Trade and farming
An alternative view of the origins of farming
One of the main linking themes in the posts on this blog is the role of trade in the development of farming and, ultimately, civilisation. The idea is, apparently, not a new one. Something very similar was suggested by Jane Jacobs in 1969 and has recently been restated by Matt Ridley*. It may well be wrong. Many of the posts I’m writing are making the case for this idea. It would probably be just as easy to argue against it.
This page is to explain what the idea is. It’s the dry version. Some posts will outline the ideas here in less dry terms I hope.
Conventional views of farming
Traditional views of the advent of systematic farming suggest that it arose due to complicated causes. These include prestige, shortage of food, population rise, fear and, perhaps most traditionally, progress.
Many western archaeologists assume, perhaps rightly, that humans have an innate desire to settle down. However, they usually couldn’t as hunter-gatherers because there wasn’t enough food in any one location to last them through the year.
Once farming was established there was a surplus of food to cover any hungry season. This allowed people to settle in one place. The surplus of food also allowed people to specialise. People therefore produced specialised goods which were tradeable.
The alternative view
The idea of farming itself was established for thousands of years across the world before it was taken up (see ‘Second Nature’ by Haim Ofek p190 for a climate-related reason why not). Hunter-gatherers might sometimes have tended their wild landscape to get the best out of it. However, systematic farming was both unnecessary and undesirable, being hard work and with very delayed returns.
I want to suggest here that settlement and specialisation came before farming. This meant that people needed to farm to provide for themselves. In this view there was not, at least initially, a surplus from farming, only a sufficiency to feed a settled population.
To me the real question is why did people settle in the first place? I suggest here that it was due to trade.
Trade routes
Trade routes are paths through the landscape or across seas along which goods are carried for exchange.
Traders are people who travel and work sections of the trade routes. At each end of their section they exchange the goods from the other end for new goods to take back. Due to the higher value of goods at their destination it is possible for a trader to better himself or herself from this trade. Traders can be nomadic or have fixed homes.
Any long-distance trade route in the past involved numerous traders, each operating small sections of the route. Heavy goods only moved short distances along the trade route. The lightest, least perishable items might travel the entire length of the trade route.
Due to the labour involved, light items became rarer, and therefore luxuries of increasing value, the further they were carried. Individual traders were unaware of the distances that these individual items travelled along the trade routes. Few trade goods survive in the archaeological record. Goods that do tend to be solid, bulky items that are not part of long-distance trade.
Trading places
Throughout history, even before the start of systematic farming, trade has caused people to settle at certain key geographical points, known as “entrepots”. These are places where goods are exchanged and made or where taxes are charged on traders. They are also places where traders can be provisioned.
The most successful entrepots occur along trade routes that are difficult to avoid so that all traders are forced to use them. On land these trade routes could be rivers or ridges passing through deserts or dense forests. They could also be mountain passes or lines of oases. At sea they could be straits or well-located chains of islands.
In terms of their exact position of entrepots along the trade routes, they can be at changes of terrain, necessitating a change of transport method. (e.g. a port, the highest navigable point on a river, the boundary between flat land and mountains).
Alternatively they can be at a cultural boundary, necessitating a change of trader (e.g. due to religious differences). Sometimes entrepots are located at the only habitable points along the route, acting as supply stations.
Localised population crisis
People come to entrepots to do different things: they could themselves be traders, moving along the trade routes. They could be resident middlemen, controlling the trade through selling on goods or taking dues. They could well be artisans, either resident or itinerant, who make their living by increasing the value of commodities on the route, e.g. by shaping them or using them as raw materials for something more valuable. All people, even beggars, come to the entrepots to better themselves.
If an entrepot attracts a limited number of people or the land or water around it is highly fertile (e.g. with nuts, grains or fish) then the people can continue to practise hunting and gathering. However, if the population of the entrepot grows and the environment is not so abundant then this is when systematic farming becomes a necessity. People specialise as farmers to supply the needs of the others. These farmers also aim to better themselves.
The domestication of animals also allows nomadic pastoralist groups, wandering animal herders, to come into existence. They can act as (not always trustworthy) guides and food providers for traders over longer distances. Alternatively they can use their animals as movable wealth to trade for valuable goods that can be exchanged for more animals at the other end of their range. Either way, they gain through trade.
Satellite trade and conflict
Increased population at an entrepot requires either geographical expansion or intensification of farming. Both require dedicated farming populations and these are located in satellite villages and hamlets around entrepots. Because they are suppliers of food to the entrepots they become secondary consumers of trade goods in exchange, opening up new, mini trade routes radiating away from the entrepot. This creates what’s known as a “core-periphery” pattern around entrepots (the core). If the process involves geographical expansion it inevitably leads to conflict with existing hunter-gatherers in the area being expanded into.
