//------------------------------------- Picture Handler var pict = new Array (100); var term="term"; function showpict(term){ parent.noteframe.document.close(); parent.noteframe.document.open(); parent.noteframe.document.writeln('\n\n'); parent.noteframe.document.writeln(""); parent.noteframe.document.writeln ("

Notes & Pictures

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Small Boy Tending a Water Buffalo beside a rice field
(Taiwan, 1960s)
The domestication of animals involved a suite of genetic changes, many of which are visible in their physical remains. Among the changes not normally visible are behavioral ones, making them more docile and willing to accept human governance.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[1]='

Pod Corn (Left) & Modern Sweet Corn
(After Swartz & Jordan 1976:382)'; pict[2]='

Einkorn Wheat (Left) & Emmer Wheat
(After Swartz & Jordan 1976:377)'; pict[3]='

Neolithic flint sickle blade mounted for cutting, displayed with Einkorn. The presence of microscopic \"sickle sheen\" on the stone blade can be evidence that it has been used for cutting high-silica grass stems.
(Hunterian Museum, Glasgow)'; pict[4]=' photo by DKJ

Horn Beer Mug (Scotland)

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[5]=' source unknown

Ubaid Bowl'; pict[6]=' source unknown

The Ziggurat of Ur
(Internet Link)'; pict[7]=' source unknown

Artist\'s Rendition of Çatal Hüyük '; pict[8]=' Museum of Modern Art, Taipei

Museum Model of Bànpō 半坡, a typical Neolithic settlement in the Yellow River basin

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[9]=' source unknown

Çatal Hüyük Wall Motifs'; pict[10]=' photo by DKJ

Widespread use of plows required appropriate draft animals. A water buffalo can tolerate standing in water, but is slow and not so strong as some other cattle. The hooves of other cattle, however, like those of horses, cannot tolerate long exposure to water. Considerations like these interact with issues of animal diseases, cost, and other factors when a farmer raises a draft animal.
(Taiwan, 1960s)

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[11]='

Above: cereal grains; clockwise from upper-left: maize, wheat, rice, millet.

Below: the same grains as puffed "health food" breakfast cereals; clockwise from upper-left: puffed maize, puffed wheat, puffed rice, puffed millet.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[12]='

Child standing among tall stalks of sorghum in South Korea. The tall stalks of cereal grains have traditionally been valued for everything from thatch roofs to cooking fuel (immediately below) or even for clothing like the Japanese rice-straw snow shoes shown at the bottom.

photo by DKJ

Photos by DKJ
'; pict[13]='

Teosinte (Above) and Ancient Maize (Below)
(Puebla Museum, Mexico)

'; pict[14]='

Display of Domesticated Cereals in the Cardiff Museum, Wales. Left to right: Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, club wheat, and two kinds of barley. Click to enlarge.'; pict[15]='

Millet (above) and Sorghum (below). The tiny grains of these cereals make them less convenient to consume directly than larger-grained cereals like rice and maize. But they have been used since antiquity in gruels, to make fermented beverages, and as animal feed. Both have tall stalks once valued as fuel and thatch.

Photos by DKJ
'; pict[16]=' photo by DKJ

Wind Damaged RiceAs rice reaches the stage where the inside of the grains solidifies and it can be harvested, the heavy heads are easily knocked over by rain or wind, and falling into the flooded field, they rot. In this wind-damaged field in Korea, the farmer has pulled up fallen rice and tied the straws to each other to hold them in place.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[17]='

Above: Domesticated maize is tightly sheathed by its "husk" and is unable to reseed itself.

Below: The corn-like teosinte plant still exists. This specimen was growing in Iowa\'s Living History Farms outside Council Bluffs; the bottom picture shows a close-up of teosinte kernels $Demonstration Field in Iowa\'s Living History Farms$
photo by DKJ

Photos by DKJ
'; pict[18]=' photo by DKJ

Beans and squash planted among the stalks of corn, Mayapan, Mexico

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[19]='

Top view of a millstone. Grain is placed on this surface, and a second stone set on top of it is rotated to crush and abraid away the chaff, or, with finer millstones, to pulverize the grain itself into a coarse powder to facilitate cooking. Although very little agricultural equipment is actually made of stone, almost all of it is far too awkward to carry around easily, and is therefore incompatible with a nomadic way of life.
(Hong Kong, XIXth Century)

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[20]=' picture, Sackler Museum, Harvard University

picture, Sackler Museum, Harvard University

Bronze stove for ritual use.
(China, Western Zhōu 周 Dynasty, about 800 BC)

'; pict[21]=' photo by DKJ

A member of the Kumiai tribe of northern Baja California, Mexico, uses a stone "mano" or pestle to pulverize acorns (upper right) in what archaeologists call a "cupule" (center), that is, a carved out mortar in a large rock. The Kumiai are agricultural, but also collect acorns from the region\'s many wild oak trees. Obviously, the presence of such mortars is not necessarily a sign of agriculture.

