Page 379 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1680 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

into cultivation, notably tree crops such as olives, dates,
Secondary- and grapes, which could produce liquid commodities

such as oil or sugar-rich liquids suitable for fermentation,
Products paralleling the large-scale use of cow’s and sheep’s milk
for ghee (clarified butter) and cheese. Moreover woolly
Revolution breeds of sheep were in existence, supporting a textile

industry that provided one of the major exports of the
he most fundamental transformation in human con- first cities. It is clear that just as human relationships had
Tditions in the last ten thousand years was undoubt- grown more complex and diverse, so had the human rela-
edly the beginning of farming, termed the “Neolithic tionship with crops and livestock, with the domestication
Revolution” by the archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe of new species and an appreciation not just of the
(1892–1957). In several parts of the world, the cultiva- calorific value of plants and animals but of their role as
tion of plants permitted unprecedented aggregations of providers of secondary products. The patterns of con-
population and the emergence of village communities. sumption and technology that arose from these relation-
The most rapid development took place in the Fertile ships (including alcohol, the plow, horses, wheels, and
Crescent of western Asia, the arc of mountains running the wearing of woolen clothes) gave a distinctive charac-
parallel to the eastern end of the Mediterranean and ter to the societies in which they were present, including
enclosing the basin drained by the Tigris and Euphrates the first literate civilizations, and had a major impact on
rivers, which saw the emergence of urban life around the rest of the world.To signal this transformation in the
4000 BCE. This latter event, which Childe termed the nature of farming, and in particular the effects that the
“Urban Revolution,” was the second decisive turning introduction of these innovations had on neighboring
point in human history and took place as a consequence areas such as Europe and the steppe belt (and, ulti-
of the growing scale of interconnections and concentra- mately, even China and the Americas), a third “revolu-
tion of resources. tionary” label in the style of Gordon Childe came into
While farming began with the cultivation of cereals use: the secondary-products revolution of the Western
and pulses (legumes), the rapid sequence of develop- Old World.
ments that followed was intimately associated with the It is necessary in this inquiry to raise the question of
keeping of domestic livestock. At first, domesticated ani- cause and effect. Did innovations in farming practice
mals (sheep, goat, cattle, and pigs) were kept simply as a arise spontaneously, or at least in response to ecological
captive supply of meat. Only later was their potential as opportunities and growing population densities, and
draft animals and as suppliers of products such as milk then make possible a growing scale of trade and more
and meat explored and utilized. Early varieties of sheep, complex social arrangements? Or should the causal
for instance, had hairy coats with only a small amount of arrow be reversed, with growing social complexity and
wool, while primitive breeds of cattle would have yielded centralization making possible experimentation and the
only small amounts of milk. By the time of the first urban exploitation of innovations? Anthropological theorists of
communities, however, not only were cattle used for successive generations have given different answers, with
pulling wagons and plows, but new species such as the the ecological emphasis of the 1960s to 1980s (during
donkey had been domesticated as pack animals for mov- which time the term secondary-products revolution was
ing supplies. Soon other species of animals joined the list, formulated) giving way to viewpoints stressing social fac-
including horses and camels for transport, complement- tors and human agency. A balanced view would encom-
ing the movement of goods by boats—some of which pass both perspectives, including on the one hand
were now equipped with sails. New types of crop came ecological possibilities and constraints, on the other the