'local times'

Early navigation was subject to the limitations of supplies and power. Ships carried enough supplies to reach their destinations, sailing under normal conditions. But early navigation was crude. Latitude could be estimated by the position of the sun’s arc. It would be low in the sky at the poles and overhead at the equator. The time-zones that span the oceans could reflect longitude if ships could keep the times of the home ports. Ships sailing out of Greenwich could use their instruments to determine when it was noon at sea (based on the azimuth) but not what time it was in Greenwich.
If ships had a sea-worthy clock it could tell them how many hours and minutes they were off ‘the mean’. They could then chart and avoid/find geographic features at sea. But swells and other elements can be hard on clocks. So, before on-board clocks they had to subscribe to a lot of ‘guess work’ instead. ‘Lost at Sea’ is the story of a self-taught clockmaker that set-out to solve the problem by creating an on-board clock that would hold-up to the conditions at sea.
Every hour ahead/behind the time in their home ports represents 15 degrees. At twelve hours ‘off the mean’ a ship would be equal distance east or west (180 degrees) from where it had set sail. Like a British ship out of Greenwich would be in New Zealand. Cape Horn would be about ¼ of a day behind the mean and ¾ of a day behind the International Date Line. The cape of Good Hope isn’t far off the Greenwich mean. Ships lost at sea in the vast waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans could find their way to more familiar waters if they knew which waters they were closer-to.
Once it was proven successful it was widely adopted. The same method of navigation in ‘minutes’ is still used in modern on-board navigation systems. It can be done with sophisticated GPS systems or more simply with a good timepiece and a bearing. You need to keep track of mean and local times (and which hemisphere you are local to). It is a fairly young technique. It has only been in practice for the last 500 years or so since a sea-worthy clock was developed. But it might be one of the most significant advancements of the common-age. Thanks to the British Empire’s maritime interest in developing an accvrate global positioning system.

Simpler Times

Stone Age Realities



The Ice Age was apocalyptic. Palaeolithic Europe was more of a wilderness than it was a frontier. From N’ Africa to the steppes, Neanderthal culture was sparsely distributed throughout a loose confederation. They may have shared tool making technology and rituals. They probably married and traded between tribes too. Tribes spent most of their time isolated from one another though. In order to meet the demand for resources with the technology they had, they were confined to solitary dominions. Neanderthal tribes might not want to share hunting grounds with a big cat or cave bear either. Not only were large predators competition for resources, they were also a threat. The Neanderthals’ role as a niche predator in Ice Age Europe kept their numbers small.
It was a matter of logistics. For Neanderthals, efficiency was a small scale undertaking. Contact between tribes might include trade between them but trade wasn’t much of an extra-tribal practice. Instead of finding a Neanderthal on the trade routes, you’d be more likely to run into one on a game trail. Cro-Magnon Man was capable of efficiency on a larger scale with intricate trade networks over vast distances. Neanderthal tribes had to acquire their own resources instead of be able to rely on trade for them.


Subsistence

Ice Age provisioning is regulated by simplicity just like its industry was. They were each resource dependent. It made trade unique to its time. Life was defined between Ice Age trade, industry and provision. Hunting and foraging supplied most of the ‘subsistence’ for each tribe. Other resources were required for successful provisioning. Tool knappers would fashion spearheads or axes and craftsfolk would weave baskets or nets. Either foraging or hunting parties were usually led in at least small numbers to provide safety. Safety might be democracy’s origin. Even among predators, the ability to coordinate defenses requires some degree of democracy. For all their superiority, prides and packs and tribes provide more strength and resources than big cats and wild dogs and human hunters can alone.
Once food needs were met, hunting and foraging parties would return to the tribe’s campsite to share their haul. Distribution of resources might have been hierarchical. Whether or not the chief went on the hunt, he might get the biggest cut. A well respected medicine man or flint knapper might get choice cuts too. Hunters or foragers would then take their shares for their own hearth before the choicest cuts were all gone. Lower ranking members of the tribe would be last to get a cut. What’s left might have been used as tools or medicine, depending on its properties. That’s a simplified example of distribution but Ice Age democracy relied on rank to some degree.
Neanderthal politics made sure everyone had a role in provisioning the tribe. There were only so many things you could be. The labor force that drove provisioning comprised a good majority of the tribe. If you were disabled, you might be excluded from the hunt or harvest. If you had a more specialized role, you might be delegated to a support position. Neanderthal subsistence seems to have been a very social undertaking. Lacking commerce and complex trade, Neanderthals relied upon a system of common wealth distribution to ensure resource demands were met between the various roles and positions within the tribe once the resources had been obtained.


