Thesis #10: Emergent elites led the Agricultural Revolution
*How the Agricultural Revolution happened is well understood. It is perhaps best explained by David Rindos’ Selectionist Hypothesis, which Jared Diamond explained succinctly in Guns, Germs and Steel* as a specific case of co-evolution. We could domesticate large herd mammals by identifying the leader; we could domesticate cereal grains because they were prone to harvesting. In the wild, a pea pod that doesn’t explode will simply die off, but to a human gatherer, such a pod filled with delicious peas is much more desirable than picking individual peas off the ground. Even without conscious management, simply dropping a few peas by accident will leave even more of the mutant non-exploding pea plants near the traditional camp site when the band returns next year. Followed over centuries, this process will eventually create non-toxic almonds, turn aurochs into cows, and give rise to domesticated forms of wild organisms bred to better serve human interests. *How* this all happened is not the question. The question is why.
Theories of why the Agricultural Revolution happened have traditionally been divided between “push” and “pull” theories. Childe’s “Oasis Hypothesis,“ Braidwood‘s Natural Habitat Hypothesis and the Population Pressure Hypothesis are all examples of “push” theories, where something forces a population into agriculture. Most “push” theories make no attempt to answer why agriculture was adopted, only how. Both Childe’s Oasis Hypothesis and Braidwood’s Natural Habitat Hypothesis explain how agriculture might have been made possible, but neither even attempts to explain why it happened. For both, “why” is an absurd question; the superiority of agriculture should be self-evident. As we have already seen, though, this is a severely flawed assumption.
By far, however, the Population Pressure Hypothesis is the most important of the push models. It is nearly taken for granted in many circles. The hypothesis states that agriculture *had* to be adopted because of rising populations through the Mesolithic. Yet, for any given grain of wheat, there is a decision to be made. One can either eat it, or plant it, but never both. Planting wheat is an investment of food; it’s sacrificing food now, in order to have more food in the future. Investment is not an activity engaged in by people lacking resources; it’s something only people with resources to spare indulge in. Poor people aren’t very big in the stock market, and starving people who buried all their rice would never survive long enough to reap the harvest. We take it nearly without argument that the Neolithic began with increasing, hungry populations, but there are two questions left unanswered:
- Since human population is a function of food supply, where did this population come from? and
- Why did starving populations bury their wheat, instead of eat it?
Human populations, like all animal populations, are controlled by food supply, so what made those populations begin to grow in the first place? As the first foragers began to experiment with horticulture, the structural barriers against agriculture would have disappeared, and a gradual slide into agriculture would have begun. Yet there remains a pivotal moment here, as well: when those first foragers settled down in horticultural villages, and decided that from now on they would grow their food in gardens (and hunt to supplement), instead of hunting for it (and gardening to supplement)–a *huge*difference.
By contrast to “push” scenarios, “pull” models discuss factors which enticed populations and pulled them into agriculture. The Selectionist Hypothesis mentioned above is the most widely accepted of these models, where co-evolution “pulled” human societies towards agriculture by providing domesticates. Of course, this cannot be the full story. The availability of domesticates hardly demands such gross inefficiency in their harvesting, and though no species evolves in a vaccuum, not many squirrels are known for their agricultural techniques.
Perhaps the most compelling of all these theories, though, is a “pull” model: Bender & Hayden’s Social Hypothesis. In this hypothesis, food production is taken up in all its deadly earnest to generate the surpluses required by “Big Men” for competitive feasting.
The term “Big Man” was first used in Melanesia (Van Bakel et al, 1986), where it was used to describe leaders who could not accurately be described as “chiefs,” as they lacked any ascribed position. While sometimes denounced as a vacuous term when applied outside the realm of Melanesian ethnography, it is nonetheless often used of a type of leader, who gains prestige—and with it, influence—not through ascribed political institutions, but through achieved status. “Big Men” rarely control material resources, so much as social ones. Their prestige gives them great influence over others, but they cannot enforce their will. Rather, “Big Men” primarily spend their time trying to convince, cajole, and persuade their followers to intensify production. (Harris, 1993) The essential function of most “Big Men” is as competitors for prestigate in an ever-escalating, high stakes game of competitive feasting. Typified by the Kwakuitl potlatch or the New Guinea moka, it is from these extravagant displays of generosity that “Big Men” derive their prestige, and thus, their power. Through an elaborate system of loans, “Big Men” are able to collect large amounts of food together at a single time for competitive feasting. New Guinea Big Men, for example, could never raise a sufficient number of pigs for an acceptable moka. They do keep significant herds of their own, but they constantly lend those pigs to others, as well as lending their time and labor. Then, when the time comes for a moka, they collect on all of those debts at once, amassing an amount of resources they never could have gathered themselves. In this way, “Big Men” use generosity and gratitude to co-opt an entire community for their own purposes.
