Transcript Slide 1

Archaeology 100-D200
Ancient Peoples and Places
Archaeology and the Study
of Prehistory…
Week 6: THE NEOLITHIC: NEAR EAST, THE
AMERICAS AND THE WORLD. INCREASING
SOCIAL COMPLEXITY WITH DOMESTICATION
February 20th & 22nd 2012
Dr. Alvaro Higueras
Simon Fraser University, Spring 2012
Agenda of Week 6
The Middle East and the Neolithic
Early agriculture in other parts of the world
Political structures and increasing complexity in
human organization.
Those 15 points for Session 4 & 5
A. Population of the Americas.
B. The Magdalenian on the way to the Mesolithic.
C. "Sampling” and “sampling”.
D. The sequence of political evolution.
E. Differences between Chiefdom and State?
F. "Qualitative" aspects of the political forms.
G. What are empires for?
H. The most variable stage in the evolution…?
I. Redistribution and its evolution.
J. Decline, small vs. large scale societies.
K. The Mesolithic and the environment.
L. What is there to love about the Magdalenian?
M. Megafauna and the evidence.
N. Symbiosis of humans and animals towards
domestication.
O. The most important factor in the formation and
consolidation of state-level societies?
Chiefdoms
Redistribution… in “simple” chiefdoms
Other mechanisms in more “complex” ones…
without R > Accumulation (then “gifts”)
Concentration of power and goods, used of them
in “strategic” ways
Chiefdom as a non-existent or short stage in some
areas…
Or archaeologists have not been able to document
it in the archaeological record of some regions
State
> Cooperation and good teamwork, as a cluster of
chiefdoms…
> Sustainable resources, dense population, and
(further) evolution of a hierarchy
> Physical environment where it controls the
activities aspect of social organization such as
farming, irrigation, buildings…
> Resolution of Conflict/competition in densely
populated societies is the factor, as the state is
thereon needed for conflict resolution and
management of the land.
The center of it all: The Fertile Crescent
 It is an area of Mediterranean climate
characterized by dry summers and winter rains
with enough precipitation to support vegetation
ranging from woodlands to open park woodland
 South and east of the Fertile Crescent, the open
park woodlands give way to steppes and true
deserts
 It environment today is much drier that at the
onset of the domestication process
Historical context for the development of
agriculture
> Spatial continuity & formation of mounds
Jericho
Çatalhöyük
Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran
These sites identified by characteristic stone
tools — bladelets
 Most sites are remains of small camps made by
highly mobile hunter-gatherers
 Burials at these sites are rare
 No evidence of plant or animal domestication
during this period
 Plant remains recovered include wild grasses,
fruits, nuts, and animals
The Natufian
Sedentary hunter-gatherers foraging for food such
as emmer wheat, barley and almonds, and hunting
gazelle, deer, cattle, horse, and wild boar.
For at least part of the year, Natufian people lived
in communities, some quite large, of semisubterranean houses.
These semi-circular one room structures were
excavated partly into the soil and built of stone,
wood and perhaps brush roofs.
They located their settlements at the boundaries
between coastal plains and hill country, to
maximize their access to a wide variety of food.
They buried their dead in cemeteries, with grave
goods including stone bowls and dentalium shell.
The largest Natufian communities (called ‘base
camps’) found to date include Jericho, Ain
Mallaha, and Wadi Hammeh 27.
Smaller, short-range dry season foraging camps
may have been part of the settlement pattern,
although evidence for them is scarce.