Daily Life

Cave men must have been brilliant politicians. Cave politics were a matter of simplicity. The tribe’s chief was the resident governor. It would have been a jurisdiction’s breadth to the next tribe, since either had to get by on their turf’s resources. It would have been primitively provincial. Turf wars might have occurred as populations grew or were established. Kinship might have been along patriarchical lines like their social hierarchy seems to have been. As a niche hunter like modern humans, Neanderthals must have been partly opportunistic. Any cave man can tell you, ‘you always share your cave with the biggest predator.’ A fight doctor might tell you the same thing. Bigger predators can turn a corner to their advantage. Rituals and habits might have reflected their rank in the wilderness’s order.
Industry would have been limited to the tribe’s labor and trade potentials. Technology was probably ruled by the tribe’s internal demands. Meteorological forces would have governed Neanderthal daily life too. A good storm could effectively leave you cave bound for its duration. Eventually though, I think daily life was defined by family. With a long hike between tribes, immediate support had to come from the tribe. Education, provisions and morale were all internal matters. With living conditions comparable to combat situations, the archaic breed must have developed a strong sense of duty. It’d be hard to avoid.


Social Life

Neanderthal social life was limited. Nightlife might include a victorious hunting party smoking and drinking around a bonfire before returning to separate corners of the cave to bunk down. Within the same cave, tribes broke up into smaller units with their own hearths. The hearth was like a family apartment inside the cave. With a limited selection of caves and ultimately cave space, Neanderthals “emptied and re-used hearths” that had proven suitable. (Barton – Mousterian Hearths and Shellfish) Meals could be cooked and served from there and sleeping quarters were found there too. It probably wouldn’t be uncommon to find three generations in the same hearth. Grandparents might have helped raise children while parents were hunting or picking wild cabbage. Neanderthals lived on into their thirties before their hard lifestyles caught up with them. Their childhoods lasted until they were able to hunt or run a hearth. If they were lucky, there might have been a good decade (from their mid teens to their mid twenties) that they could hunt and raise children. By their late twenties, old age would set in. For Neanderthals that might mean they had to acquire the winter blankets and clothes in addition to the status they would need for later years when they could no longer hunt.
There was no provincial government. Individual clans didn’t pay taxes to a regional authority for its services. It would have been a time of renegades and lawlessness. Instead there would have been expectations and fear to guide their conduct. If anyone is to blame for feudal society and all its shortcomings it might be the Neanderthals. Feudalism might very well have been derived from their brand of social democracy. At their most socially complex, Europe’s Neanderthals were a confederation of clans. While trade might bring them together with other human breeds, they might be more likely to get together with neighboring clans for an event than for commerce. At least until the trade industry arrived with the Upper Palaeolithic revolution. Aside from feudalism, any lasting influences absorbed from Neanderthal culture might be evident in certain aspects of the military and early European and Near Eastern mythologies.


Language

Telepathic or not, Neanderthals would have been easy to read. They probably didn’t have complex demands upon language. Their brains were devoted to their instincts and sensory functions. They might have had more use for language in their rituals as they invoked the spirits of their totems. They would probably be as blunt as they would be easy to read. They probably would have had ‘little white lies’, just like we have. When someone was ill, I think they would explain it to children through their beliefs. And they might have had legends and stories about heroics on a hunt.
It is hard to keep secrets in a cave though. Their spoken language would have been symbolic and pretty candid but their need for it would have been almost negligible. Like all primates, they would have expressed support through whatever language they possessed. And as a niche predator, they would have needed to issue calls out of distress and coordination when they spotted a big cat on their trail or closed in on prey of their own. There might have been limited industry jargon between stone-working, medicine and craft guilds. Like there was between modern humans who had to keep up with “relatively rapid shifts in core reduction strategies as well as bone and antler tool design”, during the Upper Palaeolithic. (Bar-Yosef – The Upper Paleolithic Revolution) Nothing very extensive because their confederation was a fairly distant one, but maybe enough to swap trade secrets.