As surrounding hunter-gatherers and nomads see and desire the wealth generated by trade in the entrepots they may either want to become part of that wealth by joining or conquering the people in the entrepots. On the other hand, they may want to get that wealth through raiding the entrepots or stealing from the traders along the routes.
An entrepot has a vested interest in defending itself but also securing its trade supplies. This involves defending the local sections of the trade route from bandits and also, possibly, taking over other entrepots nearby to guarantee “fair” exchange rates. This is the start of empire building. Whilst this results in conflict it makes the trade routes safer.
Changes with time
As technology advances new types of transport allow travel times to decrease and shorter routes to be taken. Better agricultural methods allow the cultivation of previously uncultivatable areas (e.g. irrigation of the Euphrates and Indus valleys). The results are that trade routes change, new entrepots form and old entrepots grow or die.
The advent of nomads, of route security and of provisions improves the ease of trading. This increases the wealth of the entrepots, causing the further expansion of farming and hence the demand for trade goods. These mechanisms act to provide positive feedback encouraging the further growth of trade and of the entrepots. This mechanism ultimately leads to the establishment of the first cities and to the growth of the trade routes.
In this view I draw no distinction between the first village settlements and the first cities. I see them simply as a matter of degree. The larger the settlement the more need there is for centralised control, bureaucracy and stratification of society. (I think I would now disagree with this statement – 26/11/11)
Other thoughts: colonisation and language
The expansion of some languages and language families is perhaps the result of trade. Traders control their supply lines through the establishment of colonies along the trade routes. The success of trading colonies tends to change the local balance in favour of the new language. Once trade routes collapse the languages are often left (along with some percentage of DNA from the original colonists) and these can splinter into more localised languages.*
The nature of historical thought*
Currently the nature of world trade and technology means that it is almost impossible to distinguish the ‘core-periphery’ style of necessity trade with the luxury trade. The two have, essentially, merged into one global trade system. Modern writers cannot see the distinction for this reason. Even by Adam Smith’s time the difference was becoming blurred.
Ancient writers were perhaps unaware of much of the trade that was going on around them. Those who wrote for kings did not want to raise the grubby subject of trade with their leaders and so didn’t mention it either. This is one of the reasons that we have such a distorted view of history.
*Italics are changes made 5th July and 20th November 2010
References
Jacobs, J. 1969 The Economy of Cities, Random House, pp288.
Michailido, A. & Dogan, I. B. 2008 Trading in prehistory and protohistory: Perspectives from the eastern Aegean and beyond. Meletimata 53: Sailing in the Aegean, Readings on the economy and trade routes, p17-53.
Ridley, M. 2010 The Rational Optimist – How Prosperity Evolves, Harper Collins, pp448.
Ofek, H. 2001 Second Nature, Cambridge, pp254.
Additional References
Sherratt, A. 2005 The origins of farming in South-west Asia, Archatlas (online)
I do believe I might not have bothered to start this blog if I’d seen this page earlier. Andrew Sherratt seems to have had a profound understanding of this problem, as shown by this webpage. Sadly he died less than a year after posting this.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Ned,
One thing I saw, when I began reading about Stonehenge, was evidence that the English rod (16.5ft) was probably a common unit of measurement used to layout the earthworks. Recently I read that Pearson-Parker has seen the same. This might seem to have nothing to do with trade unless you know that 5 meters is about 1.2 inch less than a rod. It is amazing to me that so many British prehistoric constructions have dimensions that are multiples of 5 meters. It seemed even more amazing when I read that in France, before any national standardized units were established, every little village seemed to have a different common unit of measurement that differed significantly from that of its nearby neighbors. I can imagine trades people moving throught the Isles could have helped establish a common unit nation-wide before there was a nation.
As I read your blogs and those of others, it seems the uniqueness of the prehistoric people who settled your islands is generally overlooked. I read that these settlers are thought to have farmed for nearly a thousand years before Stonehenge’s earthworks were begun.
You wrote: “Hunter-gatherers might sometimes have tended their wild landscape to get the best out of it. However, systematic farming was both unnecessary and undesirable, being hard work and with very delayed returns.” In my Bible I carry this quote: “It is only those who do not know how to work that do not love it. To those who do, it is better than play.” J. H. Patterson My brother and his son still farm (about 3000 acres) in eastern South Dakota and put nearly a million usa dollars in the ground each spring by working from sunrise to beyond sunset (modern lights on the farm equipment) with no assurance they will get any delayed returns in the fall.
Yes, they produce much more food than they need to survive. And trade, as you state, is necessary to distribute the excess to where it is needed. There is a synergistic relationship between the farmer and the trader, but in a bad year, when there is no excess, the farmer might survive from a limited delayed return whereas the trader would need to quickly become a hunter-gatherer in order to survive to the next harvest season.
