PRIMITIVE SOCIETY

NEOLITHIC SOCIETY

The development of agriculture (farming) For reasons that are a mystery to us today, our ancient ancestors in what we today call ‘the Middle East’ began to sow the seeds of various wild grasses (primitive forms of barley and wheat) into the ground – producing a ‘neolithic revolution.’   They began to do so with the full understanding that this would eventually produce mature grasses whose grains they could reliably harvest.   As wild grains were fairly abundant in this region one could wonder why anyone would have undertaken such labor at all.  It has been speculated that the effort may have been minimal at first:  perhaps merely scattering some seed left over from a previous harvest in the wet alluvial muds that washed down from the hills each spring.  In any case, the primitive ‘farming’ of grain would have served as a very helpful – and at times vital – supplement to the hunt.   Also, grains had the added advantage that they did not have to be eaten immediately but could be stored for periods of time when food became scarce. This practice of planting and then later harvesting seed very quickly proved to be a great boon to human life.  It provided a rather stable food supply – and prompted people to be more deliberate in the planting effort.  Eventually large fields were cleared and planted and huge crops were harvested –  enough to sustain the community through winters of scarcity.  Soon communities began to grow in size as the practice of agriculture enabled a community to support more members.  Thus as the practice of agriculture spread so did the human population – explosively. The development of animal husbandry (herding) Accompanying this rapid development of agriculture was another facet of this neolithic revolution: the development of animal husbandry or herding.  Rather than hunt for meat, man now kept his meat with him in the form of domesticated animals: goats, sheep, cattle, ducks, pigs, etc. Agriculture may have been vital to the development of domesticated herds and flocks.  During dry seasons and winters when wild grasses get thinned way down, natural grazers such as wild goats, sheep or pigs, would have found it advantageous to stick close to human communities when the humans proved willing to feed them (the humans understanding better than the animals the ultimate consequences of this relationship!).  Eventually this relationship between man and domestic herds grew in importance – as meat now becomes more available in herding rather than hunting.  But of course the herder now had new responsibilities: the care and nurture of his herds. Hybridization In this process man made yet another important discovery.  By not eating but instead setting aside the plumpest grains for storage as seed grain for the next season's planting, the yield of the crop vastly improved.  Similarly, by not slaughtering for food but instead permitting the strongest animals in their herds to survive to the next rutting season in order to mate, the quality of the herds likewise improved. The secret of the "seed" Thus neolithic peoples had learned the secret of reproducing abundance in plants and animals through controlled implantation of the seed.  And as they understood the success of their crops and herds being tied up in how they carefully selected, preserved and planted seed, they understood the strength and success of their human community in similar terms.  The identity of the members of their community was based on some excellent ancestor, from whom they all were directly descended as the product of his ‘seed’ or a member of his blood line.   We encounter this idea in the Bible, which frequently talks of the Hebrews as "the seed of Abraham" - just as it talks about the 12 tribes of Israel as deriving from the various sons or grandsons of Jacob (Israel).  Thus also the many tedious genealogical sections in the Bible which go into excruciating detail listing which male begat whom, who in turn begat whom, etc.  This was of central importance to their idea of being a community or society.