The revolution of the Upper Palaeolithic might deserve more credit for the absorption of the Neanderthals and their culture than modern humans do. The commerce and industry that accompanied it were foreign to the Neanderthals’ way of life. They were no match for the innovation itself. It would take a patient Cro-Magnon tribe to teach a clan of Neanderthals how to trade. If they were capable of “an advance in culture, in the form of new tools and fire technology”, both breeds could have benefitted from the exchange. (Shreeves – The Neandertal Enigma) Ultimately, competition or cooperation would have been dependent on available resources.
There’s no substitute for technology. With or without the Neanderthals, innovation and social networks allowed modern humans to thrive in their new environment. Simple Neanderthal politics would have to be capable of compromise with successful outsiders. If they were, Neanderthal culture might have been assimilated by modern humans as it was overrun by them. I hope so. Their simple ways are as comforting as they were quaint. There’s something to be said for simplicity though. Neanderthals may have jvst done it better than anyone else.

cold-bloodz

How the Ice Age turned Bloodlines Cold



Once upon a time, human kind was wild. They hadn’t necessarily been ‘human’ very long. Their lineage had fairly recently diverged from other primates. Early hominids showed promise with simple tools. They began to evolve new biology to adapt and take advantage of their aptitude. In time, they started coming up with more sophisticated tools. They even learned how to use fire. It gave them another advantage but they were still at the mercy of the wilderness and nature until the agricultural revolution that marked the end of the Neolithic and the onset of the Bronze Age.
So were the other archaic humans and a more refined breed too. They all had some kind of stone tool technology in common. They might have shared some religious beliefs, I suppose. If they revered common totems, for instance. They must have been pretty different though. They were different enough to leave doubts about their potential genetic compatibility. After generations of living on a glacier ridden frontier, they adopted “extreme skeletal adaptations to the cold.” (Savvyer – The Last Human) Although, if the archaic races formed a minority of the population, the evidence might only be found in more contemporary racial distinctions.
At least one other significant factor would have determined the archaic populations’ survival. They would have to be industrious enough for the Upper Paleolithic Revolution first. The Neanderthals in particular might have been challenged by modern humans’ technological adaptability. What they lacked in adaptability, they’d have to make up for with brute industry. The fossil evidence has “helped inscribe the brutish picture of the Neanderthal.” (Sommer – Bones and Ochre) Clans were remote. Interactions with outsiders may have been natively foreign to them. They weren’t going to be business savvy from experience. Neanderthal tribes were usually left to forage for themselves.
Subsistence was an internal matter. Most traditional Neanderthal social functions were. Neanderthals seem to have mastered socialism on a tribal level. It took a military like approach to social rank but it was an effective way of organizing a platoon sized clan. Within a Neanderthal tribe, hierarchy was established based on historic needs and available resources. Throughout the Stone Age, hunting contributed to a tribe’s wealth and survival. Wild game “provided the key resource in the colonization and prolonged settlement of Europe.” (Gamble – The Palaeolithic Settlement of Europe) Hunters were usually highly revered for their role in provisioning the clan and the risks they took. It would not have been uncommon for the tribe’s best hunter to become its chief. Leadership is bred through hunting strategy. There are other kinds of leadership too but few trades have ever demanded it like prehistoric hunting. A good hunter would have been trained to coordinate forces before he was ever made chief.
They may have revered tool makers and medicine men too. Neanderthals might have developed cult followings for the priests who invoked the clan’s totems. The ability to summon prehistoric supernatural forces was thematically the exclusive territory of witches and wizards. When someone was ill or the tribe needed favorable conditions on a hunt, the chief might appeal to the tribe’s priest to bless the endeavor. If the hunt was successful, the priest might even be credited with the kill. If it failed, the wizard might have to treat injuries instead. It must have been demanding. Even though tribal medicine men and hunters had pretty different job descriptions, they often shared same fortunes.
‘Bless this Hvnt’ and ‘Kiss the Chief’. For as sophisticated as they were in their brand of socialism, clan authority came down to its hunters and priests. And maybe its flint knappers. ‘Beware of Tool Man; he might be smarter than he looks’ could have been a realistic sentiment too. The flint knapper’s hearth or workspace might be the one lined with “large animal bones or piles of lithic flaking debris.” (Mellars – The Neanderthal Legacy) I admire the tool-maker’s artisanship in a primitive time. Like tribal priests, they must have been mentored to develop the skills the position required.
Any industrial trade of the Old Stone Age came with some authority and responsibilities within the tribe and its cave. It was a patriarchical establishment, largely. Labor was divided by gender, probably for the demands of the job. It benefitted everyone to different degrees. Women became skilled at foraging and crafts but possibly were forbidden to hunt where as men were bred for the demands of male-dominated industries. Within the same cave, the tribe came together from individual hearths. In the Ice Age, “proto-Neolithic inhabitants of the cave site built only simple domiciles of wood and brush within the shelter of the cave.” (Solecki – The Proto-Neolithic Cemetery in Shanidar Cave) Communal living like that might account for their socialistic tendencies.
I’m more of a Neanderthal historian but I think that was typical of Ice Age customs. Modern humans are typically credited with industry and customs that were more gender neutral. They may have been more brutish too before the Upper Paleolithic Revolution and resembled archaic breeds with robust features that were “strongly built, with short and dense bones and large joints.” (Trinkaus – The Neandertals) Other archaic populations were closer to the Neanderthals in their anatomies and customs. It’s not a genetic marker but ‘customary adaptation’ from the Upper Paleolithic technological revolution might still be present along racial lines. Customs tend to individualize us unlike industry with usually will bring races or breeds together.