Even today, no people is entirely agricultural. People in industrialized countries eat marine resources, wild mushrooms, etc.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[22]=' photo by DKJ of model at San Diego Zoo

Typical hut of the Ituri Forest Pygmy peoples of the Congo. Foraging populations typically place a great deal of stress on food sharing and tend to honor people particularly adept at bringing back a great deal of food to share. However a strongly egalitarian ethos also tends to restrict claims of superiority even when they are based on hunting prowess.
(Ituri Forest, Congo)'; pict[23]=' photo by DKJ

Gardens in Central Egypt
Although Egypt was bereft of rain until the XXth century, it developed an agricultural system based on the mud-bearing annual flood of the Nile river and deft irritation in the narrow strip of accessible land running along the river.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[24]=' photo by DKJ from private collection

Farmers harvest "cactus apples" (tunas) by whacking at the nopal cactus. Both the fruits and the stems of this semi-domesticated cactus are eaten. Since there has been little biological change between the wild and the domesticated forms of the plant, and since cactuses are planted as fences, an archaeologist would be hard pressed to be sure how important nopal was in an ancient diet.

(Peruvian folk diorama [retablo] modeled out of potato starch and mounted inside a small gourd)

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[25]=' Diorama in Hong Kong Museum of History

The Neolithic brought a need for new tool types, such as axes suited to clearing brush and trees. However, finely polished stone tools are characteristic of the Neolithic even when there seems to be no utilitarian reason. This museum diorama shows a Neolithic ax-head being polished along the south coast of China.

(Hong Kong Museum of History)
'; pict[26]=' S. Wells Williams 1883 The Middle Kingdom. NY: Scribners. Vol. 1, p. 242

S. Wells Williams 1883 The Middle Kingdom. NY: Scribners. Vol. 1, p. 242

Domesticated YakAbove: Travelers like XIXth-century Sinologist S. Wells Williams were enormously impressed at the variety of uses to which yaks were put in Turkestan and Tibet.

Below: A modern yak herder in the eastern Himalayas tends his animals in their summer pasture. Photo by DKJ

Photos by DKJ'; //
Below: A modern Chinese artist portrays yak transhumance in Tibet.

徐福荣 et al. 1991 彩图风俗词典。上海：上海辞书出版社。 P. 127.

徐福荣 et al. 1991 彩图风俗词典。上海：上海辞书出版社。 P. 127.

'; pict[27]=' photo by DKJ

At this point you may wish to learn more about the nature of the metals used in antiquity and the techniques used to work them. Click here to open a new window onto a more detailed and well illustrated discussion.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[28]='

Southern Iraq Rush House

We think of Iraq as a desert region, but it is far more varied than that. For example, until drained late in the XXth century, the southernmost region of Iraq, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers emptied into the Persian Gulf, was a vast marsh land, inhabited by fishing people who built houses of marsh rushes.
Wilfred Thesiger, Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford

'; pict[29]='

Above: Hidatsa Village on the Knife River
George Catlin, 1810

Below: Interior of the Hut of a Mandan Chief
Karl Bodmer, 1839-41

$Mandan Chief\'s Earth Lodge$ The Mandan and Hidatsa peoples of North Dakota lived in earth lodges and raised corn in summer, but moved to the shelter of river valleys in the bitterly cold winters. Buffalo were hunted whenever they were available, but were especially important during the winter.

Earth lodge photos below show a modern reconstruction.

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota

'; pict[30]='

Hidatsa Winter Buffalo Hunt on Snowshoes
George Catlin, 1810'; pict[31]=' $\'Wheat$
Modern wheat (left and below) has substantially larger individual grains than so-called "broom grasses" that occur as weeds or are occasionally used for animal feed or fiber.

In addition, the "non-fractionating" base of each kernel and of the whole head clings firmly to the stem until harvest, but the casing or chaff is easily detached. Wheat of this kind can be nibbled as a snack in the field. That was not true of its wild ancestors."

photo by DKJ

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[32]=' photo by DKJ, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota

photo by DKJ, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota

Hoes were made from wood, stone, or, as here, the shoulder blades of large animals.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[33]='

It is important to remember that "hunting" and "gathering" do not always refer to the collection of things to eat. In addition to their importance as fuel, inedible materials like palm fiber (above) or tree bark (below) have always been critical to creating tools, shelters, and clothing, just has have the bones and hides of animals.

$Bark from a \$

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[34]='

Chinese Jugs These modern Chinese jugs were sold full of liquor, but throughout history similar jugs have also been used for other purposes. Only by studying the chemical remains in old vessels can archaeologists be sure how they were used.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[35]='

Chinese Palm-Fiber RainwearIn China, raincoats and rain hats were traditionally made of palm fiber or rice straw. (The capes are known as suōyī 蓑衣 in Chinese and the combination of cape and hat as suōlì 蓑笠.)

Although it is convenient to see non-food uses of rice straw as essentially a by-product of rice grown for food, in the case of palm the use of fibers is often primary, and food use often secondary, especially in varieties of palm that do not produce edible dates.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[36]='

Wattle-and-Daub GranaryAgriculturalists face the problem of storing their harvest for gradual use. (A major threat to stored grain is rodents. And a line of defense against rodents is domestic cats, but that is a different story.) This tar-covered granary is intended to keep out insects and rats, and it is raised up to avoid ground moisture. Photographed in Taiwan in 1966, it is typical of such structures around the world. But effective as such measures may be against moisture, insects, and rodents, they provide no defense against human predators, including passing pastoralists.