Rather than accumulating wealth, “Big Men” might rather be seen as a conduit of wealth, as the “Big Man” economy becomes, essentially, redistributive. Wealth is extracted by them from their followers, and flows quickly out from them to the population as a whole. This is essentially the same economy which chiefdoms formalize. The primary activity of the “Big Man” is increasing the intensity of production, in order to create a surplus of food which can be distributed for competitive feasting. (Harris, 1993) This is precisely what occurred in the Agricultural Revolution. Hayden & Bender have argued that competition between groups is fiercest in periods of scarcity or abundance, but especially so in a period of abundance which follows a period of scarcity.
This is precisely what occurred at the beginning of the Neolithic, with the end of the Pleistocene. The chaos of the Younger Dryas created alternating seasons of famine and plenty, and such inter-group competition can act as a form of insurance against periodic shortfall of resources. Famines are characteristic of agriculture, not foragers; but there is evidence for inclement conditions at the time of the Agricultural Revolution. It is doubtful these conditions would have led to famines—we know of no foraging group to have ever faced such conditions, archaeological evidence for widespread malnutrition before the rise of agriculture is generally lacking, and even a desert like the Kalahari can be abundant for a forager—however we can easily imagine a scenario of periods of less prosperity than usual. This would have been precisely the conditions to foster competitive feasting.
Generally, neighboring groups are invited to the lavish feasts the “Big Men” provide. The shame of being so outdone requires the other group to reciprocate in a few years’ time. This can be seen as somewhat like the foragers’ sharing within the group, only on a larger scale. When one group is fortunate enough to have a surplus, they share it in these competitive feasts—albeit for self gain—with those who might not be so well-off. In time, when the situation is reversed, they may be treated to such a feast—out of vengeance, for those giving it. The competitive nature of this feasting gives it a self-serving motivation, so that it does not rely on such a shaky foundation as altruism. With personal motivation, this system could have greatly aided the survival of forager groups facing the inclement conditions of the early Holocene. With this new emphasis on competitive feasting, the prominence of the “Big Man” would have increased accordingly. As an adaptation to inclement climate, “Big Men” rose to power, and required ever larger surpluses to maintain that power. Every feast must be larger than the last one; one’s rival must provide a larger feast than you did, which obliges you to provide an even larger feast than that. The only resource “Big Men” could truly control was labor, and that only through persuasion. The natural response of “Big Men” to this sort of pressure would be to intensify cultivation—that is, to begin practicing agriculture.
As mentioned above, the prototype of the chiefdom-level redistributive economy can easily be recognized in the swift flow of wealth through the “Big Man.” Why, though, would egalitarian groups allow “Big Men” to solidify their power, so as to develop ascribed institutions? The usual forager response to individuals grabbing for power is fission of the group—the unsatisfied dissidents simply leave. However, where there are significant, immobile resources, this may not be possible. (Gilman, 1981) Surprisingly, recent archaeological discoveries have revealed that, contrary to usual thinking, sedentism *preceded* agriculture. Most likely, an increasing reliance on cereal grains required the use of large, immobile processing units. With such stationary assets, villages would develop, as the group could no longer easily move about. (Harris, 1993) This is precisely the sort of situation Gilman describes (1981) for how “Big Men” might be able to attain ascribed position for themselves and exert their dominance.
