Mumford - Chap. six - Agri. Revolution

Mumford breaks the history of domestication into three periods:

(late) paleolithic 30,000 - 15,000 BCE
Mesolithic 15,ooo - 8,000 BCE
neolithic 8ooo - 3500 BCE

He starts with the caveat that domestication was a slow process with no "revolutionary" moment. Material remains can't be our only guide, sickles along with mortar + pestle were used long to cut grain and grind minerals long before people performed intentional planting. The one tool that did have obvious ramifications was the stone axe, used to clear land, build dams + irrigation networks, allow the large human communities we see a step to civilization. (Mumford, 127) The ramifications are that man now applied the tendency of order-forming, that he used to transform himself, onto his environment at large.

The trend towards intensified labor noted in the paleolithic shaping of tools grew into a spirit of industriousness in the neolithic, meaning "...the capacity for assiduous application to a single task, sometimes carried over years and generations." Mumford laments, and I agree, that something was lost in this process. There is a freedom to the hunter/gatherer life and a closeness to nature that is lost when men become domesticators. In the effort to domesticate, to take things out of their natural context, we ourselves became domesticated and taken out of our natural context. (Mumford, 128, 129)

While the great advances make themselves apparent in the period between 9000-7000 BCE, they rested on a serious of stages going back much further. The first was the paleolithic acquisition and retention of knowledge about plants. The mesolithic saw the use of horticulture with crops such as the yam and taro roots, which, being supplemented by hunting and fishing, allowed for year-round sedentary existence. This stable occupation of the land allowed people to observe plant reproduction and experiment with cultivation. Stable occupancy also gives rise to the domestication of the dog, who started hanging around settlements to scavenge garbage. The original use of dog and pig by humans was for scavenging (think pigs/truffles).(Mumford, 132-133)

The rise of high-yielding crops in the Near East was due to knowledge of soil fertility, irrigation, and seed-selection, not to any tool improvements. Almost all the crops we utilized today were domesticated before the rise of metallurgy and what we call science. The selection of these particular species out of thousands was the result of identification and experimentation done well before domestication. For example, all five natural sources of caffeine found in the natural realm were discovered by pre-ag humans; tea, coffee, cola, cacao, and yerba mate. This selection was about more than picking the most nutritious plants, it involved knowledge of soil, season and climate, and water requirements.

The shift in tool making from from knapping to grinding indicates a shift from ritualized labor to painstakingly tedious work. The repetition of a single act to the point of drudgery is indicative of the conditions of civilized life. It is the other side of the disciplined observation and repetition of action necessary for agriculture, and it is embodied in a specific personality type. "These repetitive habits proved to be immensely productive. But there is hardly any doubt that in some degree they dulled the imagination, and tended to select and advance the more submissive types..." (Mumford, 137,138)

Another manifestation and symbol of the shift towards man-made life was the use of bread as a staple. Bread represents the security farmers received as a reward of diligent labor. Sedentary agriculture man could plan for the future and "improve his land" for generations. The storage of grain represents the birth of capital accumulation, the hierarchical power relations typical of civilization have their birth with this social surplus. Paul Shepard discussed the opposing tendency of agricultural life, the instability of having to rely upon a few sources of nourishment and the regularity of weather. But Mumford's point of further imposition of order on the environment, and regimentation of social life remain valid. (Mumford, 139)

A last important technological innovation was the use of baked clay containers, born from the need to store grain. Many processes indicative of the "Neolithic economy" rest on the use of containers. Beer requires vats, grain must be protected from moisture and rodents, baskets store and transport good, barns shelter animals. The permanent home is a container as well. The tool associated with creating clay containers is the potters wheel, which was the grandfather of the wheel. This technological step continues that started with stone working, and rests on the idea of furthering continuity. Stone tools allowed a continuous supply of meat, clay containers a continuous supply of grain, and this thread of continuity allows the progress of civilization.