Photo by DKJ
'; pict[37]='Summer Camps
Unlike true nomadism, transhumance allows substantial structures, but still requires portable possessions. These pictures were taken among transhumant Tibetans in the eastern Himalayan region in June, 2011.

Stone House

photo by DKJ

Log House
The canvas roof of a wooden spring shelter is being folded for reuse at another location.

photo by DKJ

Animal Skin Drying

Portable Possessions
<\/center>

Photos by DKJ
'; pict[99]=' photo by DKJ

yyyyy
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Footnote

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Read This First

Clicking on note and picture links in the main text bill bring them up in this box.

Unfortunately, each such link will also add a reference to your browser's \"history,\" making it difficult to return to some earlier pages. A link at the top of the main window allows escape from the system back to the site's \"transit lounge\" where there are links back to frequent destinations.

A link to return to this message is also located at the upper left-hand corner of the main text window.

"; note[1]= "

In the majority of foraging societies, men do most or all of the hunting and fishing ᾒthis seems inevitably the case if the prey animals are large, like bison or whalesᾒ while women do some or most of the gathering, often assisted by children or, at times, men. But there are complications with this generalization: Women also seem to play a large role in the gathering of coastal shell fish, a \"hunting\" activity.

Because of the more frequent use of stone for hunting implements, there is generally more archaeologically visible residue from hunting than from gathering, so we tend to know more about the evolution of hunting techniques than we do about the plants that people have gathered and consumed.

(Some recent studies of accidental clay impressions of Upper Paleolithic nets, summarized by Pringle [1998], remind us that not all hunting is done with stone tools, and in modern ethnographic contexts women are often associated with net making and net use, both \"hunting\" activities.)

"; note[2]= "

The term \"Neolithic\" strictly refers to a \"new\" way of making stone tools, namely by grinding the surface of the stone rather than (or in addition to) chipping it. However, to the annoyance of some specialists, the term is loosely applied to a mode of cultural organization in connection with which such tools are usually found.

In addition to ground stone tools, this way of life is typically characterized by more or less fixed settlements, pottery, and agriculture, but lacks writing or metal casting techniques. Neolithic communities are also limited in the scale of their overall political organization.

Obviously Neolithic communities did not occur at the same time in all parts of the world. Nevertheless, some authors do speak of a Neolithic \"period\" or (better) \"phase,\" even though dates vary from location to location.

Where the term is used, the Neolithic is considered to be the last division of the Stone Age and to precede the discovery of writing or metal (normally bronze) casting. The term \"Bronze Age\" refers to the metal-using period following the Neolithic in many parts of the world.

"; note[3]= "

In archaeology and history, the term \"Near East\" refers to southwestern Asia and a small amount of northeastern Africa ᾒ roughly the same area called the \"Middle East\" by political scientists.

For our purposes, the most important areas in the Near East are the valley of the Nile river in Egypt and Sudan, the valley shared by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Syria and Iraq, and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean (the \"Levant\") shared today by Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.

(The term contrasts with \"Far East,\" which refers to the eastern part of Asia. \"Near\" and \"Far\" refer to comparative distance from the zero meridian.)

"; note[4]= "

Many specialists define \"agriculture\" as planting, raising, and harvesting crops by processes that make use of a plow. They distinguish this from \"horticulture\" (or \"gardening\"), defined as planting, raising, or harvesting crops without making use of a plow.

Typically, horticulturalists use a \"dibble\" (or \"digging stick\") to make a hole in the ground, into which a seed or cutting is placed; plow agriculturalists use the plow to turn the soil over in furrows, often then broadcasting the seed over the newly plowed field and then smoothing it out to cover the new seed. By turning over the soil, a plow redistributes fertile and depleted soil, often bringing richer soil from greater depths to the top.

For many cultigens, plow agriculture makes larger crops possible on the same land. It also allows the incorporation of draft animals, with their dung, into the process of plant production. For this reason, it is more efficient for all but small or specialized gardens and tends to supplant horticulture when the two are known to the same peoples.

For present purposes, the distinction between plow agriculture and horticulture is largely irrelevant: the significant issue is human ability to produce food. Therefore I have used the term \"agriculture\" for both plow agriculture and horticulture.

Note that some crops raised for purposes other than food also count as agriculture. Examples are bamboo for use in construction, gourds for use as containers, or mulberry leaves used to feed silk worms. Apparently no society raises non-food crops without also raising food, but nearly all societies that raise food crops also raise some non-food crops.

"; note[5]= "

Ancient sickle blades are typically a composite of small stone blades that were hafted in a long row into a handle and used much as modern sickles are used.

Stalks of ripe cereals, as well as many wild grasses and reeds, contain silica, which has abrasive properties and tends to produce microscopic scratches on the sickle blade, imparting a kind of shine ᾒ called \"sickle sheen\" ᾒ that does not result from other uses of a blade. Thus archaeologists are able to establish that any given blade was or was not used to cut cereal or grass stalks.

