Chapter 15

Understanding Key Transitions

in World Prehistory

Outline

• Evolutionary Studies• Why Were Plants Domesticated?• Why Did the Archaic State Arise?

Evolutionary Studies

• Unilineal cultural evolution– The belief that human societies have

evolved culturally along a single developmental trajectory.

• Comparative method– In Enlightenment philosophy, the idea

that the world’s existing peoples reflect different stages of human cultural evolution.

Natural Selection

• The process through which some individuals survive and reproduce at higher rates than others because of their genetic heritage.

• Leads to the perpetuation of certain genetic qualities at the expense of others.

Social Darwinism

• The extension of the principles of Darwinian evolution to social phenomena.

• Implies that conflict between societies and between classes of the same society benefits humanity by removing “unfit” individuals and social forms.

• Social Darwinism assumed that unfettered economic competition and warfare were primary ways to determine which societies were “fittest.”

Morgan’s Three Phases of Human Cultural

EvolutionPhase Subphas

eHallmark Example

Savagery

Lower Subsistence on fruit and nuts

None survived into historical period.

Middle Fish,fire Australian aborigines, Polynesians

Upper Bow and arrow

Athapaskan tribes of Hudson’s Bay Territory

Morgan’s Three Phases of Human Cultural

EvolutionPhase Subphas

eHallmark Example

Barbarism Lower Pottery Eastern Native American tribes

Middle construction; irrigation

Pueblos

Upper Iron smelting

Germanic tribes of the time of Caesar

Morgan’s Three Phases of Human Cultural

EvolutionPhase Subphas

eHallmark Example

Civilization

Phonetic alphabet; literary records

Ancient: Greece and Rome Modern: Britain

Differences Between Unilineal and Modern

Evolutionism1. Modern evolutionism contains none of the

racist or moral overtones of 19th century unilineal evolutionism.

2. Contemporary evolutionary thinking recognizes that, if natural selection works on cultural phenomena, it is far more subtle than it is among animals.

3. Although unilineal evolutionists argued over the details of evolution, they all believed in a single immutable sequence.

Bands,Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States

Subsistence

Band Foraging

Tribe Foraging, horticulture pastoralism (herding)

Chiefdom Agriculture; pastoralists often incorporated within society.

State Agriculture, industrial, pastoral separated as specialists.

Bands,Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States

Economic Organization

Band Equal access to strategic resources through sharing and reciprocity.

Tribe Reciprocity; limited redistribution of goods by charismatic leaders

Chiefdom

Chief redistributes goods of lower-ranking people; includes some non-food producers.

State Elites control access to strategic resources; includes non-food producers.

Bands,Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States

Political Organization

Band Egalitarian

Tribe Egalitarian; temporary and limited roles of authority; competitive feasting to establish rank.

Chiefdom

Differences in status based on genealogical closeness to chief, who has a permanent, inherited office.

State State controlled by elites and run by specialists

Bands,Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States

Settlement patternBand Temporary camps; some seasonal

settlements reoccupied.

Tribe Sedentary villages (temporary) camps among pastoralists)

Chiefdom

Sedentary villages of different sizes; ranked (chief’s village has highest rank).

State Hierarchy of settlements reflects administrative functions; may be cities.

Bands,Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States

Population density

Band Low

Tribe Low to medium

Chiefdom Medium to high

State High.

Tribal Societies

• A wide range of social formations that lie between egalitarian foragers and ranked societies (such as chiefdoms).

• Tribal societies are normally horticultural and sedentary, with a higher level of competition than seen among nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Civilization

• A complex urban society with a high level of cultural achievement in the arts and sciences, craft specialization, a surplus of food and/or labor, and a hierarchically stratified social organization.

Major Hearths of Agriculture

Oasis Theory

• Proposed by V. Gordon Childe, argues that animal domestication arose as people, plants, and animals congregated around water sources during the arid years that followed the Pleistocene.

• In this scenario, agriculture arose because of “some genius” and preceded animal domestication.

Hilly Flanks Theory

• Proposed by Robert Braidwood, it claims that agriculture arose in the areas where wild ancestors of domesticated wheat and barley grow, attributing agriculture’s appearance to human efforts to continue to increase the productivity and stability of their food base, coupled with culture being “ready” to accept an agricultural lifeway.