The household, clan and tribe Thus what gave special identity to each neolithic community was the fact that usually all community members were blood descendants of a single ancestor.  Everyone in the community was related by birth and formed social links on the basis of what is still fairly recognizable family ties even today: everyone had a place in the community as father, mother, son, daughter, (husband, wife, sister, brother), and grandparents and even great grandparents, and aunts and uncles and cousins – and second and third and fourth cousins, etc.  If you were not a descendant of some original ancestor you were an outsider, subject probably to very unfriendly treatment. However there were usually ways of an ‘outsider’ gaining membership into the community, through the important ritual of marriage (with an acceptable neighboring community) or through an equally important ritual of adoption (usually involving some kind of blood sharing).  But by and large these communities were quite restricted communities, limited in membership by "blood" ties. But the blood ties could become quite extensive – provided that genealogical records (sometimes just simple stories of who begat whom) were kept.  Blood-related households could be lumped together as ‘clans.’  And if record-keeping was quite sophisticated, huge numbers of people could be grouped by household and clan into "tribes."   The genealogy gave identity to the community – and to the individuals who formed up its membership.  Personal names were given to honor the lineage.  There were no family names such as Smith or Dupont or Eichelberger.  But there certainly were family names, except that they were more like Robertson, Peterson, Davidson – indicating that the person was a son (or even further down the genealogical line as grandson or great, great grandson) of some famed individual named Robert, or Peter, or David.  In fact, to give a person’s full name, you would have to come up with something like: William, son of John, son of Frank, son of David, son of ..., all the way back to some great founding Father. Property Property now becomes very important to the life of the tribe, whether farmland or grazing territory.  Battles were fought to protect and extend (as the tribe expanded) these land holdings – usually fierce battles because loss meant the loss of the right to sustain the economic life of the tribe.  Defeated enemies were given the option to move elsewhere or were simply killed on the spot, for the tribe had no way to absorb unrelated individuals – nor the economy to feed other than their own people. The instructions that God gave Joshua to go in and clear the land of its inhabitants seem harsh and cruel to us today (unless you have somehow come to terms with what was done in America to make way for the Anglo population on what was previously Indian land).  But it was logical to Joshua in terms of the neolithic world-view he certainly held.  The land was sacred to YHWH (Yahweh or Jehovah, depending how you pronounce its consonants and vowel this famous Hebrew tetragram). Village life Certainly the time-honored and fiercely protected migratory trails of the nomadic herdsmen were vital to neolithic life.  The right of nomadic tribes to use these particular trails was a matter of life and death to the nomads – and the willingness of the tribes to do battle to maintain these rights was what made them fierce warriors. But even more important to neolithic life were the many villages that dotted the neolithic landscape.  These were independent, self-sufficient, and often rather isolated permanent encampments surrounded by stone, brick or dried mud walls which offered protection to the members of the farming community.  Often these walls were simply the connected backside of a ring of houses, the line broken only by a well defended gate.  At the center of the village might be an all-important well.  It might also have something like a worship center devoted to the tribal god or gods, perhaps presided over by a tribal religious elder who doubled also as a village teacher. There might also be one or two people devoted to the industrial crafts such as iron mongering or carpentry and thus possessing a workshop in the village – though it would be a quite prosperous village indeed to be able to support such artisans.  Normally these items would be provided by craftsmen or tradesmen who periodically would come to the villages to work or to trade.  Thus most everyone in the village was involved in one way or another with the single occupation of food producing: men, women and children of all ages.  Most everyone was basically a farmer in occupation. Just outside the walls of the village were the all-important grain fields – some of them held communally by the entire tribe, others belonging to certain families. The members of these tribal villages would probably number in the several hundreds – about as many as the nearby fields could feed (with enough grain left over as seed for the next planting or as wealth used in trade with the nomads for meat.) Neolithic "government" Neolithic government took the form of what we would call a "representative democracy."  The tribal community would be presided over by a respected elder or "chief."  But he usually presided only rather symbolically over the all important tribal council – though his well respected wisdom gave his voice special significance in council meetings.  It was the tribal council that actually ruled the life of the neolithic community.  The tribal council was made up of representatives (also termed "elders" or "chiefs") of the various households of the community.  Community decisions vital to the health and wealth of the community required that virtually every household was drawn into  mutual agreement, for unity was essential.  Thus council discussions could go on at length until accord was reached. As tribes grew in size, subdivisions of the tribes ("clans") grew in importance.  In a large tribal society a neolithic village would thus be made up of members of a single clan within the larger tribe.  But tribal unity – unity among the clans – would remain important, as clan disputes over land or water rights were frequent and highly dangerous to the unity of the tribal community.  And tribal unity was especially important in times of wars with outsiders.  Thus tribal councils would have to be held frequently (or even regularly) to bring the clans together for tribal action.  Here the clans would each be represented by important clan elders or chiefs representing their particular village or clan.  And again, as unity was critical, discussions could be elaborate and lengthy in order to bring all the clan chiefs or elders to agreement. The relationship between farmer and herdsman Despite the frequent rivalry between the neolithic farmer and the neolithic herdsman, there was a close and necessary relationship between them.  The herdsman was a nomad, a wanderer – forced to keep his herds moving from lower pastures to upper pastures as the seasons changed.  He lived in tents, in keeping with his mobile lifestyle.  But there were also seasons where there was little or nor pasturage to be had for his herds anywhere.  During this time he was highly dependent upon the neolithic farmer to sell from his grain stores enough grain to feed his herds.  The herdsman could of course raid villages for the grain – though this provided only a short-term solution to the problem of hunger.  Usually an important economic relationship – as well as a political relationship – developed.  In exchange for the grain the farmer offered, the nomad offered meat – something valued greatly, of course, by the grain farmer.  And so they traded – year after year in what became a natural and necessary relationship between the two. The relationship was also political.  Raids from hungry nomads were a danger that the settled villages faced constantly.  That is why the development of a special relationship with a particular nomadic tribe became important.  These nomadic tribes provided the best defense against other nomads and thus became protectors of the villages.  This allowed farmers to farm and not worry about also being well trained warriors.  Nomads fit more naturally into that role – and the farmers were willing to let them play that role on their own behalf.  And so life rolled on – generation after generation.

