Here, we will talk about Changing in Material Culture and Domestic Mode of Production.

Beginning of agriculture affect the nature of early cultures

The beginning of agriculture and its spread over large parts of the world had far-reaching effects on human society. In this section we are going to study some of these effects.

1. Beginning of villages and cities – Hunter-gatherers used to change their houses and places every season according to the availability of animals and fruits-tubers etc. Unlike hunting and gathering, to do farming, farmers had to stay in one place for a long time. They had to sow seeds, water the plants, protect the small plants from animals and birds. The crop was ready for harvesting in 4-6 months. This means that unlike hunting and gathering, there was a compulsion to stay in one place in agriculture. That is why the beginning of agriculture led to the emergence of villages. Although hunter-gatherer groups also established villages and cities in some places. These were such places where food was available in sufficient quantity throughout the year, but such places were very few. In the process of animal husbandry and growing crops, man also tied himself to one place and made it domestic. It was our agricultural ancestors who established roads, paths, huts, houses, hamlets, villages and cities. Archaeologists do excavations at such places.
2. Population growth – The beginning of permanent shilling and agriculture led to population growth and regional expansion. Population growth was rapid in settled communities. Grain production led to the production of grains and their grinding into porridge. Milk was available from rearing goats and sheep. Now infants could reduce their intake of mother’s milk as they could get animal milk, porridge etc. This reduced the interval between births of children and population grew rapidly. According to one estimate, the beginning of food production in the fertile crescent region (the area around Iraq) increased the size of settlements by about ten times. Hunter-gatherers used to live in groups of twenty or thirty as more people living together could lead to food shortage. Farmers could grow more grain than the food gathered by hunter-gatherers. Now they could provide food for more people from a small piece of land. Unlike hunter-gatherers, farmers could produce food that could be preserved for a longer time. In this way villages with a population of hundreds were established.
3. Expansion of settlements – The beginning of agriculture meant that anything could be grown in a place where it did not grow naturally. Thus artificial efforts were made to expand production. While on the one hand hunter-gatherers were dependent on nature for the availability of food, farmers prepared new land by modifying nature to grow grains. Thus farmers established their settlements in many untouched areas of the early period. Agriculture also increased the utility and carrying capacity of land. Various estimates show that an agricultural hunter-gatherer needed an area of ​​roughly four square kilometers to get food throughout the year. Whereas a small piece of land could feed many farmers through agriculture. But with the advent of agriculture many people had to accept slavery. Chiefs hungry for power and wealth would have forced other members of the community to do farming and kept a part of the produce for themselves.
4. Beginning of kinship – The advent of agriculture also brought about the idea of ​​long-term cooperation. Hunter-gatherer groups needed cooperation while hunting. Once the hunt was over and the group was divided, the group did not exist. Farmers needed cooperation from sowing to harvesting. Hunting could take from one day to a week. But farmers had to spend at least four months to get their harvest. Farmers grew food every year and during that time ate the food grown in the previous season. Food was therefore produced throughout the year. Thus, kinship developed in agricultural societies which became the institutional framework for cooperation among farmers.
5. Beginning of diseases and epidemics – The advent of agriculture also affected the health and hygiene of the people. While a regular supply of food increased their lifespan (the average lifespan of Australopithecus was only 25 years), collecting water, watering crops or settling near swampy areas also led to the breeding of mosquitoes. These mosquitoes are the carriers of diseases like malaria. The garbage and grass accumulated around also attracted insects, some of which were the cause of diseases. The most prominent example of this is the bubonic plague that occurred in rats in the medieval period, in which rat-borne germs were the carriers of this disease.
6. The creation of societies based on inequality – It took a lot of labour to build permanent houses. Similarly, working in the fields also required hard work. Agricultural communities had to protect their fields and homes more than the gatherers. If there was a conflict among the gatherers, the losing group would leave the place. Farmers had to stay in their villages even though the winners looted everything. In return, they had to give a part of their produce and their status became secondary. Thus, the importance of war changed with the advent of agriculture. This also paved the way for the formation of societies based on inequality.

Changes in material culture during the Neolithic period

In post-archaeological terminology, the Neolithic period comes after the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. Its time period is spread over 6 thousand years (from about 12 thousand years ago to 6 thousand years ago). To differentiate it from the ancient Stone Age or Paleolithic period, in 1865, archaeologist John Lubbock put forward the concept of Neolithic Age. The word ‘Neolithic’ is made up of two Greek words Neo (meaning new) and Lithos (meaning stone). Till the middle of the twentieth century, the term Neolithic Age was seen as the period of use of refined and shiny tools; but this term is not limited only to the use of new tools but it also indicates the changes taking place in the life of hunter-gatherers. Cultivation of plants and domestication of animals and almost complete dependence on agriculture, increase in population, increase in size of settlements, use of pottery and weaving of cloth, social and cultural exchange on a large scale are some of the main characteristics of the Neolithic Age. Complex society and civilization arose after the Neolithic Age in many societies of the world.