In my reading about prehistoric British Isles, I have yet to the find the essential need of freshwater being addressed. And I have yet to find the fisherfolk being considered being a significant portion of those who first settled the Isles. It is easy to imagine trade occuring between the farmers and the fisherfolk. It is easy for me to imagine that the first farmers were fisherfolk and that the first fisherfolk were farmers.
These are only a few of my thoughts that help me see because I somewhat know I am look for. I commend you for focusing upon practical activies that could have helped the prehistoric settlers of the Isles survive the rigors of its prehistoric wilderness and then prosper.
Jerry
Dear Jerry
On the point about the English rod and MPP I don’t know much about this so if you have a reference for this do let me know. I’m sure you’re aware that the case for a ‘Megalithic Yard’ was made by Alexander Thom quite a few years back, and he applied it to many different monuments with reasonable success across Britain. Most academics have ignored this work, arguing, justifiably I suppose, that a man’s (or indeed five men’s) pace(s) will average out about the same across the country and maybe this explains the problem without the need of some standard unit. I guess that Thom’s work is now being reappraised. However, the uniform nature of pottery styles such as Grooved Ware and the nature of earthworks both south and north certainly suggests a cultural uniformity across the length of Britain, regardless.
As for traders and farmers to me they are both in the same game, which is trying to guarantee spare resources for lean years. A trader who ends up resorting to grubbing for food in an agricultural economy could perhaps be considered not very good at his job. The important thing to me is that an isolated farmer will not make it as two bad years might take him out. It’s the linkages between farmers that keep them going through bad years. Preferably, farmers will also have tradeable assets that are not just corn but precious items too.
If you want freshwater Britain is definitely the place to come. We have plenty (although we’re not very good at managing it at the moment due to very old plumbing). I don’t think freshwater would have been an issue in Neolithic Britain. There are springs everywhere that run all through the summer months. Settlements were generally built just above or just below the springline (depending on cultural preference). So generally academics wouldn’t mention it in their writings. It’s only really an issue in the hilltop enclosures and hillforts on rocks like chalk (where you’d really need a well), and these were probably chosen in many cases to deliberately avoid the high water tables of Britain.
If you mean by ‘fisherfolk’ hunter-gatherers, then Britain had plenty of fisherfolk before Neolithic farmers arrived. What is perhaps most interesting is that bone evidence strongly suggests that most British people abandoned sea fishing (and possibly much fishing atall) after the start of the Neolithic. To this day most British are funny about fish, doing their best not to eat it unless it’s disguised by breadcrumbs. I think that Neolithic farmers ate an exceptionally large amount of cereals, and red meat when they could get it.
anyway, just some thoughts
best wishes
Ned
Ned,
Relative to trade and farming, last night I watched a PBS program about The Oregon Story–farming. Just I have not used the internet as much as I should have, I have turned to my Brittanica as frequently as I should have. I had wondered if people who were interested in the prehistory of the British Isles had considered the recent, relativewise, migration of farmers from England to what became the USA. I wonder how much you know about the historical march of the farmers across the North American continent. I know about the migration of the pioneers, via the Oregon Trial, but I had not thought about the timing of the first pioneer’s migration. From the program I learned that the migration began relatively early in the 19th Century because midwest farmers had heard wonderful stories (very mild climate and very fertile, easily farmed, soil) of the Williamette Valley. Of course, the fur traders had been in the region much earlier trading with the native Americans (hunter-fisher-gathers) who did not farm. The thing which grapped my attention, was these early migrate farmers, were described as being subsistence farmers until the California gold rush of 1849. Suddenly, there was a market for their wheat which could be floated down the Williamette River to Portland where it could be put on ships for transport to the gold fields where so many men were rushing. Hence, in this case, there is no doubt that the farmers were there first and the trade came later.
By the latter part of the 19th Century railroads had been built across the midwest and a demand for wheat was already in place so my grandparents homesteaded in the harsh climate of South Dakota which had been bypassed in the earlier western migration. So, in this case the trade drew the farmers as you prefer to consider.
Fresh water. “So generally academics wouldn’t mention it in their writings. It’s only really an issue in the hilltop enclosures and hillforts on rocks like chalk (where you’d really need a well), and these were probably chosen in many cases to deliberately avoid the high water tables of Britain.” So why would one expect to find prehistoric settlements on ridges (hilltop enclosures and hillforts as rocks like chalk)?
I have to pack some cross-country skis while it is still light. I hope to return later tonight.
Jerry
Dear Jerry
First point. Couldn’t agree more. I think the colonisation of the west is an excellent analogy for the colonisation of Europe. I’ve discussed this so many times with my partner Steph (an avid Laura Ingalls Wilder fan) and, you’re right – it does seem to be ignored. If fact, more often the Neolithic farmers of Europe are compared with the native Americans.
And I agree again. I think I realised quite a while ago that trade would not always or generally precede farming. It was a post on the movement of people into southern Mesopotamia that made me realise this.
