Download Chapter 15

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 Evolution
Phase
Subphase
Hallmark
Example
Savagery
Lower
Subsistence
on fruit and
nuts
None survived
into historical
period.
Middle
Fish,fire
Upper
Bow and
arrow
Australian
aborigines,
Polynesians
Athapaskan
tribes of
Hudson’s Bay
Territory
Morgan’s Three Phases of
Human Cultural Evolution
Phase
Subphase
Hallmark
Example
Barbarism
Lower
Pottery
Middle
construction;
irrigation
Eastern Native
American tribes
Pueblos
Upper
Iron
smelting
Germanic tribes
of the time of
Caesar
Morgan’s Three Phases of
Human Cultural Evolution
Phase
Civilization
Subphase
Hallmark
Example
Phonetic
alphabet;
literary
records
Ancient: Greece
and Rome
Modern: Britain
Differences Between Unilineal and
Modern Evolutionism
1. 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.
Agriculture, industrial, pastoral
separated as specialists.
State
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 pattern
Band
Tribe
Temporary camps; some seasonal
settlements reoccupied.
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 Theory
B. Density-equilibrium Model
C. Oasis Theory
D. 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. Mesozoic
B. Natufian
C. Neolithic
D. 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.