It is unlikely that sickles would have been used to cut stalks of wild grain, for a sickle would be a clumsy instrument to use on wild, fractionating kinds of grain, and most historical gatherers simply shake the heads over a basket. A sickle in an archaeological site therefore indicates either that grasses were being cut for their stalks (to use as fuel or building materials, for example) or that domesticated cereals were being harvested from which the grain would be detached after cutting.

Authorities differ on the best interpretation of sickle evidence in different sites, but, in general, sickles are most likely to indicate domesticated cereals if they are accompanied by grinding stones (millstones) in the same site. (Grinding stones do not themselves necessarily indicate that grain is being raised, since they may have other uses, but they are a necessary implement for cracking off and removing the chaff of most cereal.)

"; note[6]= "

Pre-Homo-sapiens foragers seem not to have made much use of fish or water birds. Even the sapiens-like Neanderthals seemed to ignore them. A study in 2001 of concentrations of various forms of carbon and nitrogen in Neanderthal and H. sapiens fossils suggests that the H. sapiens forms were far broader in their choice of animals to eat, with Neanderthals largely confining themselves to the red meat of large land animals.

"; note[7]= "

It is an accident that English uses the name \"millet\" for two functionally similar but biologically different plants, with the Latin names Setaria and Panicum.

(Ancient Chinese was actually a little more accurate. It had three terms. Setaria ᾒ specifically Setaria italica ᾒ was called sù 粟 . Two different subspecies of Panicum were consumed, called shŭ 黍 and jì 稷, the first much stickier when cooked than the second.) Several other, similar genera are also called \"millet\" in English, including Eleusine and Pennisetum, for which cultivated forms seem to have emerged in Ethiopia during the second millennium BC. A New World variety of Setaria may have been cultivated in some areas of Mexico before maize was cultivated, although both in Ethiopia and in Mexico the tiny-grained \"millet was soon abandoned in favor of superior crops\" (Ho 1975: 59).

"; note[8]= "

Some specialists, especially in India, argue for an Indian origin of Panicum, partly on the grounds of its later appearance in China than Setaria. But others reject this view because

Panicum does not occur wild in India;
there are at least some Panicum remains in China just as early as the far more numerous Setaria remains; and
the name for Panicum millet in Sanskrit ᾒ cīnaka ᾒ is etymologically related to the word for \"China,\" as in most modern Indian languages. (Further west, the Persian name is actually borrowed directly from the Chinese!)

The case accordingly looks bad for an Indian origin for Chinese millet!

"; note[9]= "

Loess (or Löss) is a kind of fine, yellowish soil that occurs on flat, windy plains in many parts of the world. It is built up of wind-borne dust particles, is typically loosely packed, and is very fertile when mixed with humus.

"; note[10]= "

The flowers contain both male and female elements, so that cross-fertilization is much less common than in maize, and wild hybrids of sorghum with anything else are unusual.

In 1952 male sterility was discovered in some sorghum strains, a minor variability that eventual led to the possibility artificial hybridization, which has produced many of the varieties grown in the United States and much of Asia today.

Thus modern sorghum varies in height from new, quite short varieties, only about 50 cm high, cultivated in the United States for feed grain, to the very tall, \"original\" variety, nearly 3 m high, grown in China, where the stalks continue to be valued as well as the grain.

"; note[11]= "

See Ho 1975, Appendix 2.

"; note[12]= "

Perhaps because of the very early widespread distribution of sorghum, it has several English names in current use. The Latin name is Sorghum vulgare, and the name used by American farmers is simply \"sorghum,\" but archaeologists and others often call it by other, local names in different parts of the world.

If it occurs in India, it is called jowar, cholum, or jonna.
In the Near East it is durra.
In the Caribbean area it's petit mil or \"Guinea corn.\"
In Africa it's \"kafir corn.\"
In China it'sknown by its Chinese name gāoliáng 高粱. (The famous and potent \"kaoliang\" liquor is made from sorghum.)
And when it is grown to make syrup, it is called by its Italian name, sorgo. (In fact, since the Romans didn't raise the grain, the Latin name sorghum is a back-formation from the Italian term.)

Whatever it is called, it is still sorghum.

"; note[13]= "

Maize (Zea mays) is usually called \"corn\" in American English. However in British and international usage it is called maize (pronounced like \"maze\"), and the word \"corn\" can refer to any of several cereal plants with edible seeds, including rye, wheat, barley, oats, &c. To avoid confusion, American archaeologists use the term \"maize\" except sometimes when no other grain could possibly be intended.

"; note[14]= "

A 1970 discovery of a species of maize differing from the Mexican varieties and provisionally dated at between 4300 and 2800 BC suggests that in fact maize may have been domesticated independently in Peru. Whether there was any contact between ancient Peruvians and ancient Mexicans is unknown, but it seems unlikely, given the natural barriers to travel and communication between these distant regions.

"; note[15]= "

Fish and shellfish resources were vital to many or most foraging and Neolithic societies, but have been understudied. Environments which are especially rich in these foods ᾒ coastal settlements beside rich beds of shellfish, for example ᾒ were sometimes able to exist, when necessary, virtually entirely on water resources, and water resources probably always supplemented land resources, whether hunted, gathered, or grown.

