The concept of Neolithic is a term introduced at the end of the XIX (1865) by Lübboc in Prehistoric Times. The term Neolithic refers to a different way of working, that is, what has been the fundamental raw material up to that moment in prehistoric contexts has been carved stone. However, what we are going to see now is a new way of working stone; for example, the polished stone it will be used in axes and hammers, and the size of stone tools will be significantly reduced. It is a concept, therefore, technological.
There is a tradition that, since the 19th century, permeates the world of archeology: the classification systems. This taste for classifying is one of the thoughts in which this first Neolithic is inserted because it is a transition stage between the ancient stone and the metals of later times. In the Neolithic there is still a very rudimentary life but there is an evolution in the work model. The concept of progress, which has arisen from the ideas of philosophers of the Enlightenment, is now being recovered along with a great interest in the idea that all human societies have a tendency to evolve, that is, the idea that in all societies it is going to change from simple forms to complex forms. This idea of progress is closely related to two thoughts: Darwin’s evolutionism, the species are changing because there is an adaptation to the environment, and also a thought that is known by anthropology as unilinear evolutionism, that is, the transformations of these societies depend of elements that allow their survival. Societies not only change and evolve, but are better. This is the idea of unilinear evolutionism, there is no divergence and it will always be better and more complex than the previous one.
These are going to be the ideas of Darwinism and unilinear evolutionism associated with the early study of the Neolithic. In these first approaches, production is better than predation and, therefore, the Neolithic will be seen as an economic stage, that is, an invention of our society that allows us to depend 100% on nature. Economic aspects, adaptations and evolutionary processes are being interspersed within techno-economic processes.
From the 1960s and 1970s there is a reinterpretation of the Neolithic concept closely related to the New Archaeology. This is going to reject all those mechanistic approaches in the sense that everything always evolves and they are positive changes, without considering any type of change that implies a setback in the communities. The socio-economic aspect is now going to be the indispensable element. A society that evolves and that is very different depending on the places on the planet. Out of synchronicity: separate appearance of plants and animals (transition terms). However, the problem remains the priority. In other words, the appearance should not always be prioritized. socioeconomic because there are areas where livestock triumphs before agriculture. This does not make them any less Neolithic. There is an absolute lack of synchrony because it does not happen in all places on the same date, but neither does it force a broadcast to always take place. A great importance is the medium in which these changes are made and that can be decisive. We have talked about Darwin and he had almost dispensed with the medium. Archeology collides with many different tendencies when it comes to explaining the Neolithic. The New Archaeology, therefore, focuses on the socioeconomic to explain Neolithic phenomena.
The Neolithic is a historical process with two aspects: a biological process and a socioeconomic process with the appearance of producing economy mixed and the social, material and ideological modifications. Neolithic interpretations are closely linked to the socioeconomic factor, but we are going to find an essential biological factor linked to the definition of said process.
Models of interpretation about the beginning of domestication
The models of classical theory.
These interpretation models start at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th within what we know as Classical Theory or idealistic currents to explain the Neolithic. Try to find a cause for the change that occurs in these societies.
Oasis Hypothesis- V. Gordon Childe (1936).
