Page 83 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

this fleeting world / acceleration: the agrarian era tfw-23

A selection of stone and bronze
implements recovered from
agrarian era state-level centers
in Mesoamerica. (1) axe;
(2) bracelets; (3) arrow points;
(4) stone axe; and (5) bronze
knife.

small and mobile, but farming communities created more surpluses of food. As villages of grain farmers multiplied
favorable environments for pathogens (causative agents and their productivity rose, the size of stored surpluses
of disease). Close contact with livestock allowed patho- grew. Conflicts over control of these increasingly valuable
gens to move from animals to humans, accumulations of surpluses often triggered the emergence of new forms of
rubbish provided fertile breeding grounds for diseases inequality and new systems of power.
and pests, and large communities provided the abundant Stored surpluses allowed communities for the first
reserves of potential victims that epidemic diseases need time to support large numbers of nonfarmers: specialists
to flourish and spread. Thus, as populations grew and such as priests, potters, builders, soldiers, or artists who
exchanges between communities multiplied, diseases did not farm but rather supported themselves by exchang-
traveled more freely from region to region.Their impact ing their products or services for foodstuffs and other
took the form of a series of epidemiological decrescendos goods. As farmers and nonfarmers exchanged goods
that began with catastrophic epidemics and were fol- and services, a complex division of labor appeared for the
lowed by less disastrous outbreaks as immune systems in first time in human history. Specialization increased inter-
region after region adapted to the new diseases. dependence between households and communities and
As the historian William McNeill has shown, long- tightened the webs of obligation and dependence that
range epidemiological exchanges within the Afro- bound individuals and communities together. Eventually
Eurasian world zone immunized the populations of this surpluses grew large enough to support elite groups
zone against a wide range of diseases to which popula- whose lives depended primarily on their ability to control
tions in other world zones remained more vulnerable. and manage the resources produced by others, either
Trans-Eurasian epidemiological exchanges may help through exchanges of goods and services or through the
explain the slow growth of much of Eurasia during the threat of force. Human societies became multilayered as
first millennium CE; they may also explain why, once the some groups began to specialize in the exploitation of
world was united after 1500 CE, epidemiological ex- other men and women, who exploited farmers, who
changes had a catastrophic impact on regions outside exploited the natural environment.William McNeill has
Afro-Eurasia. called these elite groups “macroparasites,” whereas the
anthropologist EricWolf has called them “tribute takers.”
Hierarchies of Power
In many tropical regions people harvested root crops Relations with Nonagrarian
piecemeal as they were needed. However, in regions of Communities
grain farming, such as southwestern Asia, China, and Finally, the agrarian era was characterized by complex
Mesoamerica, plants ripened at the same time; thus, relations between agrarian communities and other types
entire crops had to be harvested and stored in a short of communities.Throughout this era pastoralists and for-
period. For this reason grain agriculture required people, agers living outside the main agricultural regions contin-
for the first time in history, to accumulate and store large ued to have a significant impact on agrarian communities