If resources are rich enough for societies to stay in one place, they can technically be foraging societies, and yet display many of the characteristics of food-producing ones. The most famous ethnographic examples are the Haida, Hidatsa, Kwakiutl, Tlingit, and other tribes of the northwest coast of North America, whose sedentary adaptation was made possible by rich marine resources. Fishing-based, sedentary groups in other parts of the world include the Sea Dayaks of Borneo and some groups on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya. Some archaeologically known peoples, such as the coastal seafood eaters of Denmark or Peru, also appear to fit into this category.

"; note[16]= "

The stereotype, or perhaps rule of thumb, is that the Neolithic societies were the first peasant societies; the transitional Copper Age brought the first complex societies; and the Bronze Age introduced the first chiefdoms and principalities (Arias & Armendáriz 2000:3).

"; note[17]= "

This is not to say that sharing does not occur. Indeed many agricultural societies engage in elaborate community feasts where sharing is a central feature. But it is a matter of degree: day-to-day, routine sharing is comparatively less extensive and less common than in foraging societies.

"; note[18]= "

Some hunting societies, especially those with very heavy dependence on a single species, are in fact often concerned about the general welfare of the animals on which they depend.

Counts of bones in sites of the reindeer-dependent Ice Age Magdalenian hunters, for example, suggest an under-killing of juvenile animals, possibly to help preserve the herds. It wasn't herding, but it was a step in that direction.

"; note[19]= "

When a group moves back and forth between two (or more) sites but does not move to new sites that it has not previously occupied, it is said to be \"transhumant,\" and the adaptation is called \"transhumance.\" When the group simply moves to a different area for better resources and does not return to its old sites on a regular pattern, it is said to be \"nomadic,\" and the adaptation is called \"nomadism\" or \"nomadic pastoralism.\" The complex specificities of the pastoral nomadic adaptation were finally identified in an important article by Rada and Neville Dyson-Hudson in 1980, leading to a recognition of the critical importance of pastoral nomadic peoples in the evolution of civilization in Eurasia. (See, for example, Seaman 1989.)

"; note[20]= "

It is reasonable to ask what may have stimulated interest in the difficult exploitation of these metals.

One answer is that a combination of population growth and climate change was placing pressure on human adaptations and stimulating a range of experimental modifications in ways of doing things. One writer who has explored this is Sing C. Chew, whose 2007 book The Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transformation summarizes evidence for strong ecological stresses underlying early metallurgical experimentation.

"; note[21]= "

Also beer. According to Professor Katz, cited earlier, by 2000 BC the Sumerians apparently had some fifty-five different terms to describe kinds and varieties of beer. Collaborating with Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing Company, Katz was able to discover the brewing method most likely used in ancient Sumer, and Anchor experimentally bottled some imitation Sumerian beer under the name Ninkasi (the Sumerian goddess of brewing) for consumption at an academic conference. See Katz & Maytag 1991 for the recipe.

(It is rumored that some college campuses saw the subsequent founding of Ninkasi societies that began holding \"secret rites\" to the goddess. UCSD students uniformly deny this, however, claiming that they study all the time.)

"; note[22]= "

The term \"elite\" or \"elites\" is used by archaeologists to refer to classes of people able to monopolize resources. The usual archaeological evidence is discrepancies in the quality or quantity of grave goods or in the size of houses. Rarely is there any clear evidence about who exactly such people are: merchants, priests, nobility, or whatever. The term is convenient because this ambiguity makes it widely applicable, but it implies very little about the actual class structure of an ancient society.

A separate essay on this web site deals with \"sumptuation\" a term coined to cover the symbolic use of physical materials in order to display one's elite status, and cultural systems for the enforcement of the principles of use.

"; note[23]= "

The kings following Sargon continued to designate themselves \"kings of Sumer and Akkad.\" The south later enjoyed a brief respite from Akkadian domination during the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur, but was re-conquered about 2025 BC.

"; note[31]= "

The line between hunting and gathering is not always clear. Although coastal shell fish, for example, are probably best seen as “gathered,” dandelion-fashion, some would class their collection as a “hunting” activity because they are animals, although admittedly not very fast moving. Either way, it’s foraging. A few writers contrast foraging, which they view as opportunistic, to “collecting,” in which humans consider the welfare of a plant or animal to avoid using it up as a resource.

"; note[32]= "

Quite aside from variations from society to society and family to family, there are complications with this generalization: In most foraging societies, women also seem to play a role in at least some hunting parties, and men often assist with gathering. It is important to be flexible in applying such global terms."; note[33]= "

Where the term is used, the Neolithic is considered to be the last division of the Stone Age and to precede the discovery of writing or metal (normally bronze) casting. The terms “Copper Age” and (following it) “Bronze Age” refer to the metal-using periods following the Neolithic in many parts of the world.

"; note[34]= "

In archaeology and history, the term “Near East” refers to southwestern Asia and a small amount of northeastern Africa —roughly the same area called the “Middle East” by political scientists. For our purposes, the most important areas in the Near East are the valley of the Nile river in Egypt and Sudan, the valley shared by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean (the “Levant”) shared today by Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. (The term contrasts with “Far East,” which refers to the eastern part of Asia. “Near” and “Far” refer to comparative distance from the zero meridian.)