There’s a theory in modern quantum physics about a thing called the ‘quantum vacuum’ or ‘quantum foam’ which means that particles and their antiparticles come into existence momentarily from nothing before, generally, annihilating each other again – nothing gained, nothing lost. Occasionally, however, circumstance (such as the presence of other matter nearby) prevents this annihilation and the particles become fully fledged reality (a typical case is sited by Stephen Hawking in the radiation loss from black holes).
I sort of see early farming as like this – a chance thing. 99% of the time farming a new area would fail. I’d guess that subsistence farming rarely lasts. As I said before, isolated farmers only producing yearly for their own needs will lose eventually (e.g. some of the smaller Scottish islands such as Soay). Only farmers that have a reason to produce more and become interconnected will tend to success as they have reserves for trade or for bad years (e.g. those on the goldrush trail). Irrigation farming, by it’s very nature, needs community and organisation and, while it can still fail, is more likely to succeed due to the interconnections of the people involved.
Trade will often be there first (e.g. as you said, furs) in which case those farmers who settle on the trade routes will have a higher chance of making it. If trade is not there first then the odds are stacked against settler farmers unless they rapidly set up exchange networks to trade goods, both food and other desirable items. More than that, those desirable items must be things that the farmers cannot easily find for themselves, hence they will often be imports to the area or on one farmer’s land.
I could go on about this for pages.
Second point – in Britain settlements are rarely on ridges. They tend to be in valleys or on slopes. The great bronze-iron-age hillforts of Britain were located often in airy, well drained locations (above the water table on hill tops), but were also defensible. I guess this was because they were primarily grain stores. Grain needs to be kept dry but was also a source of power through it’s control at the time. Many of the hillforts of the chalk downland also sat on long distance tracks. However, this may be a coincidence due to the difficulties of moving in the muddy lowlands of Britain, meaning that long distance tracks were often on relatively dry ridgeways.
Hope that seems like a reasonable reply. Sorry I rabbited on but I quite enjoyed that.
best wishes
Ned
Ned,
I had read that prehistoric people traveled the ridges but no one gave an explanation for this practice. Now I know. But I also read comments which questioned why no settlements had be found near Stonehenge as if the topography was not an issue. And it seemed that MPP was somewhat surprised to discover the settlement he recently uncovered near the River Avon at the end of the avenue from Stonehenge.
Hawkings (Stonehenge Decoded) and Chippindale ( Stonehenge Complete) both referenced the 6 foot wide (I assume square?) shaft found by E.V.W. Field that was a little more than 100 ft deep and located within a mile of Stonehenge. Hawkins wrote: “A shaft 6 feet wide, 100 feet down into solid chalk … what in the world, or under it, could that have been?” You wrote: “It’s only really an issue [freshwater] in the hilltop enclosures and hillforts on rocks like chalk (where you’d really need a well) …” Neither author suggested the possibility that the shaft was an attempt to dig a well. Whether this was the reason for the shaft we can never know for certain but it seems we can know for certain that one cannot did a well anywhere on the chalklands and find water. For it water had been found at the bottom of the shaft surely it would have been concluded it was a prehistoric well.
R.J.C. Atkinson (Stonehenge, pp 1) wrote: “To the west the ground rises slightly; in all other directions it fall, though gently, the steepest slope being on the east, where the surface declines to the floor of a dry valley.” Then (pp 2) he wrote: “… and it may well be that Stonehenge was originally set not in a thorny wilderness, but amid a carpet of short springy turf, even as it is today, created and maintained by the ceaseless wandering of prehistoric herdsmen and their flocks.” Initially I questioned why the adjective ‘dry’. But the springy turf overlying a solid chalk surface seemed to explain why there would have been little surface runoff to at least create an intermittent stream at the base of the valley. I could imagine the springy turf soaking up most rainfalls or snow melts and the excess water running down slope at the base of the turf until it encountered a crack in the solid chalk. When I referred to reference of chalk land hydrology, I found that I had imagined correctly. Even to the fact that down slope the crack might rise to the surface to form an intermittent spring.
Chippindale (Chap. 15, pp 244 my softcover copy) wrote: “Work by several dowsers confirms discoveries made by Guy Underwood and published in his The Patterns of the Past. Stonehenge, like all barrows, stands over a spring, one running through the ruin under the Altar, Slaughter and Hell Stones and down the Avenue.” I can imagine the ditches of the Cursus, which is thought to have been dug centuries before Stonehenge’s ditch was begun intercepted the downslope flow and stored the water of the intermittent flows through cracks and at the base of the turf so that a reservoir of consistent freshwater for the animals grazing the spring turf was created. I can imagine the ditches around the barrows had the same function. Before these alternations to the landscape, I can imagine the chalklands were a green desert which could conveniently grazed near permanent streams and rivers.