The only way archaic bloodlines were preserved was if they were capable of the kind of customary adaptation that the Upper Paleolithic Revolution required. Industry is a machine. I think it was like a hunt or the Ice Age trading that would bring tribes together on a new scale. Archaic populations would have been drawn to it as it emerged from the sub-continent in the Middle East. It would have been a selective force too. It might have been selective about its candidates. Modern humans already had the advantage of experience with the revolution’s technology. What’s left of archaic populations would have to move out of their caves eventually. Agricultural demands required encampments that caves would impede.
It turned out that farming required a different kind of mobility than even nomadic foraging demanded. Turf dimensions changed too. Agro-industrial trade required network-scaled demographics and population bases. Governing beyond tribal hierarchy was also requisite to maintaining agricultural networking. It wasn’t necessarily the socialistic utopia Neanderthals were accustomed to but the rewards still might have interested ‘archaics’. Modern humans might have needed incentive to share their revolution with the outsiders though. Beyond their territories, the archaics might have been able to offer primitive treaties and labor if they could keep up with the revolution itself.
I think they’d have made a powerful ally. Turks, Greeks and Romans might have all incorporated their adventures in their mythology and militaries in the west and Near-East. Similar adventures would have occurred in the East. In the steppes between the Far-East and ‘Gaul’, ‘hybrids’ might have carried-on old nomadic traditions as they adopted new agricultural practices in deference to their collective ancestries. And by the time people were migrating to the New World at the end of the great Ice Age, new racial identities would have been forged.
Since then, demographics have continued to merge along the various networking lines of the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. Modern networking dimensions can be ‘provincial’. Larger markets act like an oasis to their industrial base. Instead of ‘hunting grounds’ and caves, resources are divided into regions’ industrial-productivity demands and the modern encampments that cater to them. I count three or more bona-fide archaic breeds (including ‘modern humans’). ‘Peking Man’ was as isolated in the Far-East as Neanderthals were on the other side of the steppes and modern humans were in Africa. At some point, all three breeds share an ancestry. According to Mary Leakey, common heritage among later humans is derived in the Miocene epoch from “an ape-like creature … not confined to East Africa.” (Leakey – Olduvai Gorge) Common ancestry might date back to the time of the three toed horse, a species whose fossils have “occurred only in Pliocene and Early Pliocene deposits.” (Lanpo – The Story of Peking Man) It might have been the last time the three breeds shared geography until the industrial expansion of the Upper Paleolithic Revolution.
Other archaic populations could have been incorporated too but there seems to be substantial material culture from Gaul, Peking and sub-Saharan Africa. Each old Ice Age demographic/population makes a legitimate candidate, given they weren’t ‘obsolete’ to the technological revolution. More than any rivalry ever could, the revolution itself was the threat to an old way of life. Neanderthal brand socialism might have survived on some level but tribal dynamics had to change. Later technological revolutions would demand schools and local government.
The Upper Paleolithic Revolution required the first real popular government. It was a confederacy of its own, like the earlier ‘hunting ground networking’ of the Ice Age, but it was more sophisticated. Until the Bronze Age, when institutions of slavery promoted large-scale labor forces and the empires that ruled them, government was limited by confederation. ‘Turf wars’ might have continued under the new confederacy without any overriding authority. I guess it was popular government on a primitive socialist level. It wasn’t even quite as sophisticated as feudalism but it was similarly ‘social’.
Chiefdoms took on esteem. Conflict would have turned chiefs into warlords. In more peaceful times, tribes might have resembled an industrial camp and chiefs would have been more of a local governor. Revenues could have been communal without a system of distribution. Taxation and allotment wasn’t perfected until the end of the Bronze Age when the republic caught on, at the earliest. A socialist brand of government waited even farther into the future than the early military-state republics that may have first mastered the employment of federal taxation.
Wealth distribution and government services were probably of minor significance to the peoples of the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. Resources and maximization of them was more important as the industry and trade of the revolution were established. Racial preservation was a secondary concern of the revolution’s too. All the old breeds were assimilated by it. Extinction was the only alternative. I think selection and shifts in ‘race’ must have played a role. A way of life certainly died-out as humankind became “to some extent a self-domesticated species.” (Montagu – Man’s Most Dangerous Myth) It wasn’t competitive enough for progress. In some ways, it was a sacrifice though.
The Ice Age came to a violent conclusion in the Neolithic period. Geographies shifted and a new age of isolation began on both sides of the Pacific. Eventually, old Paleolithic cultures and civilizations would be reunited. They had moved out of the Stone Age by then but common customs still dated back as far. In the meantime, the fate of archaic races had become a mystery. I guess the Upper Paleolithic Revolution and its wake were probably more important than ancestry or race was to our destiny. It selected its candidates on adaptation and industry instead. Our technology effectively domesticated us as it delivered safety from wilder elements. We’ve traded the demands that came with life in the wild for modern luxuries. What’s left of the wilderness is still home to wildlife. Once upon a time there were wild cave men too.