"; note[35]= "

Ancient sickle blades are typically a composite of small stone blades that were hafted in a long row into a handle and used much as modern sickles are used. Stalks of ripe cereals, as well as many wild grasses and reeds, contain silica, which has abrasive properties and tends to produce microscopic scratches on the sickle blade, imparting a kind of shine —called “sickle sheen”— that does not result from other uses of a blade. Thus archaeologists are able to establish that any given blade was or was not used to cut cereal or grass stalks. It is unlikely that sickles would have been used to cut stalks of wild grain, for a sickle would be a clumsy instrument to use on wild, fractionating kinds of grain, and most historical gatherers simply shake the heads over a basket to collect grains that have not yet fallen from the plant. A sickle in an archaeological site therefore indicates either that grasses were being cut for their stalks (to use as fuel, fodder, or building materials, for example) or that domesticated cereals were being harvested from which the grain would be detached after cutting. Authorities differ on the best interpretation of sickle evidence in different sites, but, in general, sickles are most likely to indicate domesticated cereals if they are accompanied by grinding stones (millstones) in the same site. (Grinding stones do not themselves necessarily indicate that grain is being raised, since they may have other uses, but they are a necessary implement for cracking off and removing the chaff of most cereal.)

"; note[36]= "

Pre-Homo-sapiens foragers seem not to have made much use of fish or water birds. Even the sapiens-like Neanderthals seemed to ignore them, or perhaps lacked the tools needed to capture them. A study in 2001 of concentrations of various forms of carbon and nitrogen in Neanderthal and H. sapiens fossils suggests that the H. sapiens forms were far broader in their choice of animals to eat, with Neanderthals largely confining themselves to the red meat of large land animals.

"; note[41]= "

It is an accident that English uses the name “millet” for two functionally similar but biologically different plants, with the Latin names Setaria and Panicum. (Ancient Chinese was actually a little more accurate. It had three terms. Setaria —specifically Setaria italic— was called sù 粟. Two different subspecies of Panicum were consumed, called shŭ 黍 and jì 稷, the first much stickier when cooked than the second.) Several other, similar genera are also called “millet” in English, including Eleusine and Pennisetum, for which cultivated forms seem to have emerged in Ethiopia during the second millennium BC. A New World variety of Setaria may have been cultivated in some areas of Mexico before maize was cultivated, although both in Ethiopia and in Mexico the tiny-grained “millet was soon abandoned in favor of superior crops” (Ho 1975: 59).

"; note[42]= "

Some specialists, especially in India, argue for an Indian origin of Panicum, partly on the grounds of its later appearance in China than Setaria. But others reject this view because (1) Panicum does not occur wild in India; (2) there are at least some Panicum remains in China just as early as the far more numerous Setaria remains; and (3) the name for Panicum millet in Sanskrit —cīnaka— is etymologically related to the word for “China,” as in most modern Indian languages. (Further west, the Persian name is actually borrowed directly from the Chinese!) Evidence accordingly still favors a Chinese origin for Chinese millet!

"; note[43]= "

Loess (or Löss) is a kind of fine, yellowish soil that occurs on flat, windy plains in many parts of the world. It is built up of wind-borne dust particles, is typically loosely packed, and is very fertile when mixed with humus.

"; note[44]= "

The flowers contain both male and female elements, so that cross-fertilization is much less common than in maize, and wild hybrids of sorghum with anything else are unusual. In 1952 male sterility was discovered in some sorghum strains, a minor variability that eventual led to the possibility artificial hybridization, which has produced many of the varieties grown in the United States and much of Asia today. Thus modern sorghum varies in height from new, quite short varieties, only about 50 cm high, cultivated in the United States for feed grain, to the very tall, “original” variety, nearly 3 m high, grown in China, where the stalks continue to be valued as well as the grain.

"; note[45]= "

Perhaps because of the very early widespread distribution of sorghum, it has several English names in current use. The Latin name is Sorghum vulgare, and the name used by American farmers is simply “sorghum,” but archaeologists and others often call it by other, local names in different parts of the world. If it occurs in India, it is called jowar, cholum, or jonna; in the Near East it is durra; in the Caribbean area petit mil or “Guinea corn”; in Africa “kafir corn”; in China by its Chinese name gāoliáng 高粱. (The famous and potent “kaoliang” liquor, said to make Western diplomats giddy at Chinese state banquets, is made from sorghum.) And when it is grown to make syrup, it is called by its Italian name, sorgo. (In fact, since the Romans didn’t raise the grain, the Latin name sorghum is a back-formation from the Italian term.) Whatever it is called, it is still sorghum.