Enough for now. Yes, I have naive theories, but they are practical.
Jerry
Dear Jerry
It’s a pleasure to chat to someone quite so on the ball. I also thought about that shaft as a possible well.
Perhaps it’s worth you looking at geology maps of the Stonehenge area (e.g. http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html). You probably know that chalk is highly permeable (both through high porosity and extensive cracking). There’s rarely any surface water anywhere except in places where clay is present at the surface. The water effectively flows underground (only rainstorms ever really produce much surface runoff).
There are two major places where any surface water is found on the chalk. The first is in the so called ‘Clay with Flints’, a superficial layer younger than, and overlying the Chalk, which is profoundly muddy to walk through when its been raining. There’s none of this near Stonehenge. The other is in the rare river valleys. The Hampshire Avon is one of these rivers in the chalk, and is floored by alluvial clays and silts which prevent the water percolating down into the ground when the water table drops in Summer.
Arable farming on the chalk has always been a slightly tricky business, although there’s a fair amount of evidence that it’s been done (e.g. Bronze age field systems even around Stonehenge). Sheep (which can get moisture from the grass), and occasionaly cattle (with water troughs), were more common in medieval times and probably have been a long time before this.
As for the quote “Stonehenge, like all barrows, stands over a spring, one running through the ruin under the Altar, Slaughter and Hell Stones and down the Avenue.” I suspect that this is nonsense. The chalk only has springs when it reaches the level of impermeable layers below ground such as clay or marl. Marl only occurs at the base of the chalk. Clay is pretty much non-existent in the chalk, only occurring in any quantity in the older Greensand below the chalk. Springs anywhere near Stonehenge only occur down in the Avon valley, which is 30m (90ft) lower in the succession. They could not occur at the elevation of Stonehenge itself due to the continuous succession of permeable chalk below it.
hope this helps
best wishes
Ned
Ned,
No, I did not know chalk was porous. I did check out the geology map. The diversity of the surface is interesting. I hardly know anything about rocks even though I have picked a lot of them because our farm was a glacial dump zone. I now wish I had been more aware of its uniqueness because even adjacent farms had far fewer.
But, as I stated, I had read about the hydrology of chalklands and thought what I read had referred to springs as well as much of precipitation ending up in aquifers. So I tried to Google and find what I had read. I did not find it but I did find dewponds (Wikipedia downland–hydrology–dewponds). When I considered what I have proposed, I had seen the need to plug any cracks in the downslope side of a ditch. While it is proposed that clay could be used to seal the bottom of the dewponds, a recipe in which chalk is pulverized to a powder, mixed with water, and the paste formed is allowed to dry is also suggested.
I have experience with calcium bentonite (Minnesota) and think I know that its extremely small particle size is the critical factor in its unique properties. One of which is that once it dries it is nearly as stable to water as is fired clay. Hydrogen bonding by water molecules, even if an weak interaction, becomes significant, by number of interactions, as the surface area of a solid is increased greatly by pulverizing it. The carbonate ions of chalk have nearly the same capability of hydrogen bonding as the silicates of bentonite.
One more speculation about what I misread about dewponds. This is about the practice of insulating the clay sealing layer from the base chalk with straw. (I now see it is clearly stated the straw was placed over the sealing layer to prevent it from cracking by heating from the sun.) But my question was: What was the reason for the insulation? Was it to prevent the chalk from freezing? Or was the clay worked into the straw. In Sunday school class today we studied Exodus Chapter 5 in which it was told that the Egytians had straw mixed with clay in making their bricks. But my first thought was the insulation was to lessen the possibility that the chalk would freeze and crack the clay layer. This possibility led me to wonder if the reason chalk was so porous was that microcracks in the solid chack had been created by freezing or by the pressure of glaciers over them. (I had recently read that freezing would bThen, I could understand that water could be pulled by capillary action through the less than solid chalk. All this thinking about chalk has made me wonder how the chalk I used to write on blackboards was made. Was it milled from ‘solid’ chalk? Or was it wetted pulverized chalk that pressed into a mold or extruded through a dye and further dried? As I said, I am a curious natural philosopher. And I can see some experimentation that could be done to test the recipe for sealing the bottom of ditches with pulverized chalk.
Another thought about barrows and henges. Before I knew chalk was porous, I had considered the mound of chalk chips would cause any precipitation falling on it to run into the ditch. And in the case of henges placed at the top of a knoll as Stonehenge almost is, it is amazing (at least I was) how many gallons of water would run into the ditch due to a one inch precipitation event. So, I imagined the springy turf could have been removed from the inner surface and any cracks in ‘solid’ chalk surface sealed.
I paraphrase from someone’s quote: The value of a naive theory is that it shows what you need to observe, if you can. Either to support or refute the theory. I hassen to add, as Feynman implied, that the scientist can never prove a theory or a scientific law. Only mathematicians can prove things. I consider this is why so many students do not like mathematics while at the same time a few love it. In mathematics there are right answers and wrong answers and no amount of clever argumentation can change a wrong answer into a right one.