The Natufian tools
Characteristic
stone tool is the
lunate, a
crescent-shaped
bladelet served
as hunting tools
or as parts of
tools made of
multiple small
pieces
Michael Chazan
Natufian settlements
People began the transition to village life during
this period
 Structures are ovals or open semicircles
 Structures consist of undressed stones piled to
form walls up to 1 metre high
 Structure floors covered with refuse—including
stone tools and animal bones
 The stone walls are thought to have supported
superstructures made of wood and brush
 Not clear what function structures served
Natufian burials
Burials are commonly
found on Natufian sites
 In some cases, the skull
has been removed prior
to burial
 Some Natufian burials
include shell necklaces
and head coverings
Natufian subsistence
Natufians practised a broad-spectrum subsistence
strategy
 They exploited a wide range of wild plants
 Most plant species do not show any evidence of
having been domesticated
 Hunting focused on a single species, gazelle
 No herd animals were domesticated
 Burials indicate that dogs were part of human
society and being domesticated
The Early Neolithic
Early Neolithic is divided into two major periods:
 Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
– Dates between 12,000-10,800 years ago
– Corresponds to end of the Younger Dryas
The Big Freeze, was a geologically brief (1300 ± 70 years) cold
climate period between approximately 12800
 Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
The Early Neolithic technology
A shift away from tools made on
bladelets
 This period’s toolkit is made on
blades with an emphasis on
arrowheads
 Toolkit includes sickles,
ground stone axes,
and adzes
 Grinding stones for processing grains found in
extremely large quantities
 Pre-Pottery B sites exhibit highly developed use
of plaster
Pre-pottery A Neolithic
Settlement size increased during this period
 First evidence of communal structures appears
 Most impressive of these structures is Jericho
tower—9 m high, made of undressed stone
and mud brick, attached to the inside of a
massive wall
 Houses continue to be circular, but settlements
larger than Natufian ones
Pre-pottery B Neolithic
Round houses give way to rectangular ones
Settlement size increases significantly
 Rectangular houses allow sites to be more
densely packed than previously
 Villages often show high degree of planning
 No sense that the regular layout of the sites
reflects presence of centralized authority
Early Neolithic Ritual
Many ritual objects were hidden—in pits, under
floors, in caves—their functions are unknown
 Most striking hidden objects are plastered skulls
 Human skulls on which plaster faces have
been molded
 Plaster figures have been found in pits
 A cache of ritual objects were found in a cave
 includes a cap, a bag, beads, bone tools,
arrowheads, a painted stone mask, and a
human skull with a net pattern on the
cranium
Chinchorro burial,
Northern Chile
Plastered Skull, Jericho
Early Neolithic Domestication
Earliest evidence of plant domestication is seen in
contexts from the Pre-Pottery A
Farming developed during the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B period
A wide range of domesticated crops is found
including
– Cereals—emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, barley
– Pulses—lentils, peas
– Legumes—bitter vetch, chick peas
The Late Neolithic
Characterized by the development of pottery
manufacture
 Stone tools, expedient tools, made on local
materials with minimal energy investment
 Characterized by a limited number of large sites
and small dispersed
hamlets
 Large sites are not
densely packed
 Symbolic artifacts
tend to be stylized
animal figurines
Late Neolithic subsistence
Importance of hunting continuously declines
throughout period
 Evidence for animal domestication includes
changes in the shape of goat horns
 Despite symbolic emphasis on bulls, main source
of meat was domestic goat
 People still relied on the full range of plants
domesticated in the Early Neolithic
Tabaqat el-Buma
Directed by University of Toronto
archaeology professor Ted Banning
 Part of the Wadi Ziqlab Project;
survey of this area of Northern
Jordan
 Late Neolithic site
 Characterized by a number of
dwellings that make up a small
community
 Banning suggests that these small, dispersed
communities may have replaced the larger
nucleated villages of the Early Neolithic
The “cereals used at the Natufian site of
Mureybet... may not have been growing locally
[but]... may have been imported or introduced
from farther north... Transport of raw materials
across considerable distances is well known in
the Near East, adding weight to the argument
that cereals were also transported” (Willcox
2005, 539).
We need not imagine this to be the result of an
institutionalized market in cereal futures
(Bernstein 1996) in order to ask whether
microeconomic tools will help us to understand
how differential valuation in zones of production
and consumption, balanced against the
transaction costs associated with such
movements of goods, rights, and/or consumers,
will further analysis and explanation.