"; note[46]= "
Maize (Zea mays) is usually called “corn” in American English. However in British and international usage it is called maize (pronounced like “maze”), and the word “corn” can refer to any of several cereal plants with edible seeds, including rye, wheat, barley, oats, &c. To avoid confusion, American archaeologists use the term “maize” except sometimes when no other grain could possibly be intended.
"; note[47]= "
A 1970 discovery of a species of maize differing from the Mexican varieties and provisionally dated at between 4300 and 2800 bc suggests that in fact maize may have been domesticated independently in Peru —even today the various kinds of Peruvian maize are different from North American varieties. Whether there was any contact between ancient Peruvians and ancient Mexicans is unknown, but it seems unlikely, given the natural barriers to travel and communication between these distant regions.
"; note[48]= "
Potatoes were not the only cultigens, of course. In 2009 a study was published (Finucane 2009) based on an analysis of chemicals in the bones of 103 specimens from six prehistoric sites in the Ayacucho Valley of Peru suggesting significant consumption (even a dietary “mainstay”) of maize at all six sites by 1600 BC, suggesting much earlier domestication, possibly as soon as a thousand years earlier.
"; note[51] = "
Fish and shellfish resources were vital to many or most foraging and Neolithic societies, but have been understudied. Environments which are especially rich in these foods —coastal settlements beside rich beds of shellfish, for example— were sometimes able to exist, when necessary, virtually entirely on water resources, and water resources probably always supplemented land resources, whether hunted, gathered, or grown. If resources are rich enough for societies to stay in one place, they can technically be foraging societies, and yet display many of the characteristics of food-producing ones. The most famous ethnographic examples are the Haida, Hidatsa, Kwakiutl, Tlingit, and other tribes of the northwest coast of North America, whose sedentary adaptation was made possible by rich marine resources. Fishing-based, sedentary groups in other parts of the world include the Sea Dayaks of Borneo and some groups on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya. Some archaeologically known peoples, such as the coastal seafood eaters of Denmark or Peru, also appear to fit into this category.
"; note[52] = "
The stereotype, or perhaps rule of thumb, is that the Neolithic societies were the first peasant societies; the transitional Copper Age brought the first complex societies; and the Bronze Age introduced the first chiefdoms and principalities (Arias & Armendáriz 2000:3).
"; note[53] = "
This is not to say that sharing does not occur. Indeed many agricultural societies engage in elaborate community feasts where sharing is a central feature, or create societies to share various risks. But it is a matter of degree. Day-to-day, routine¸ sharing is comparatively less extensive and less common than in foraging societies.
"; note[54] = "
Some hunting societies, especially those with very heavy dependence on a single species, are in fact often concerned about the general welfare of the animals on which they depend. Counts of bones in sites of the reindeer-dependent Ice Age Magdalenian hunters, for example, suggest an under-killing of juvenile animals, possibly to help preserve the herds. It wasn’t herding, but it was a step in that direction. Ethnographically, it is not uncommon to encounter prayers for the welfare of the prey animals.
"; note[55] = "
When a group moves back and forth between two (or more) sites but does not move to new sites that it has not previously occupied, it is said to be “transhumant,” and the adaptation is called “transhumance.” When the group simply moves to a different area for better resources and does not return to its old sites on a regular pattern, it is said to be “nomadic,” and the adaptation is called “nomadism” or “nomadic pastoralism.” The complex specificities of the pastoral nomadic adaptation were finally identified in an important article by Rada and Neville Dyson-Hudson in 1980, leading to a recognition of the critical importance of pastoral nomadic peoples in the evolution of civilization in Eurasia. (See, for example, Seaman 1989.)
"; note[61] = "
One writer who has explored this is Sing C. Chew, whose 2007 book The Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transformation summarizes evidence for strong ecological stresses underlying early metallurgical experimentation.
"; note[62] = "
Also beer. According to Professor Katz, cited earlier, by 2000 BC the Sumerians apparently had some fifty-five different terms to describe kinds and varieties of beer. Collaborating with Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing Company, Katz was able to discover the brewing method most likely used in ancient Sumer, and Anchor experimentally bottled some imitation Sumerian beer under the name Ninkasi (the Sumerian goddess of brewing) for consumption at an academic conference. See Katz & Maytag 1991 for the recipe. (It is rumored that some college campuses saw the subsequent founding of Ninkasi societies that began holding “secret rites” to the goddess. UCSD students uniformly deny this, however, claiming that they study all the time and denying all knowledge even of the UCSD Hops and Malt Appreciation Club.
"; note[63] = "
The term “elite” or “elites” is used by archaeologists to refer to classes of people able to monopolize resources. The usual archaeological evidence is discrepancies in the quality or quantity of grave goods or in the size of houses. Rarely is there any clear evidence about who exactly such people are: merchants, priests, nobility, or whatever. The term is convenient because this ambiguity makes it widely applicable, but it implies very little about the actual class structure of an ancient society.
"; note[64] = "
“Priests” and “temples” are, of course, modern terms being imposed on the data here. An institution involved with economic and political activity that happens also to be involved with religious rites can as well be seen as a city hall, a temple, or a factory/warehouse. Giving too much priority to its religious function may actually be misleading, like seeing the American Congress as a church because it begins each session with a prayer.
"; note[65] = "
The kings following Sargon continued to designate themselves “kings of Sumer and Akkad.” The south later enjoyed a brief respite from Akkadian domination during the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur, but was re-conquered about 2025 BC.
"; note[66] = "
The picture is actually more complicated than this. For example, William Englebrecht writes (2003: 27) that <\/p>
“Maize is deficient in two amino acids: Lysine and tryptophane. Since beans supply these, maize and beans together provide a good dietary combination…. However, a heavy dependence on maize without a protein complement such as beans, fish, or meat creates a risk that children will develop the nutritional diseases of pellagra or kwashiorkor.”<\/blockquote>
The issue is not beans, as such, but amino acids. Sometimes alternative sources of one or another of these amino acids are available. Englebrecht points out that Jerusalem artichokes (Indian potatoes), a source of lysine, often grew wild around the corn fields of the pre-historic Iroquois of New York State and would have mitigated the effects of a heavy diet of corn even in the absence of beans, although they in fact raised beans as well.<\/p> [Source]"; note[67] = "
Metal tools of various kinds have quite diverse effects, sometimes unexpected ones. William Englebrecht writes of the replacement of ceramic cooking pots by European copper-alloy kettles obtained as trade goods by the Iroquois of New York State in the 1600s (2003: 139): <\/p>
“While superior to native ceramics in terms of durability, cooking food in such vessels can result in hemolytic anemia …. Children are at greatest risk, and this anemia … [is visible archaeologically] in pitting of the upper walls of the eye sockets, a condition known as cribra orbitalia … [and] typically interpreted as a sign of either iron or vitamin C deficiency. In the case of seventeenth-century Iroquoian populations, cribra orbitalia may also signal copper toxicity ….” <\/blockquote> [Source]"; //------------------------------------- Bibliography Handler var biblio = new Array (40); var term="term"; function reference(term){ parent.noteframe.document.close(); parent.noteframe.document.open(); parent.noteframe.document.writeln('\n\n'); parent.noteframe.document.writeln(""); parent.noteframe.document.writeln ("
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ADAMS, Barbara & Krzysztof M. CIAŁOWICZ