Naive theories are essential to learning, but one should never fall into love with one. For I believe an Englishman wrote: Love is blind. Clearly, Hawkins fell into love with his naive eclipse prediction theory. There was a very practical reason for observing eclipses in prehistoric times; but I have never read about it in the context of Stonehenge. I will eventually get to it, but first I must offer other more basic thoughts for your consideration and possible correction.
I really, really, appreciate your comments.
Jerry
Dear Jerry
Dewponds sound sensible. I think such things might have been speculated on for Bronze-Iron age hillforts. Not sure I’d rely on them for drinking water but maybe people boiled water more.
Chalk is porous for many reasons I suspect. Perhaps the primary one is the flexure of the Earth’s surface due to distant mountain building (such as the formation of the Alps). Bending any rock will create cracks (or joints). Another reason is the reduction in pressure as rocks above are removed by erosion causes rocks to expand up and out, again resulting in cracking. But you’re right – repeated freeze thaw (particularly during colder conditions) will shatter the rock quickly and perhaps be the most effective.
The only thing I’d say about henge ditches or equivalent being water reservoirs refers to Avebury, further north but still in the chalklands. Avebury’s watertable rises and falls over the year. In winter the water table intersects the ground surface, allowing the flow of a stream, sensibly called the Winterbourne. In summer this dries up as the water table lowers below ground level. I don’t know how deep the water table would sink in summer, but the Avebury monument is just a few metres above the level of the winterbourne and Avebury’s enormous ditch would certainly have contained water for parts of the year, possibly right through summer in a good year. This is unlikely to have been the primary reason for digging the ditch, however, as people would have dug in lower-lying areas of ground if their primary aim had been to source water in summer. An argument was relatively recently put forward for Silbury Hill (which does lie on low ground) being the spoil resulting from the search for ground water (The Mystery of Silbury Hill by Lothar Respondek). Although I have my doubts, certainly all of the three known Silburyoids (Silbury, Marlborough Mount and the now lost Marden mound) are sited in river valleys. Personally, I’m waiting for someone to prove that Neolithic people dug wells.
Your comments on naive theory seem to match thoughts of my own. I always find it much easier to read a dense archaeological tome if I’ve got an idea I want to test. It’s a sort of way of finding a crack into all that difficult stuff. Of course the problem is that, once you’ve changed your idea you have to read the book again. I envy anyone who can just take all that information in without starting with some preconception.
best wishes
Ned
Ned,
I am retired so I know I have much more ‘free’ time than you do. I have been reading and thinking more specifically about trade and farming than previously. So, rather than waiting for your reply to my latest comments, I will totally shift gears.
I have just read about the United Kingdom in my Britannica. In patterns of rural settlement I read: “The social and economic advantages that led people to cluster and, on the other hand, the equally strong desire for separateness on the part of some individuals are apparent in settlement forms from very early times, and so regional contrasts in the degree of dispersion and nuclecation are frequent.”
It seems foolish to ignore the history of prehistory people described in Genesis of the Old Testament. Israel as a nation would not exist if what can be read there has no basis. The Jewish people would not exist if what can be read there has no basis. It cannot be debated that many of the natural philosophers who were involved in the formation of modern science were believers of the Creator God, the God of Abraham. And in the first chapter of Genesis, verse 28, it is written: “God blessed them and said to them. ‘Be fruitfull and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every living creature that moves on the ground.” (NIV) Fill the earth is the critical phrase for later, after the Biblical flood, Noah and his three sons were given the same injunction. Then when some of their descendents, who had not traveled far, began to build a city so they would quit migrating to new lands, it is written God confused their speech. However, the descendants of one of Noah’s son’s (Japheth) disappear and nothing is written about their history. But Genesis 10:5 states: “From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.” (NIV)
In a Grolier’s publication about the people’s of the world, I had read that the author wrote that the first settlers of the British Isles was thought to be people of small stature from the Mediterranean region. I had used this information as I constructed my understanding of the prehistory of the British Isles. When I commented upon this to MPP, he stated the original settlers were not from this region, however, but he never offered from where they were thought to have migrated.
When I inspected my globe, I saw a long river, the Laire, which ran a great distance across France from the Atlantic toward the Mediterranean. And I saw a shorter, unnamed, river, a short distance east of the Laire, that ran from the north into the Mediterranean. So I quickly jumped to the naive theory that this was a reasonable migration route (trade route) from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. And because I have a bad habit of not recording where I read what I have read, I cannot refer to where I read there are some common, unique, words found in Brittany and Wales. Which supported my naive theory.
What do you imagine hunter-gathers and subsistence farmers would have had to trade which would lead to systematic farming? In other words what did prehistoric people, in the beginning, have to trade? How long did prehistoric people survive before the advent of trade?