Personal gods and goddesses With the development of the neolithic revolution, man himself seems to come into greater importance in his own eyes.  Even his understanding of the higher spiritualized world gets ‘anthropomorphized’ – meaning, he turned spirits or spirit into human form as gods and goddesses.   And the heavens became viewed as the residence of these gods and goddesses who regulated human and other affairs on earth.  And of course, they too were generally related:  husbands and wives – or at least consorts –  complete with offspring of their own, also (naturally) gods and goddesses. Fertility rites Neolithic religion thus reflected the neolithic preoccupation with the logic of the "seed."    This logic held that all life was understood to rest on the importance of planting seed (whether plant, animal or human) into the womb (whether earth, plant or human).  So therefore neolithic peoples – using logic similar to paleolithic man’s view of the importance of ‘pre-enactment’ – typically performed pre-enactments of the all-important agricultural or animal life cycles.  We are speaking here of the seasonal performance of fertility rituals involving the public mating of a male member of the community representing ‘Corn King,’ with a female representative of the ‘Earth Mother.’  This religious coupling appears shocking to our more prudish sexual sensitivities.   But in its own time it had its very clear reasons for being a common religious practice. Sometimes too the Corn King was ritualistically slaughtered and buried at the beginning of the next planting season in representation of the necessary dying and planting of the seed into the earth as the source of the new season's crops!  Generally however (for obvious reasons) it was found preferable to substitute animal sacrifices (a ram or a bull) in place of human sacrifice. Because of the importance of her function in the life of the neolithic agricultural community, Earth Mother was often the most important spirit or god within the extensive religious pantheon of the community. Young Theseus One of the many stories told of the young Athenian hero Theseus involves an adventure of his when he left Athens and wandered into the city of Megara, at that moment very obviously in the middle of some kind of very important festival.  Great was his surprise and delight when he was greeted as if he were some greatly expected king or conquering hero.  Adoring women showered him with gifts and female attention.  So delightful was their treatment of him that he decided to accept their invitation to stay on with them.  That is until nearly a year later as Megara was making preparations for another celebration of the same festival he had come upon previously.  A young maiden who had fallen deeply in love with him told him a deep and dark secret: the female priests were planning to have him seized, bound and then sacrificed as ‘King Corn’ in their annual fertility rite to the Earth Mother.  Thus forewarned he made his escape.  Presumably the farmers of Megara suffered a terrible harvest that year! Beware of Thracian women! Stories of Thracian women tearing men apart in similar wild orgies were told often – some of them connected to the story of Orpheus (who died in just such a grizzly fashion) and even to Dionysus who was either the instigator or even victim of such an event himself. Rigid sexual codes In short, the ‘life principal’ of neolithic culture was essentially sexual and the manipulation of these religious insights in order to guarantee crops and herds involved the periodic performance of what we consider shocking sexual fertility rites.  Thus we think of these ancient cultures as sexually ‘loose.’  Actually, the very sacredness of the sex act also involved conformity of society's members to a very strict sexual code regulating human sexual relations, including normally the intense cloistering of the female to protect her from unregulated male sexual activity.  Prostitutes formed a proper place in society – being often connected with the main religious performances.  But other women were carefully guarded and secluded from an early age – so that there should be absolutely no mishap in the genealogical lineup caused by inappropriate sexual activity.  