Willcox’s : The distribution, natural habitats and
availability of wild cereals in relation to their
domestication in the Near East: multiple
events, multiple centres
(pattern shown as well at a world scale… plants
micro adapted to initial environmental
features)
The proximity of a perennial water source was
the main priority when choosing a settlement
location, not the proximity of wild cereal
stands. Settlement sites are all situated near a
river, spring or lake... Due to the patchy
distribution of the two wild wheat species,
many sites were situated at some distance from
the wild stands.
The change from gathering to cultivation was a
gradual process. Hillman suggests that it had
already started on a small scale in the
Natufian, and a knowledge of planting may go
back even farther – Mesolithic broad spectrum
experiences –
During the initial stages early farmers may have
been obliged to frequently replenish their seed
stocks from wild stands, which would slow the
domestication process. It is not until the end of
the 9th millennium BC that we see the
appearance of well established farmers with
fully-fledged agriculture which produced
conditions favourable for the selection of
domestic traits
Microeconomic models for framing the question of
agricultural origins in terms of risk, discounting,
economies of scale, and transaction costs.
Rather than a functional approach: productive
environment or inequality function to facilitate
this transformation?
Causal approach: climate change, population
growth, or feasting.
Behavioral ecology economic concepts are
applicable whatever the mode of production
Politics and Borders in Archaeology
• Politics and archaeology frequently intersect in
the Middle East
• Archaeology has been an important tool for
change in places such as Israel, Palestine,
Jordan, and Syria
• However, Steven Rosen has shown that national
borders have had a major influence on the
reconstruction of the prehistory of the region
• Problem:
– Modern borders affect the limits of where
archaeologists work or visit
– Israeli and Syrian archaeologists are unable to
cross borders and visit each other’s countries
for intellectual exchange
• Results:
– Lack of communication and fragmentation of
the archaeological record
– Distorts our view of the past
Progress:
> Signing of a peace agreement between Israel
and Jordan has eased travel between these two
countries
> Outbreaks of violence keeps travel to a
minimum
> But ease in travel has improved understanding
of the connections between Israel and Jordan in
prehistory
> Emphasis on understanding local archaeological
developments from a global perspective is a
useful counterbalance to tendencies to use
archaeology to promote nationalist agendas
Domesticates in Europe
Origins of domesticated plants and animals can
be traced to the Middle East, the “wave”…
 No evidence of indigenous domestication of
plants or animals
 Unresolved questions about domestication in
Europe include:
> Did populations of farmers sweep across Europe
bringing new crops and new lifeways with them
> Did Mesolithic hunter-gatherers adopt
domesticated plants and animals to forge a new
way of life?
Sheep and goat, as well as some cereals (emmer wheat and
einkorn) and pulses (lentil, pea, chick pea, and bitter vetch)
had no wild ancestors in Europe during the Holocene.
A Feast
of
Diversity
Domestication in Africa
There are 3 major regions where plants were
indigenously domesticated in Africa:
1. Northeast Africa—tef, finger millet, and
coffee
2. Central Africa—pearl millet, sorghum
3. West Africa—African rice
• Domesticated plants introduced from the Middle
East include wheat, barley, lentils
• Domesticated animals introduced from the
Middle East were sheep and goats
• Considerable debate surrounds the origin of
domesticated cattle in Africa
The Sahara desert
Today the Sahara desert is the most dominant
feature of the North African landscape
 The current desert environment developed in
the Sahara only within the last 4000-5000 years
 Between 14,000 and 4500 years ago there
was considerably more rainfall in the Sahara
 Extensive human occupation of the region
was possible before it became a desert
Hunter-gatherers villages
Small villages of hunter-gatherers existed across
northern Africa during the period of increased
rainfall in the Sahara
 Such sites resemble Natufian sites in the Middle
East in several ways:
 Their size, the nature of the structures on
them, the exploitation of a wide range of