Jerry
Dear Jerry
There’s plenty of genetic evidence now about where the British population came from (try Stephen Oppenheimier’s The Origins of the British), but it’ll take years to understand what it means. There are up to three lines of connection though, 1) from the south, via Britanny, 2) from the east (Germany and the low countries) and 3) from Scandinavia. What this, in effect, means, is that they probably came from anywhere that had a coast facing Britain.
Britain appears to have been occupied by immigrants from the continent since the last ice sheets retreated around 12000-10000BC. There probably wasn’t much organisation about this as you could walk across the North Sea at the time. It’s anybody’s guess whether these early hunters came and went or set up permanent homes in Britain. By about 6000BC Britain was an island and any resident population was now more likely to stay. You could call these ‘true Brits’ but it’s sort of meaningless. They must still have had boats and they could probably travel to and from the continent if they wanted to. These people are ancestors to many of the modern British.
However, there have been additions to this gene pool ever since, either from Spain or France or Germany or Denmark or Norway or even Poland. Different parts of Britain appear to have received greater numbers of immigrants from particular parts of Europe. So coasts facing south and west have received more immigrants from France and Spain, those facing east received more from Denmark and Germany. Scotland may well have received more from Norway.
The first farmers (around 4000BC) may well have been new immigrants but it appears that the previous population caught on fairly quickly (say within a thousand years) and took up farming too. I suspect that places that were connected by some form of trade to Europe would have received much more immigrant genes than those that didn’t. Perhaps the most stark example of this is the oddly Spanish genetic match of many people in North Wales, possibly connected with the Great Orme copper mine there.
Your putative line of connection along the Loire valley is one of a few possible ‘trade routes’ through Europe to Britain. Another is the Gironde (the one you were thinking of?), further south. There’s also the (Loire-)Seine and the Rhine, further north. People as well as goods have certainly travelled these rivers for a long time (?7000 years).
The Welsh-Breton connection is real and the languages are very closely connected, forming the Brittanic part of the Celtic language family. Why they are so similar is a matter of contention. Old stories put this down to the departure of Briton refugees from Britain to Armorica (modern Brittany +) during the Saxon invasions of the 5th century, and there may be an element of truth in this. However, it may simply be a survival of an older language (either related to Gaulish or not) in that part of France. Ultimately I don’t think the question is answered fully. In fact the whole celtic languages story is vexed and causes a lot of heat for little enlightenment.
As for what did British hunter-gatherers have to trade I don’t know. Any of the following are possible – flint, attractive volcanic stone, furs, dogs, quality weaponry, gold, even boats. Possibly they had nothing to trade and the first arrival of farmers in Britain was more like the arrival of settlers from the east in the US -i.e. to move on to fresh ground (trade with the continent perhaps resulting from this).
I think I’m starting to run out of knowledge!
best wishes
Ned
Ned,
Just finished reading most of your blogs relative to Europe and the Isles.
Adventure, copper and the spread of Neolithic agriculture into Europe. 4/7/2010. is a gold mine for me relative to my previous questions and comments. As I started to read what you had written before, I felt guilty of not previously had read it before. But much better, in my opinion, of my constructing a naive theory and then finding information consistent with it instead of constructing a naive theory that fits the information. Of course, as you are quick to acknowledge, we can never know what the truth actually was.
The gold mine is the areas of the impressed ware cultures and the sites at which you suggest gold has been found. I am sure you can see how they fit relative to what I had just written.
The possibility of copper metal is important also. A fact is I have seen factual things about which I have yet to find you and your bloggers considering. And in due course I will disclose them. But you and your bloggers possess such a depth of knowledge about a world with which I knew so little, so I want to learn more so I can refine any naive theories relative to these things.
I have never had opportunity to converse with anyone with such a scholarly interest in the prehistory of farming and trade. And do not depreciate your scholarly efforts as I know there were two bicycle makers who invented the first flying machine.
Jerry
Dear Jerry
Thanks. Your comments are much appreciated.
all the best
Ned
Ned,
As I waited far you comments I thought about trade (exploration), civilization, etc. And as I begin to write this I discovered I had misinterpretted the Impressed Ware people’s path from the Med. to the Atlantic. I now see it was along the Garonne (Gironde?) River and that they only went up the Rhone (which was not labelled on my globe) to about Lyons.
Just as I use my knowledge of the history of the settlement of North American by Europeans, I use my knowledge of Genesis. When Abram left Haran to become a nomadic herder, I have always questioned why the people in the lands he grazed his livestock did not object. I questioned what the people who already had settled there were doing that these nomads were accepted. And I have no answers to my questions except your suggestion there was a robust prehistoric economy in which people could ‘earn’ a living without farming. I do have one answer, which for a moment I forgot. It is these herders utilized land that was too poor, or arid, for the growing of crops. But Abram was not a member of the maritime (coastal) peoples (clans).
