, 2000 years later, take their
supply of salt entirely for granted. But they still draw their
salaries.