resources, the use of grinding stones
 African also differ from Natufian sites in
significant ways:
 Pottery and large numbers of storage pits are
commonly found on African sites—not in
Natufian period
African pastoralists
Domesticated animals were introduced before
domesticated plants in much of North Africa
 Cattle, sheep, and
goats appear to have
been incorporated into
mobile hunter-gatherer
societies
 Mobile societies with
economies focused on
maintaining herds of domesticated animals are
called pastoral societies
Agriculture in New Guinea
Today, agricultural societies of New Guinea
emphasize the centrality of pigs and sweet
potatoes for subsistence and for developing a
social hierarchy
– The exchange of pigs is an essential element
of political power
– Sweet potatoes are an important part of the
diet of pigs; therefore, mean political power
 Surprisingly, both sweet potatoes and pigs were
introduced to New Guinea fairly recently—they
were domesticated elsewhere
New Guinea domesticates
Genetic research indicates that a wide number of
plants were indigenously domesticated in New
Guinea
 These crops include yams, bananas, taro, and
possibly sugarcane
 None of these crops are cereals—no seed crops
 Traditional agricultural processes in New Guinea
involve transplanting suckers, cuttings, or
shoots
The Andes environment
Andes are the second highest mountain chain in the
world
 The Andean highlands are divided into four zones
based on altitude above sea level:
1. Quechua zone: 2300-3500 m, where corn grows
well
2. Suni zone: 3500-4000 m, where crops indigenous
to the Andes are grown
3. Puna zone: 4000-4800 m, open grassland for
grazing alpacas and llamas
4. Cordillera zone: above 4800 m, not used for
agriculture
Andean domestication
 Domesticated beans
from Guitarrero Cave
have been directly
dated to 4300 BP.
 Quinoa seeds have been found in layers 57004500 years old at Panaulauca Cave
 The earliest evidence for domesticated
potatoes dates to 4000-3000 BP.
 Probably not the earliest domesticate
potatoes because they were found along the
coast, not where wild potatoes grow
Andean domestication
 Llamas and alpacas
(camelids) were
domesticated beginning
10,000-5000 years ago
 Llama as pack animal
25 kg at most
 Vicuña and Guanaco are
still wild camelids
The other domesticated Andean animal is the
guinea pig, when domesticated unknown, but
perhaps after camelids
Preagricultural coastal villages
By 8000 BP small settled villages developed along
the Peruvian coast
– Houses were built of reeds and grasses over a
wooden structure
– About 10 families lived in a village at any
given time
– Burial data indicates that there were not
higher status individuals
The Cotton Preceramic
Prevalence of cotton seeds and absence of pottery
on its sites
 These sites are often quite large and contain
evidence of monumental architecture
 The flat-topped pyramid, Huaca de los Idolos,
dates to 5500-4500 BP., the earliest known
monumental architecture in the New World
 The bulk of the Cotton Preceramic diet consisted
of fish and shellfish
 Populations obtained gourds, squash, chili
pepper, beans, and jicima from wild plants
 The dominant crop species was cotton, also in
the wild, used for making textiles and nets
Caral, World heritage site, 2009
Preagricultural coastal villages
Inhabitants of these villages were huntergatherers who relied heavily on the rich coastal
marine resources
– A wide range of wild plant resources including
seeds, fruits, and tubers were exploited
– Cultivated gourds were domesticated; beans
and squash may have been cultivated, but
they were not significant parts of the diet
Pacific currents & society
Humboldt Current: brings cool waters up from
the south along the Andean coast
– Responsible for the wealth of marine
resources that allowed villages to thrive
without agriculture
El Niño: a severe reversal of the Humboldt
Current; occurs every 25-40 years
– When major El Niños occur, there is a massive
decline in fish and shellfish populations on
the coast
Pacific currents & society
– Also causes torrential rains that cause
massive flooding and mud slides
Some argue that El Niños have only happened for
about 6000 years
– The onset of the Cotton Preceramic and El
Niño seem to correlate
– Perhaps climactic uncertainty played a role in
the development of large centres with some
reliance on agriculture
Domestication in East Asia
 Rice was domesticated along the Yangtze and
Huai River Valleys, China by 9000 BP.