Except for their intrusions up the two river valleys of France, the impressed ware people were coastal people. And I assume there is no (little) evidence of previous occupation of these coastal areas by an earlier people. Therefore, I do not imagine that in this part of the world there were ever savages (barbarians). I can imagine there were those adventurers who explored the uninhabited lands beyond the settled frontier and reported back what they found. So as the prime coastlines were settled and the populations increased, there was a natural movement into these uninhabited lands with which these people were familiar.
But when they encountered the Atlantic coast, the land might have similar, but the sea had a totally new property relative to the Med. It is amazing how little I have read about this property relative to prehistory of the Isles or even that Atlantic coastline occupied by the impressed ware people.
Of course, the new property was tides of such a magnitude that they could not be ignored. It is had to imagine that these coastal people who impressed their pottery with cockle shells were not ‘fisher folk’.
Could I send you rough drafts (hard copies) of what I have written, even if most chapters are still works in progess?
Jerry
Dear Jerry
Nomadic existence is, of course, often on marginal land, hence why you keep moving your animals. My feeling is that both nomads and farmers have always stored wealth for the bad times (nomads either through an accumulation of animals or through portable wealth such as gold earrings, gold teeth, necklaces, etc). There’s a post I never published somewhere on this very topic.
As for previous occupation of the mediterranean coasts, yes, people probably were living a hunter-gatherer life there before the arrival of farming. The spread of farmers along river valleys is, I suppose, understandable, although rivers actually have quite heavy and difficult soils to work and early farmers did, it appears, often find the lighter soils away from the river valleys easier. My argument would have been (at least a year ago) that farmers found more success along those river valleys because they were natural conduits for trade. Therefore there was more chance of building up, through trade, an insurance reserve for the bad years. Farmers away from such locations would have bombed out in bad years due to a lack of insurance, effectively.
As for the Atlantic, yes. It must have been a scary sea that early farmer-sailors found daunting. My guess is that they avoided the difficult bits, like headlands. I think that this is true though even in the Mediterranean, (e.g. the Peloponese or the southern toe of Italy).
About the rough draft, sure, although I can’t promise I’ll get round to reading them immediately due to many other time commitments at the moment.
best wishes
Ned
Ned,
I continue to learn from you the need to better inform myself. Now, it is heavy and light soils. Relative to river valleys, I was assuming fertile soils and ignoring the well known problems of clay-like soils and the problem of drainage if the valley is broad and level.
But you have information that the impressed ware people settled broad areas along these rivers. So, what did these people farm? Are the coastal areas of settlement similar to what I term river settlement? Do you imagine, or know, if these lands were unsettled before the impressed people? You wrote: farmer-sailors. I imagine farmer-hunter-gatherers. The necessities are water, food, shelter-clothing. And as prehistoric people moved north, shelter-clothing became a greater issue. Hence, the need for animals.
Can we assume there were open, grassy, area for livestock to graze?
Almost by definition, before people all plants had to have been considered ‘wild’. Or do we need to assume that these migrating people carried ‘domesticated’ seeds and plants, as well as their domesticated livestock from some previous location (fertile cresent?)?
Relative to life, we must consider: In the beginning … regardless of what we imagine that beginning might have been.
Anyway, these are some thoughts.
I think we must also acknowledge the differences in climate which exist today possibly existed in the prehistoric time we are considering. So I see the north, European, coast of the Med. quite different from the more arid, south, African coast. So, sufficient rainfall seems less a survial issue as people migrated northward. Although, the availability for water for livestock had to remain an issue because they require significantly more than humans. It’s possible that dew might suffice for sheep during the cooler months but I doubt it could be counted on during the warmer months even though there could be plentiful grass. Because of generally adequate precipitation for plant growth, a nomandic life-style was not necessary for a herder. But in many areas, the availibility of adequate fresh water for livestock becomes the central issue.
Jerry
Dear JerryT
Moving gradually out of my depth. I beleive the early evidence is of sheep bones. I could probably find out but I presume they also had einkorn and barley, or something like, as crops. All of these would, I believe, have been imported from previous colonised lands in a chain of colonisation starting in the Levant and Turkey, spreading through the Balkan peninsula (including Greece), on to Italy and so on, ultimately reaching Spain. The people involved in these ‘colonisations’ would have taken generations, changing their pottery and interbreeding with locals as they went I guess (or perhaps not).
I think people would already have had some form of clothing, although not perhaps as much as we’re used to. They might all have been a pretty hardy, outdoorsy bunch (hard as nails).
As for animal water requirements you probably know a lot more about this than I do. Do different sheep breeds have different water requirements? They’re certainly tolerant of different weather conditions (you should see some of the scraggy but tough breeds in northern Britain).
best wishes
Ned