Childe’s approaches to the origin of the Neolithic are cultural changes as an extension of biological changes. Once man has finished the process of evolution from him to Homo Sapiens he has to change not only biologically, but also culturally. It is a more traditional linear and classical thinking. He says that this cultural change that the Neolithic supposes is also a change, above all, a technological one, that is, one that responds to human inventions. Childe says that in his studies of history there have been a series of changes and that these changes are fundamentally economic and, furthermore, revolutionary because they would affect all the elements of society: the environment, the technical elements that we have at hand, they affect the work force and all the elements dealt with within that historical materialism. They do it in an abrupt and revolutionary way and he establishes three main phases: the Neolithic revolution, the urban revolution and the industrial revolution. This is not a progressive change as we know today; for Childe they are changes that occur abruptly. In a way, Childe has the classical concept of unilinear evolution, and this is where his theory comes into play. More specifically, he proposes the Oasis hypothesis, formulated from merely speculative methods, since he does not have empirical data at that time, nor absolute data. The basis of this oasis theory is a climate change. He intuits that it could have been a climate change that caused them to change from a predatory economy to a production one. Childe knows the eastern lands and sees that this is where the change has taken place. He suggests that at the beginning of the Holocene, in the East, a great climatic change took place that produced a great desertification of the area and caused plants and animals to concentrate in the only points where there was water: the oases. Human groups would also go to these oases. It is in the coexistence between plants, animals and humans that produces, in a short period of time, a process of interaction between them that gives rise to domestication. It does not respond to anything, ultimately, that they all meet there does not respond to the origin of the Neolithic, but rather they can coexist because they have more intelligence.
Rj Braidwood- Theory of Nuclear Zones. (1948).
It places us at a date after the Second World War. It raises the existence of the abrupt change to the Holocene. It has some environmental data and early empirical data that Childe did not have. From there he refutes the starting point of sudden climate change in areas of the East. He rejects climate change because throughout history there have been many climate changes. We know that there are numerous glaciations and interglacial periods and why we have not become producers before. However, if he agrees with Childe that the East is the first focus where the first Neolithic behaviors can be observed, that is, the Near East is once again the nuclear zone to speak of production for the first time. He confirmed the 1st agriculture in the Near East by the archaeological zone where he worked: Jarmo. He does not observe that there is a lack of water, nor is there any pollen data that demonstrates the desertification that Childe defends. He resorts, finally, to a host of favorable circumstances, that is, the climatic improvement of the Holocene supposes that man experiments on these animals and these species and arrives at their domestication. This theory of nuclear zones is left without the same approach as Gordon Childe, but it remains within the classical theory in terms of progress. It is one more concept of progress to explain the origin of the Neolithic. There is no ultimate reason or why in Childe’s or Braidwood’s approaches and only experimentation is what would explain domestication. The common points of these two authors would be that neither of them explain why but rather they define the change, but in the meantime we have not known the cause, neither of them explains it. There is talk of a concept of progress or a higher level that must be reached. The Middle East is the environment in which the two justify themselves and, in turn, resort to diffusionist processes. There is no explanation of the Neolithic in Asian or European communities and they focus on the Near East as a special local phenomenon. IF there is an attempt at an adaptive response or nuance on Childe’s part, it would only be on Braidwood’s part in intellectual enhancement.
The imbalance models.
In the 1960s, with the New Archeology, the classical theory was broken and it was stated that the Neolithic was a long process of relationships that included numerous elements among themselves, such as the population, the environment, and the resources. With the new Archeology the independence of human intellectual qualities is shown. Different factors are used that had previously gone unnoticed; a very important one will be the population. The imbalance models have different interpretations and authors. We are going to look at two: one isBinford’s disequilibrium theory and another in the Flannery’s model called Marginal Areas Theory.
The disequilibrium theory is that the population tends to balance with the resources. For the first time, these disequilibrium models allow the explanation to be implied as a study resource or broader explanations are proposed as a starting point. Binford says that the climatic situation or the climatic improvement that the Holocene entails brings or brings new resources close to human communities, such as maritime ones that are of great importance. These resources are associated with an increase in the population which, in turn, is losing mobility due to becoming increasingly dependent on these certain species. Population growth, demographic pressure, that is, the imbalance of one of these factors requires a change: production.
Elements that have to be kept in balance, such as the population, make the imbalance change the way of surviving and production appears. They defend that there will continue to be areas where there will continue to be hunter-gatherers because, in those areas where the demographic pressure that Binford raises occurs, the extreme dependence on these resources will mean that the first way to return to equilibrium is not production, but movement. to another environment where they can continue their predation.
Their transfer to marginal areas is what is going to lead somewhat forcefully to domestication because there is no large fauna to continue their way of life. Has changed the…