 Millet was domesticated in the Yellow River
Valley, China by the
Peiligang culture,
c. 8000 BP.
 Dogs, pigs, and water
buffalo were domesticated
in southern China
 Pigs and, possibly,
chickens were domesticated
in northern China
Pottery vessels from Banpo Village site, China.
Development of Chinese farming societies
Yangshou culture developed out of the Peiligang
culture of the Yellow River
 Yangshou villages consisted of both round
semisubterranean houses and rectangular houses
built on the surface
 Wild plants and animals were exploited
 Millet was fully domesticated as were dogs and
pigs
 Pottery vessels were made in many forms with
elaborate painted decorations
Mesoamerica and
North America
Mesoamerican domestication
Squash (Curcurbita pepo) was the earliest plant
domesticated in Mesoamerica
– Earliest squash seeds dated to 10,000-8300
BP.
– Ancestor of squashes eaten today including
pumpkins, acorn squash, zucchini, spaghetti
squash, etc.
Maize was domesticated from teosinte, a wild
grass found in the highlands of Mexico
– Earliest maize dated to 6250 and 5500 BP.
Mesoamerican domestication
Beans were domesticated independently in
Mesoamerica and in the Andes
– Earliest date for a Mexican bean is 2500 BP.
– It is very likely that beans were domesticated
earlier, at the same time as maize
Maize in SW North America
Maize and squash agriculture spread to northern
Mexico and the southwestern U.S. about 3400 BP.
in the Southwestern Late Archaic Period
 Initial impact of maize and squash varied across
the region
 In some areas there was increased sedentism
 In other areas, agriculture did not substantially
alter the lives of the Late Archaic huntergatherers
The Formative period
The introduction of pottery into
the American Southwest
marks the beginning of the
Formative period
 The introduction of pottery
overlaps with the introduction of beans
 Sites with pit houses are common in this period
 Formative sites range in size from 1-2 houses to
as many as 25-35—one village site has 60 houses
 Regional variation in the impact of maize
continues into the Formative
Optimal foraging model
 Assumes that humans act on the basis of
rational self-interest to maximize efficiency in
collecting and processing resources
 Archaeologists use this theory to explain the
variation in adaptation to the introduction of
maize agriculture
 According to optimal foraging theory, diversity
exists in the uptake of maize agriculture as the
result of rational decisions about the
productiveness of the landscape and the returns
from maize agriculture
Eastern North American domesticates
Late Archaic peoples of eastern North America
independently domesticated a variety of plants
– Including sunflower, marsh elder, chenopod,
and squash
 Late Archaic peoples also narrowed their
subsistence base—especially in areas with rich
supplies of shellfish
– Shell middens
 The impact of domesticates on subsistence in
the Late Archaic was minimal
– Hunting and gathering continued to be the
basis of Late Archaic subsistence
Adena
Adena culture corresponds to the Early Woodland
period of Eastern North America
 The Adena culture is found in the Ohio River
Valley
 During the Adena
period increasingly
large burial mounds
were constructed
accompanied by
increasingly
elaborate burial
practices
The Great Serpent Mound, Ohio.
The Hopewell
In the Ohio River Valley, the Middle Woodland
period corresponds to the Hopewell—a culture
that built complex earthworks and had
elaborate burial rituals
– Some Hopewell mounds were built over
structures
– Massive earthworks were created in a number
of forms including circles, squares, and
octagons
– Some mounds were created over a variety of
types of burials, other mounds had intrusive
burials in them
The Hopewell
 The Hopewell exchange network moved exotic
goods across huge distances
– Quantities of expertly crafted objects made
from exotic materials in burials indicate the
status of elites
Hopewell settlement
According to the vacant centre pattern model,
Hopewell earthworks served as the symbolic and
ceremonial core of a community that lived across
a wide area
 Evidence indicates that
some earthworks were
occupied
 Assessing the nature
of Hopewell settlements
is difficult because of
Hopewell bird claw.