Density-equilibrium Model

• Proposed by Binford, attributes the origins of agriculture to population pressure in favorable environments that resulted in emigration to marginal lands, where agriculture was needed to increase productivity. – Carrying capacity - The number of

people that a unit of land can support under a particular technology.

Optimal Foraging Theory

• The idea that foragers select foods that maximize the overall return rate.– return rate - The amount of

energy acquired by a forager per unit of harvesting/processing time.

Co-evolution

• The result of natural selection operating simultaneously on both plants and the people using them.

• Because of some plants’ genetic composition and because of how they must be harvested, the very act of harvesting them results in unintentional selection in such a way that the plants become dependent on humans for survival.

The Fertile Crescent

• An area where agriculture originated in the Near East, a broad arc of mountains in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

• We don’t know exactly when intentional agriculture began, because it’s difficult to distinguish wild wheat and barley from early domesticated forms.

• The best evidence suggests that a fulltime agricultural economy began about 9000 to 10,000 BP.

Natufian

• A cultural manifestation in the Levant (the southwest Fertile Crescent).

• Dating from 14,500 to 11,600 BP and consisting of the first appearance of settled villages, trade goods, and possibly early cultivation of domesticated wheat, but lacking pottery.

Neolithic

• The ancient period during which people began using ground stone tools, manufacturing ceramics, and relying on domesticated plants and animals.

• The “New Stone Age”—coined by Sir John Lubbock (in 1865).

Archaic State

• A centralized political system found in complex societies.

• Characterized by having a virtual monopoly on the power to coerce.

Major Primary Archaic States

The Irrigation Hypothesis

• Karl Wittfogel (1896–1988) asserted that the mechanisms of large-scale irrigation were directly responsible for creating the archaic state.

• The need for coordinated labor, massive construction, and so forth led to increased wealth and military strength and eventually to the powerful ruling bureaucracy that characterized state development.

Irrigation Hypothesis

The Warfare and Circumscription

Hypothesis• Ethnologist Robert Carneiro argues that

egalitarian settlements transform into chiefdoms, and chiefdoms into states, only when coercive force is involved.

• Carneiro’s initial premise stipulates that political change of lasting significance arises only from coercive pressure.

• And warfare, he suggested, is the only mechanism powerful enough to impose bureaucratic authority on a large scale.

Carneiro’s Circumscription and Warfare Hypothesis

A Multicausal Theory

• Allen Johnson and Timothy Earle list three conditions necessary for archaic states to form:

1. High population density that strains the food production system.

2. A need for a system of integration.3. The possibility of controlling the

economy to permit financing of institutions and support a ruling class.

Multicausal Origins of the Archaic State

Multicausal Origins and the Mayan State

1. High population density places pressure on the agricultural economy and, in dry years, can lead to conflict.

2. Warfare requires social integration, as do efforts to ensure the flow of goods and information between allied centers.

3. Possibly, as one large center gained the edge in authority, families moved to it and smaller centers gave their allegiance in return for protection.

Quick Quiz

1. _____ ______ implies that conflict between societies and between classes of the same society benefits humanity by removing “unfit” individuals and social forms.

Answer: Social darwinism

• _____ ______ implies that conflict between societies and between classes of the same society benefits humanity by removing “unfit” individuals and social forms.

2. The view that animal domestication arose as people, plants, and animals congregated around water sources during the arid years that followed the Pleistocene is called the:

A. Hilly Flanks TheoryB. Density-equilibrium ModelC. Oasis TheoryD. Optimal Foraging Theory

Answer: C

• The view that animal domestication arose as people, plants, and animals congregated around water sources during the arid years that followed the Pleistocene is called the Oasis Theory.

3. The culture dating from 14,500 to 11,600 BP and consisting of the first appearance of settled villages, trade goods, and possibly early cultivation of domesticated wheat, but lacking pottery is called:

A. MesozoicB. Natufian C. NeolithicD. Upper Paleolithic

Answer: B

• The culture dating from 14,500 to 11,600 BP and consisting of the first appearance of settled villages, trade goods, and possibly early cultivation of domesticated wheat, but lacking pottery is called Natufian.