da Ice Age

‘VVhere have all da Cave-Men gone?’


Whenever civilizations meet they experience a revolution in technology. Even if they had crossed paths before. I think that is a throwback to our nomadic roots. It has been a while since bands of wild-nomads roamed the world’s plains. I guess you’d have a hard time even finding a bona-fide ‘wild-nomad’ anymore. Somewhere in our history we must have managed to domesticate ourselves. But it used to be a tradition. At least, according to legend. The nomadic life may have been doomed at the end of the Neolithic age when the new and old-worlds were separated.
Just like the game they hunted, nomadic-hunters were migratory. They were likely to return to the same camping grounds that had worked-out for them before but wouldn’t have left much behind waiting for them to return. Their camps had-to be mobile. Tools, huts and provisions all got packed-up for the journey between camps. A hunting party was needed. If tribes were gone for long enough they might bring a medicine-man to set any breaks or treat any hunting-wounds, or for a death rite if the hunter was mortally wounded. If they were staging their hunts from a camp, their whole clans might accompany them. A nomadic lifestyle would be different today. Permanent seasonal camps could be left secured and only essential items would have to make the trip. But the stone-age was unpredictable.
The heroics of stone-age survival inspired later legend. Before our nomadic tradition faded from custom it was common for some late/post stone-age tribes to welcome outsiders as guests. Like Greek and near-eastern legend, Irish legends from the bronze-age chronicle the exploits of strangers as if it were our older traditions’ way of surviving at the dawn of domestic-life. We didn’t follow big-game on the game-trails for our existence anymore but we suffered from wanderlust instead. Exploring the wildernesses ensured something else besides finding game too. In the Irish legend of ‘Cuculin’, a young Greek bride is instructed-to “never stop till you land in Erin”, where she finds her husband. (Curtin - 305) Marriage between distant tribes provided an exchange of genes and wealth. And the stories that returned with those exchanges fueled our imaginations and memories for ages.
Once upon a time, the nomadic people of the Neolithic age passed-on new customs from tribe to tribe. Language was primitive. We spoke enough to exchange ideas and innovations though. And since it wasn’t uncommon to run-into another nomadic tribe on the trail we didn’t view outsiders as strangers like we do today. Since then we have developed localized-dialects and jargon. These serve-to add-to our communal isolation. Language is unique that way. It can be most effective when it is localized. The trade-off is a loss of communication between peoples.
About the time nomadic culture and the cultural-exchange that accompanies it were fading from our popular customs, ‘modern-man’ (or at-least, then-modern African-exodus culture) was replacing Neanderthal customs on the plains of Eurasia. Whether it was by competition or assimilation, that culture had “in some very real sense … lived-on while Neanderthals had died-out.” (Trinkaus/Shipman – 380) Not that the Neanderthal bloodline was necessarily lost. Whether or not they were eliminated by other bloodlines remains a mystery. Archaic traits are subtle. And romantics like to hope that even though those traits may have gone undiscovered those bloodlines might have still been preserved.
Sometimes isolation is due to social factors, but history’s most tragic cases have been incidents of geographic isolation. At least twice in our history, mankind was cut-off from its neighbors by the ice-age. During the ice-ages the glaciers effectively kept outsiders out of Gaul and simultaneously lowered sea-levels to let tribes migrate beyond the Pacific. When the ice-age ended it was the tribes in the new world that had become effectively isolated and the same glacial retreat allowed outsiders into Europe once again. But the changes in customs (and traits) during the interim may have led-to significant conflict between the long-isolated clans. Stone-age rivals were “still motivated by traditions they had inherited from the hunting communities of the Upper Paleolithic.” (Wymer – 268)
