Page 81 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

this fleeting world / acceleration: the agrarian era tfw-21

The “Secondary-
Products” Revolution

As illustrated by the excerpt below from the Uni-
Accelerated Technological versity of Oxford website, the “secondary-products”
Innovation revolution is a theory that continues to be tested on
Local population pressure, expansion into new environ- artifacts dating back more than 6,000 years.
ments, and increasing exchanges of ideas and goods
The first [project] involves the participation of
encouraged many subtle improvements in agricultural
Professor Andrew Sherratt of the School of
techniques. Most improvements arose from small changes
Archaeology of the University of Oxford and
in the handling of particular crops, such as earlier or later
curator of the European prehistoric collections in
planting, or the selection of better strains. However, on a
the Ashmolean Museum. It was he who sug-
broader scale, increased productivity arose from whole
gested that the first domestic animals may have
clusters of innovation that appeared in many environ-
been used not for their “secondary products”
ments. Swidden agriculturalists cleared forest lands by fire
(milk, wool, hair and traction), but for meat, and
and sowed crops in the ashy clearings left behind; after a
that milking and the exploitation of other sec-
few years, when the soil’s fertility was exhausted, they
ondary animal products became part of prehis-
moved on. In mountainous areas farmers learned how to
toric farming practices only around 4000 BCE.
cultivate hillsides by cutting steplike terraces.
This socio-economic transition helped promote
social evolutionary changes such as the birth of
Secondary-Products Revolution
pastoral nomadic communities, the emergence of
One of the most important of these clusters of innovation
the Mediterranean farming economy and the rise
had its primary impact only in the Afro-Eurasian world
of complex State-level societies.
zone:The archaeologist Andrew Sherratt has called it the
The Oxford Levantine Archaeology laboratory
“secondary-products revolution.” From about 4000 BCE a
has provided pottery sherds from vessels found
series of innovations allowed farmers in Afro-Eurasia to
in Israel’s Negev desert dating from c. 4500–
make more efficient use of the secondary products of large
4000 BCE to test Sherratt’s “secondary-products-
livestock—those products that could be exploited without
revolution” hypothesis by analysing residues for
slaughtering the animals. Secondary products include fi-
evidence of milk.The samples are currently being
bers,milk,manure for fertilizer,and traction power to pull
tested in Professor Richard Evershed’s Biogeo-
plows,carry people,and transport goods.In arid regions,
chemistry Research Centre at the University of
such as the steppes of Eurasia,the deserts of southwestern
Bristol.
Asia, or the savanna lands of east Africa, the secondary-
products revolution generated the entirely new lifeway of Source: Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. (2004). Retrieved Sep-
tember 8, 2004, from http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ochjs/levantine.html
pastoralism as entire communities learned to live off the
products of their herds. Unlike members of the farming
communities that were most typical of the agrarian era, felt in the Afro-Eurasian world zone because most poten-
pastoralists were usually nomadic because in the dry tial domesticates had been driven to extinction in the
grasslands in which pastoralism flourished livestock had Americas during the era of foragers. Many of the critical
to be moved constantly to provide them with enough feed. differences between the histories of Afro-Eurasia and the
However, the main impact of the secondary-products Americas may depend, ultimately, on this key technolog-
revolution was in farming areas, where horses, camels, ical difference.
and oxen could be used to pull heavy plows and to trans-
port goods and humans. The domestication of llamas Just Add Water
meant that South America had some experience of the The techniques of water management known collectively
secondary-products revolution, but its major impact was as “irrigation” had an even greater impact on agricultural