– The widespread modern destruction of the
earthworks and their massive scale
– The low archaeological visibility of Hopewell
habitation sites because of alluvial soil buildup
Woodland subsistence
Early & Middle Woodland subsistence was based
heavily on the cultivation of indigenously
domesticated plants
 The earliest dates for maize in eastern North
America are between 2000-1800 BP.
 Maize is rare in the Early/Middle Woodland and
did not play a major role in the diet
 Throughout the Woodland period, hunting and
gathering continued to be key elements of
subsistence along with the cultivation of local
domesticates
Maize Agriculture in Eastern North America
 By the beginning of the Late Woodland, maize is
found as far north as Ontario
 Maize was cultivated throughout much of eastern
North America by 1700 BP., however
 Isotope analysis of skeletal remains indicates
that maize did not play a major role in the diet
until about 1000 years ago
 Turkeys appear to have been domesticated
during the Formative period
 Turkey domestication in the Southwest and in
Mesoamerica were separate events
Domestication: Bruce Smith’s model
A coevolutionary model for the indigenous
domestication of plants in eastern North
America
 Smith states that climate change led to
increased permanence of human settlements
 The shift to more permanent settlements led to
gradual ecological changes that resulted in the
emergence of domesticated plants over a period
of several thousand years
Domestication: Smith’s model, in 5 major stages
1. Garbage heaps around long-term human
occupations provided an excellent ecological
niche for weedy plants. In these contexts, seeds
that sprouted and grew quickly had an
advantage
2. People tolerated edible plants and removed
unwanted plants
3. People began to encourage and systematically
harvest useful plants while weeding out useless
ones
4. Seeds of the best useful plants were
deliberately planted every year
5. Plants that were clearly morphologically
domesticated emerged
Domestication: Prentice’s model
Guy Prentice proposed that the domestication of
plants might have been the result of intentional
actions by individuals
 Prentice argues that the introduction of
domesticated squash into eastern North
America was carried out by male shamans who
would have used the gourds as rattles
or ritual containers
Princess Point Complex
Found in southern Ontario; dates to 650–900 A.D.
 Consisted of Algonkian-speaking hunter-gatherers
 Important to the debate about whether maize
exploitation (agriculture) moved into the area via
migration from the south during this time, or
whether it was adopted by local groups
 Pottery is believed to have started 900 A.D.;
however, University of Toronto at Mississauga
archaeologists David Smith and Gary Crawford
have found evidence for both pottery and a degree
of sedentism as early as 540 A.D. in the PPC
– Suggests perhaps both local adoption of agriculture and
migration
Gender Bias and domestication
Watson and Kennedy link the seeming invisibility of
people in the origins of agriculture to gender
bias
– “men are strong, dominant protectors who
hunt animals; women are weaker, passive,
hampered by their reproductive
responsibilities, and hence, consigned to plant
gathering” (Watson and Kennedy 1991:256)
 Smith’s domestication model is an example of
the “passive” form of bias—agriculture just
happened unconsciously
Gender Bias and domestication
 Prentice’s domestication model is active but,
tellingly, the agent is explicitly male
Watson and Kennedy propose a model for the
adoption of maize in eastern North America
that emphasizes the active role of female
gardeners
 They propose that women, who already had
extensive experience growing indigenous
cultigens, actively experimented with the
Midwestern 12-row maize to develop a variety
that was better suited to their region
Gender Bias and domestication
– The result was the development and spread
of eastern 8-row maize
 In this model, the adoption of maize in eastern
North America was an achievement of the
active intervention of women
Summing up the evidence
• In eastern North America, hunter-gatherer
groups had domesticated a number of plant
species long before the introduction of maize
agriculture
• Regional variability continued into the
Formative period
– Archaeologists try to explain the pattern in
terms of optimal foraging theory
• Early and Middle Woodland Adena and Hopewell
cultures
• Massive earthworks constructed
• Evidence for specialized craft manufacture
• Long-distance trade in high status items
• Nature of settlement systems remains poorly
understood
• Introduction of maize at the end of the Middle
Woodland period had little impact of the diet