Even with the earliest advance of African tribes into Europe there appears to have been some ‘turf-warfare’. All stone-age culture was primitive. Neanderthals and outsiders seem to have had at least that much in-common. They were also both nomadic, although the Neanderthals were hunters and their African rivals were nomadic-pastoralists. They were both aggressive too. The threat to any tribe resulted-in “a need to fortify the settlements” of the Neolithic Age. (Clark/Brandt - 89) Unfortunately, that need probably led to as much technological innovation as any exchange of culture between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal tribes ever did.
It was the Ice-Age (or its conclusion) that effectively halted our nomadic lifestyle on both sides of the Pacific and the exchange of culture that accompanied-it. The bigger game was suited for cold-weather and big-game hunters had to follow them as they migrated. Big-game wasn’t suited for the thaw. So obviously, neither was big-game hunting. Even though following big-game was no small effort, throughout the stone-ages nomadic tribes moved with the seasons. The steppes of Siberia are the native turf of nomadic life. It has historically been home to an “ill-defined confederation of nomadic tribes.” (Mair – 137) It was Neolithic hunters from Siberia that followed big-game to the other side of the Bering Sea and settled there after the glacial-melt flooded the land-bridge that spanned the North Pacific. When nomadic culture got separated by the oceans it was forced to evolve.
When agriculture replaced hunting and foraging we became bound to our fields. Agricultural camps built earthworks and defended the lands they farmed. No sooner had the stone-age ended than Gaul had become a feudal realm of farming villages. In addition to their earthwork-defended agricultural camps they also shared industry trends. A lot of history’s innovations occurred in the near-east but Europe’s farmers were responsible for developing ceramics for storage. Throughout the region farmers mined the earth for clay and fired-it in their homes’ kilns. They learned how-to build barrows and their defenses from the earth too.
It’s the utilitarian inventions that began to distinguish European culture from the near-east and beyond. And maybe a sense of community too. Farming camps weren’t large (at least not like a modern city). Even a large shire would really only consist of an extended family. In its own quaint way, a shire would have been peaceful. Shires were preoccupied with their own duties. Inside the gates of a shire, every day customs were limited to usual family dynamics. Living in a prehistoric shire kind-of meant you were cut-off from the outside world. Neighbors were a distant influence. It might be a day’s hike to the next shire. It would have been remote but must have bred strong communal bonds.
Nothing else fosters connection between a group’s members like being dependent upon each other. Even in farming. Agriculture in that age was a labor intensive enterprise. Tools were crude (but effective) and required considerable effort on the part of the user. Domestic livestock eased the burden some but the efforts of the members of an agricultural-camp were what ultimately determined its productivity. Relying on each other “ensured that every individual had a feeling of pride of belonging to the unit.” (Koryakova/Epimakhov – 212) It would almost be comparable-to a combat situation. It wouldn’t take long to forge a similar brand of comradery on a prehistoric farm. Like combat, survival was a matter of teamwork.
In our history, man-kind had always been relegated to the shelter that nature could provide. Once upon a time that had been the arboreal woodlands. Fire and tools forged from “locally available raw materials” allowed us to leave the savanna but not our fires. (Gamble – 286) But inside the gates of a shire we finally had our own turf. Predators only had an advantage outside our domain for a change. Even in the canopies and caves that provided shelter we never really held that advantage. We were still fairly defensive but our shires were the threat to predators that even caves couldn’t be. We could defend ourselves with tools and fire and not get cornered without a way out. Inside the gates of a shire, huts and long-houses provided even more shelter. They weren’t quite ‘siege-proof’ but shires were a formidable obstacle.