1997 Protodynastic Egypt. Buckinghamshire: Shire Publications.
"; biblio[2]="
ALGAZE, Guillermo

1993 The Uruk world system: the dynamics of expansion in early Mesopotamian civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2001 Initial social complexity in southwestern Asia: the Mesopotamian advantage. Current Anthropology 42: 199-233.

2008 Ancient Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilization: The evolution of an urban landscape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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ARIAS, Pablo & Ángel ARMENDÁRIZ

2000 El neolítico. Madrid: Arlanza Ediciones.
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BOWER, Bruce

2005 Waves of grain: new data lift old model of agriculture’s origins. Science News 168: 358.
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BUTZER, K.

1964 Environment and archaeology: an introduction to Pleistocene geography. Chicago: Aldine.
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CHEW, Sing C.

2007 The recurring dark ages: ecological stress, climate changes, and system transformation. Lanham MD: AltaMira Press.
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DYSON-HUDSON, Rada & Neville DYSON-HUDSON

1980 Nomadic pastoralism. Annual Review of Anthropology 9: 15-61.
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EDGERTON, Robert B.

1965 “Cultural” vs. “ecological” factors in the expression of values, attitudes, and personality characteristics. American Anthropologist 67: 442-447.
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EKVALL, Robert B.

1968 Fields on the hoof: nexus of Tibetan nomadic pastoralism. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
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FLANNERY, Kent

1965 The ecology of early food production in Mesopotamia. Science 147: 1247-1255. Reprinted in Marc P. Leone (ed.) 1972: Contemporary archaeology: a guide to theory and contributions. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
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GOLDSCHMIDT, Walter

1965 Theory and strategy in the study of cultural adaptability. American Anthropologist 67: 402-407.
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HAWKES, Jacquetta & Leonard WOOLLEY

1963 Prehistory and the beginnings of civilization. New York: Harper & Row.
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HO Ping-ti

1975 The cradle of the east: an inquiry into the indigenous origins of techniques and ideas of Neolithic and early historic China, 5000-1000 B.C. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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KATZ, Solomon H. & Fritz MAYTAG

1991 Brewing an ancient beer. Archaeology 44(4): 24-33.
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KRAMER, Samuel Noah

1963 The Sumerians: their history, culture, and character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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LEVY, Thomas E.

2007 Journey to the Copper Age: archaeology in the Holy Land. San Diego: San Diego Museum of Man.
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MCGOVERN, Patrick E.

2003 Ancient wine: the search for the origins of viniculture. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
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MCNEILL, William H.

1999 How the potato changed the world’s history. Social Research 66(1) xxx
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PEARSON, Roger

1985 Anthropological glossary. Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company.
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PRINGLE, Heather

1998 New women of the Ice Age. Discover 19(4): 62-69.
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SEAMAN, Gary (ed.)

1989 Ecology and empire: nomads in the cultural evolution of the Old World. (=Proceedings of the Soviet-American academic symposia in conjunction with the museum exhibition “Nomads: Masters of the Eurasian Steppe,” volume 1.) Los Angeles: Ethnographics.
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SWARTZ, Marc J. & David K. JORDAN

1976 Anthropology: perspective on humanity. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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FINUCANE, Brian Clifton

200 Maize and sociopolitical complexity in the Ayacucho valley, Peru. Current Anthropology 50(4): 535-545.
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CHAGNON, Napoleon A.

1983 Yąnomamö: the fierce people. Third edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
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ENGLEBRECHT, William

2003 Iroquoia: the development of a native world. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
";