1. Concept of Neolithic Revolution – V. Gordon Childe used the term ‘Neolithic Revolution’ in his book Man Makes Himself (1936) to highlight the revolutionary importance of the beginning of agriculture in the world. According to him, in this era, while overcoming the severe climatic crisis of the early Holocene, man made nature his companion and not stuck to nature like a parasite. Recent research has proved that the change in climate was neither sudden nor radical. In the last period of glaciation, the temperature started increasing gradually. The climate in West Asia was neo-thermal, that is, neither too hot nor too cold. Scholars like Ofer bar-Yosef have shown that the post-glacial warmth did not increase continuously from cold to hot and from dry to moist in a phased manner, but the weather started fluctuating when the ice sheets melted. About 10,000 years ago, the climate gradually became warmer.
   
   Climate change never caused any crisis but it had far-reaching effects on the lifestyle. Some scholars have objected to calling this change a revolution. But agriculture and cattle (cow, buffalo) proved so decisive for the social and economic organization of human society that the word ‘revolution’ came to be used to denote the consequences of the beginning of agriculture. According to Childe, after learning the art of burning fire, food production was the biggest economic revolution in human history. Now they also had a surplus to store which they could use at their will. It could be used in times of crisis, it could support a large population and it could also be exchanged. But it should be noted here that not all early agricultural communities had food surplus. Moreover, Neolithic life was the result of a long evolution and this change did not happen in a hurry. Now we know about the beginning of agriculture in many parts of the world. In the previous unit we have discussed this process of beginning of agriculture. In this unit we will discuss other dimensions of this phase of cultural transition.
2. Change in food habits – In the Neolithic age, there was a radical change in human food habits. While in the Paleolithic age people used to eat mostly meat, in the Mesolithic age people started eating many types of food. In the Neolithic age, mainly cereals were eaten. Wheat and gram were found in West Asia and Europe, rice in South and East Asia, millet in Africa, maize in America. The development of food producing economies took place in two phases. In the first phase, some farming and keeping and grazing of animals was started and food was mainly gathered by hunting and gathering wild tubers. The next phase came about 8000 years later when more productive grains started being grown and cattle, sheep, goats and pigs started being reared. This led to the development of a completely agriculture and livestock based economy and with the passage of time its form expanded. Cattle rearing completely changed the eating habits and milk and milk products were included in it. With the preference for vegetarian food over meat, the need for salt increased and it began to be traded. The radical change in food habits also affected human body structure and diseases. These are some of the areas of research that are now being conducted.
3. Beginning of settlements – Cultivation of plants and domestication of animals brought about significant changes in people’s lives. Food production led to people settling in one place. Earlier, it was believed that if sickles, blades, grinding stones and pits made for storage were found at a site, then it was assumed that the site was a permanent settlement. Research has proved that there were many villages where tools and farmers were not found. For example, hunter-gatherers who developed during the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic era had a year-round migration schedule and lived from one place to another according to the season and built temporary types of dwellings. Mallaha (northern Israel; about 11000 BP), Tel Mureibit (Syria) and Suberde (Turkey) were some of the early Neolithic villages which were based on intensive gathering of forest food. After some time, the settlement patterns changed. Neolithic life had a great impact on the population. Despite the lack of reliable data, it can be said that the population was increasing. In the Neolithic era, the number, size and number of cemeteries of settlements increased rapidly in almost all Neolithic cultures as compared to the previous periods.
   
   Excavations at Cayonu, Jericho and Jarmo and islands in the Mediterranean like Crete and Cyprus have revealed evidence of multiple settlements at the same place. This led to the formation of mounds and the roundness of the site. The Neolithic village of Jarmo was established 7000 years ago and was spread over about three to four acres. It had about 24 houses made of baked mud. These were probably built and repaired at the same place to save land and to protect against floods. Due to repeated settlement in the same area, the ground level kept rising and repeated settlement levels have been found on excavation. Mud plastered walls have been found in Jarmo and limestone paths and stone walls have been found in Cayonu. It seems to have been a large village or where 150 people lived together.
4. Manufacture of tools – Farming and related activities like clearing of forests, tilling of soil, sowing of seeds, harvesting of crops, threshing and threshing of grains require special tools. Some efforts were made in this direction in the Middle Stone Age. Tools like hoe and spade were first made to prepare the land for farming. While the spade was used to dig the soil, the hoe was used to make furrows in the field for sowing seeds. Knives and sickles were used to harvest the ripe crops. Grains like wheat and barley were separated from the chaff by threshing and winnowing and then spread on the floor. They were threshed and ground using mortar, pestle and mill. These tools were made from hard stones.
   