The nomadic tradition had been traded-in for a tamer way of life. It had its strong points, for sure. No longer were we at the mercy of nature to provide what we needed. We still had to answer to prevailing conditions but like the advent of tools, farming gave us a new survival-tool. Farming yielded year-round stores without having to follow the game-trails. Industry became sedentary. There was a new workplace. Fields became properties with the “shifting frontier between the forest and the man-made landscape.” (Jensen – 134) Instead of running-into other tribes on the game-trails we were preoccupied with agricultural cultivation. There were marketplaces where you could go to meet and trade with other tribes but the tradition of exchanging culture between strangers wasn’t the same.
Outside of Europe, the age of the military state was beginning. The farming camps of Europe had predators and barbarians to fend-off but not the large-scale political warfare that plagued the middle-east. The near and middle-east also had industrialized agriculture beyond the extent that Europe’s farming camps had. The combination led to a market for slave-labor. A slave in Europe (before Rome’s arrival) was more like a ‘page’, or personal servant. In the empires of the middle-east, slaves were the workforce. Neither capacity was an easy-life. But the life of a personal-servant is more ‘domestic’.
The slave-driven agricultural industry of the bronze-age middle-east was a state-sponsored (royal) institution. Histories diverge with their ethnic experiences in a crowded region. Turkey and Egypt block the middle-east in the west and the mountains of Bengal contain it from the east. Inside its borders the same old turf-wars continue to govern the middle-east’s policies. But no-one was above the slave-labor that started them. In the pursuit of ‘farming supremacy’ the dynasties of the middle-east created a legacy of conflict that has transcended “the agricultural life of Palestine and the challenging urban life of our own time.” (Patai - 86)
If anything has proven to be consistent over our history it is almost that conflict is directly liable for our technology. But it almost could-be a trend. We haven’t seen-it yet but aggressive-technologies could be replaced in the right global climate. The world would be ready-for one. In the meantime we follow more recent trends in historical diplomacy as competition continues-to play an important role in our advancement. Agriculture isn’t exactly ‘competitive’ by nature but it is driven enough to fuel future technological trends. That might arguably, make farming the most significant techno-industry of the common-age.
As an industry its disadvantage is found in its dependence upon the elements. Drought is still a prevailing condition. Climate always has regulated agriculture’s potential for productivity. Our other industrial practices can effect the climate and reduce the probability of drought but there is still a degree of chance in what the winds can deliver. Like big-game hunting, prehistoric farming was no minor-undertaking. The risk was almost as great. Often, drought would “be disastrous to pastoralists. Lack of water would reduce their flocks, and famine is usually the most potent agent behind mass-migrations.” (Mellaart - 94) It serves as a reminder of nature’s historic role in our survival. From our first fires through ice-ages and droughts we still have to answer to it.
The technological revolution to have followed us through most of our sometimes turbulent history might be the agricultural-revolution. Skeptics might argue that military-technology will too. But agricultural industry has proven to be irreplaceable and there are even some nomadic agricultural practices that are still effective. Seasonal crops could be farmed at different camps and livestock could be driven between them. It would be a return to older-ways. But it might also be a return to our real nature. Before we can realize the promise of any technological-revolution I think we might have-to find to our ‘wildernomad’ side again. It must be a recessive-trait by now. Generations have gone-by since nomads roamed the wildernesses. But it is the stone-age that today’s domesticated-nomad is still native-to. So, maybe we need to return to old stone-age ways in order to move forward. It ought-to come naturally to us all.