The punishment for infractions of the sexual laws were extreme – especially for the women. Agriculturalists and the female principle We now believe, in general, that settled agriculturalists tended to emphasize the female principle of life:  the earth or womb out of which their crops grew and life depended on this rite as the true source of life.  The male principle was viewed as a supportive or secondary function.  All agricultural peoples of the ancient world worshiped some variant of the Great Goddess or Earth Mother:  Inana (Sumeria), Ishtar (Babylon) or Astarte (Syria), Anat (Canaan), Isis (Egypt), Aphrodite (Greece). Animal herding and the male principle But nomadic animal herders or pastoralists, who moved around in the search of new pasturing for their all-important flocks, were less attached to the womb of soil.  They tended to preserve greater reverence for the male principle. They were more focused in their religious impulses on honoring the ‘Great Father’ from whose seed the tribe descended (as in "the seed of Abraham"). By their mutual calculation of descent from such a ‘Father’ or common seed, the living descendants of nomadic societies were able to reckon their social ties with each other, family by family, clan by clan, tribe by tribe – ensuring some degree of peaceful and orderly economic and political relations as they wandered from place to place. This was characteristic of both the Aryan nomads (Hindus, Persians, Greeks, Celts) and the Semitic nomads (Hebrew Israelites, Ishmaelites, Edomites, etc.) who moved their peoples in and around the periphery of the more settled ancient Near East. Some speculative thoughts about the "Fall" and about Cain and Abel Certainly the very earliest account of this entire neolithic revolution – and the impact it had on man – is found in the opening chapters of Genesis (chapters four and five).  The Genesis account begins with the story of an idyllic relationship between man and God.  Man or "Adam" (from the Hebrew Adamah meaning the "earth" – and thus the name Adam is something equivalent to "the Earthman") lived in a harmonious relationship with the Lord God.  But human logic entered the picture as the means by which the serpent was able to tempt Adam (and the woman, Eve) away from that relationship with God. God expressly forbade the eating from the tree in the center of the garden because it bore the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil – and the day that Adam or Eve ate from it, they would surely die.  Death in this case was defined in terms of the rupture of the vital relationship that linked man to God – a primitive simplicity which indeed made life and death unquestioned features of existence.  With the acquiring of the knowledge of the life principle (as in the neolithic discovery of the mechanics of life) this simplicity would end.  Death would take on a dark horror that it may not have had in earlier times.  This is, of course, to read a lot into the story that simply is not stated – or even necessarily implied.  Yet the idea fits very well into the changing dynamic of moving from paleolithic to neolithic life. Of course Eve – and then Adam – did indeed question God’s instructions on the basis of a new logic.  They wanted that knowledge – one that would make them like God, knowing good and evil.  And immediately they found themselves in a whole new moral-ethical realm – as well as a predicament in that their knowledge now bound them to the ground – to till it and force it to yield its bounty through very hard work.  The innocent age of food gathering was over.  Man was now thrust out into the world of toil – and the cycle of life and death which man thought he could master, but which in fact mastered him. Notice that the two children born to Adam and Eve (mother of ‘Life’) were definitely neolithic.  Cain was a tiller of the soil and Abel was a keeper of herds.  And they seemed not to get along very well.  For reasons that many theologians have long speculated on (without satisfactory results) God accepted Abel’s sacrifice offered to him in the form of slaughtered animals – but rejected Cain’s offering of the fruits of his fields.  This so angered Cain that he killed his brother Abel – an action well repeated in the relations between neolithic farming villages and neolithic nomadic herdsmen – though in history it was usually the farming villages that got the worst end of the rivalry.

Funerary chambers of the burial mound known as the "Barnenez Cairn"
Finistère, France (c. 4600 BC)