   Axes or compasses were used for cutting. These were made very smooth. Stones were used to sharpen bones from the Upper Paleolithic Age or even before that. Stones were now used to polish these tools. New technologies were adopted to make better use of plant and food resources. Specialised tools like sickles were developed, which had small teeth and a wooden handle. The blades of the sickles of Jarmo (Zargos Hills) were made of sharpened flint. During harvesting, they were sharpened with wooden or bone handles. The farmers of this region first used tools made of lava glass. This was a type of volcanic glass with a very sharp edge and was stronger than stone. The edges of tools like axes were polished by rubbing them on stones because people must have realised that axes would cut trees faster and were more effective than tools without polish. These tools were polished by rubbing them on stones to remove layers.
5. Form of Neolithic Pottery – People started making the best use of naturally occurring material objects. Clay was one such material. It was used for paving, making toys and other craft items. Small geometric objects like circles, cones and discs made of clay are believed to have been used to record information about changing seasons, harvests etc. In the absence of writing, such sporadic methods may have been used for the purpose of basic information collection. Clay was hardened by fire and used to make bowls and other types of utensils. Hunter-gatherers used organic materials like leather and wood and vegetable shells like kahu and ghiya for storing things. But these had limited utility. Food could not be cooked on them. These pots may have been used to store nuts, grass seeds and grains.
   
   Gradually, the pottery of the Neolithic period became more sophisticated than the simple pottery of the Mesolithic period. It is worth noting that sand or organic matter was also added to prevent the earthen pots from breaking while firing. Early farmers appear to have been very careful about the quality of the items they made. The potters of West Asia were the first to start polishing the pots with stone to store liquids. Earlier this method was used to polish the floors and walls of the house. The question that is usually asked is how did the early farmers shape the pots in the absence of a potter’s wheel? Probably the bottom of the pot would have been prepared first with the help of some hemispherical object and round rings of clay would have been placed one above the other on top of it to give it the shape and height of the pot. Early pottery was either dried in the sun or the stoves or fires of the house were used. There is no evidence of the use of a kiln for this work.
   
   But there is no simple link between the beginning of agriculture and pottery making. These types of crafts are the result of factors such as the production environment and social and economic needs and pressures. Many hunter-gatherer societies made pottery as well as stone tools. There were also many agricultural communities that did neither. Some other communities living in Wadi-i Natuf and other places in Southwest Asia used stone tools such as sickles, compasses and axes as early as 11,000 BP. They also hunted and raised cattle and cultivated wild wheat and barley. Evidence of agriculture around 7000 BP is found in the Tehukan Valley of Meso-America. Pottery dated to 4300 BP and smooth stone axes dated to 3200 BP have been found. Grain was stored in pits dug in the ground. Pits made around 6300 BP have been found in Faiyum (Egypt) in which grains like wheat and barley were preserved.
   
   After people started settling permanently in one place, activities like weaving also started. For this, materials like thread, wool, fiber or cotton are needed. Activities like weaving and spinning started with the domestication of goats and sheep in West Asia and other animals like ellama and guanaco in the Andes (South America). This happened when there was a change in the physical structure and skin of the animals as a result of domestication. The hair of the domesticated sheep used to be long from the beginning. But the making of woolen clothes started much later after the beginning of sheep rearing. This makes it clear that the herders did not deliberately choose some specific sheep for rearing only for the purpose of obtaining wool. As far as the tools related to this are concerned, the people of this period used to make bone needles. This includes needles for making nets, awls and hooks for fishing. These objects have been found in Nicomedia in Greece, around the end of the 7th millennium B.C.
6. Exchange of goods – Like gatherers, early agriculturists also relied on an exchange economy. Seeds and other food stuffs, cloth, salt, rare stones, ceramic vessels and raw materials such as flint were the main items of exchange. Often food stuffs, stones, tools and other raw materials were exchanged to meet the needs of neighbouring settlements or to meet the needs of local settlements. Slag glass, which was traded earlier, was one of the main items of Neolithic exchange. Similarly, grains, fruits and pottery were exchanged. People used to do this exchange in neighbouring areas, either by walking or by boat on water. Tools made of slag glass have been found at Natufian sites such as Jarmo in the Levant. Slag glass and flint were used to make daggers and knives at the Natufian site of Catal Huyuk.
   
   As well as promoting economic contacts between people in different regions, this exchange encouraged contact and the exchange of social relations and ideas among Neolithic communities. It is believed that this exchange led to the invention of pottery, and eventually the early spread of copper and bronze metallurgy in the major Neolithic sites. The advent of agriculture is a very important aspect of human history. Some of its effects were immediate and felt over a long period of time, such as widespread settlement, while others were more gradual, such as population growth and effects on human health. The advent of agriculture forced humans to think of new ways and strategies to cope with their environment. Of course, the introduction of agriculture did not bring about an immediate revolution in the lives and lifestyles of early farmers. But it did encourage many important social and economic changes in human life and paved the way for complex social formations.
   
   The transition to agriculture was not universal. Many communities chose to continue with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. There are exceptions, as ongoing excavations at Catal Huyuk in Turkey indicate that the production of food was not the reason for the transition to agriculture in every region. For example, there is evidence at Catal Huyuk that thousands of people settled there not to farm but for some other, mysterious cultural reason. Thus in this unit you have learnt about the effects of early agriculture in different regions of the world.