This is lecture 9; we call it the Neolithic revolution.
Neo meaning new; lithic refers to stone – so Neolithic is the New Stone Age.
When you see Neolithic, I want you to think of farming and agriculture.
Significances of this Neolithic revolution – We begin to domesticate plants and animals
to make them useful to us – everything from wheat to chickens.
We begin to settle down, and live a sedentary life.
We produce larger populations.
Human groups began less egalitarian; there’s less equality in other words, and they become
more hierarchical – that is, distinct classes.
We have stored food because of the Neolithic revolution; stored food allows us to specialize
in a variety of different tasks.
All this equals civilization.
Let’s talk about the Paleolithic era for just a moment so you can contrast these two.
Paleo meaning old, and again, lithic – stone; so this is the Old Stone Age.
Most of mankind’s life on this planet was spent in the Paleolithic era.
The Neolithic era only begins about ten thousand years ago in Mesopotamia and Southern Turkey.
The Paleolithic era is characterized by hunters and gatherers – you’ve no doubt heard
this expression before; small bands of nomadic people moving about looking for food, water,
shelter, safety.
These nomadic people, some of them may have treasured mobility over settlement.
We tend to think of history as sort of a line of progression, sort of a linear line, where
we get better and we improve everything – sort of one triumph after another.
This may be a misreading of history.
Paleolithic people did not collect garbage the way we did.
They did not have the same diseases that Neolithic people suffered from because they didn’t
have domesticated animals.
In Paleolithic times, tools and weapons were generally made of wood or rock, as we move
into Neolithic times we find metal coming to the fore.
Paleolithic man spread across the earth from Australia to the Americas by what¬, about
twenty-five thousand years ago – so an incredibly successful migratory creature.
Transition to the Neolithic era – Well work increased for men and women.
Gender roles are redefined.
Patriarchal systems now become entrenched.
Pat-, the Latin prefix for father, patriarchal.
A higher birth rate – due to better and more predictable food supply; there’s additional
children and these children are often put to work as well.
Women are pregnant more of the time.
Again, we have a sedentary lifestyle instead of a nomadic one.
Men become the principal food producers.
Think about the animals available for domestication in Eurasia – horses, donkeys, mules, pigs,
chickens, honeybees, oxen, sheep, goats, camels, silkworms, just a remarkable array of creatures
available for domestication – horses, donkeys, mules; these all give us transportation.
They’re beasts of burden.
They provide manure.
Remember, we’re an agricultural people and we need that.
Pigs, of course, a variety of foods, chickens; we have the flesh itself; we have feathers.
Honeybees – obvious, everybody likes something sweet.
Oxen – a beast of burden.
Sheep and goats – from sheep we get wool and food, from goats we get food and milk.
Camels, obviously transportation – can you imagine Arabic culture or Islam without the
domesticated camel?
Would it have spread rapidly out of the Arabian Desert across the rest of Eurasia?
I doubt it.
There are also – I mentioned silkworms, domesticated in China for luxurious clothing.
There are also grains available for domestication in Eurasia; we’re talking about wheat; barley;
oats; rice; hops; rye.
Wheat obviously is – what’s the old cliché?
The staff of life – it’s sort of the fundamental grain for bread and for pasta, and these other
domesticated grains – like rice, I guess rice is to Eastern Eurasia as wheat is to
Western Eurasia.
Hops, of course, we use today – most famously to flavor beer, and of course, these others
can be used both for human consumption and for livestock.
Rice apparently began in China, domesticated rice, about seven thousand years B.C.E.
In Central America, on the other side of the world – corn, or maize, is going to begin
to be domesticated about five thousand B.C.E.
And of course, once you have domesticated grains, you can ferment them, and produce
alcohol.
So let’s draw a few conclusions here, from this short introduction to the Neolithic revolution.
Myths begin to change with the change in human activities from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary
lifestyle.
In a sedentary lifestyle you have planting, seasons; you have the rhythm of the seasons
and the rhythm of life changes.
The sun and the weather and the celestial bodies become of a paramount importance; they
appear to reveal the intentions of the gods.
Populations increase because we have a sedentary lifestyle.
We have a surplus of food.
We have protection.
Women are pregnant more of the time.
We have food surpluses, obviously, and again the surpluses make specialization possible.
We don’t have to search for food 24/7 because we have stored food, so this makes it possible
for people to do other things.
You have wranglers who bring in wild animals and begin to domesticate them and breed them.
You have people who work to try to control the river flows, building canals and dykes
and dams.
You have people working in metal, people working in leather.
You have people working in vineyards – olives; grapes.
You have the rise to the priesthood.
You have the rise of military institutions, political institutions.
None of this is possible without surplus of food because you’d be spending all your
time trying to find something to eat.
But surplus of food makes civilization plausible.
Now we tend to take a teleological – that is, when I say teleological there’s a sort
of an endpoint, we’re sort of looking at history backward and reading into it the outcome.
This is a dangerous thing to do.
It takes away chance and contingency in history.
But we tend to take a teleological view of mankind – that is, that we are progressive,
progressing, or head toward some elusive goal.
One historian asked – did we make a wrong turn with the Neolithic revolution?
Think about the consequences – more work, more people, more disease, hierarchy, inequality,
war, enslavement, poverty – was our Paleolithic existence the Garden of Eden and our Neolithic
revolution the expulsion from the Garden of Eden?
– To keep the language in mythological terms.
It’s interesting to think about.
I’ll stop there.
Thank you.