Such pre-agricultural villages may also help to explain the nutritional crisis faced by these groups. Famine still seems unlikely, as reliance on cereal grains would most likely not have occurred, and the groups have simply moved elsewhere, had they not been able to support a relatively sedentary foraging population in the first place. However, periodic shortfall would most likely have been a rather common occurrence. Trade, like competitive feasting, can be a sort of insurance against such shortfalls (Hirth, 1992; Gilman, 1981). Here, again, the primary figures are the elites. The trade in question is primarily of elite goods, conducted between elites of different groups. In so doing, fledgling elites extend the social network under their influence over a much wider area than their own group. While aiding in the nutrition and survival of their group, it also serves to reinforce the primacy of the elite. And, with significant investments of labor, time and resources into a specific location, simply leaving an area may not be a viable means of dealing with a power-hungry despot. Do you up and leave the land your family has farmed for generations, simply because the village headman wants his son to succeed him?
It has been argued that the chiefdom is a transitional form, which ultimately becomes a state. (Kottak, 2000) However, its relation to the “Big Man” systems found in egalitarian societies should also be fairly obvious. The transition from egalitarian society to state-level society should be fairly easy to see here. It is a transition driven primarily by competitive feasting, leading to the need for greater intensity in cultivation, the need for a surplus, the inability to meet those needs by transhumance, and the resulting elites who arise from those factors.
The most complex, hierarchical political structure is the state; “civilization” is, in anthropological terms, synonymous with that level of society. Even in archaic states, the primary asset of the political structure was not material, but social (Hirth, 1992). The state controlled human labor, and material goods indirectly through that medium. Civilization rests heavily on specialization: specialists in crafts, specialists in religion, specialists in defense, even specialists in bureaucracy—the elites themselves. These specialists are supported by the surplus of agriculture; without agriculture, civilization could not exist. It is the foundation, the absolute minimum prerequisite of state-level society. Another possible explanation for agriculture is that the surpluses were needed to feed specialists, such as artisans. Of course, the need for artisans would only arise from trade. If trade became the primary means of safeguarding against starvation, artisans may become important in order to produce goods to be traded. Once again, it is an elite activity—trade—which drives agriculture. In many formulations of the Social Hypothesis, it is trade specifically which is cited as the cause of agriculture: a society must have extensive trade networks, and the elites required to administrate them, as a prerequisite to agriculture.
We have archaeological attestation of sedentary foragers in the Middle East and Mesoamerica just prior to the inception of agriculture (Harris, 1993). These forager villages were most likely created because of the large mills and other equipment required to extract food from cereal grains. With these stationary assets, the ability of the foragers to move was reduced, and permanent housing was developed at the site. At first, this did not interfere with foraging as their subsistence base. (Harris, 1993)
With the end of the Pleistocene, conditions became warmer and drier in general (Harris, 1993). This change in climate may have made the foraging lifestyle of these village-dwellers more difficult to maintain, with periodic hunger becoming more and more common. Two mechanisms for dealing with this have been discussed: competitive feasting, and trade. Both operate as safeguards by indebting neighboring groups or otherwise expanding social influence beyond the local group. Both also require elites—“Big Men” and/or chiefs—to administrate. Both require the production of a surplus. Elites need ever larger surpluses to maintain their power in the ever-escalating cycle of competitive feasting, and the artisans employed by the elites require food to create goods for trade. Both activities create and solidify elite dominance, and both require a surplus. None of the other hypotheses examined adequately explain why such a surplus would be desirable, as a surplus is, by definition, unnecessary, and as we have seen, the costs of agriculture are sufficiently high to demand a very good reason for the desirability of such a surplus. In this scenario, two closely interrelated factors—the dominance of the elites and the food security of the group—demand this surplus.
The primary ability of “Big Men” is to intensify production. The selectionist argument assures us that at least semi-domesticated plants were already available from the local environment, due to millennia of evolutionary interaction. Furthermore, active intervention to favor the regrowth of favored crops is not unknown among foragers. More intensive work may well have been a high priority of “Big Men” in the area. Whereas agriculture would be a terrible idea for an overly-large population, or a group otherwise facing frank malnutrition, such an investment of food for the future would be quite reasonable for a group in the midst of a temporary time of plenty—particularly when inclement conditions assured such prosperity would not last.
With agricultural intensification, the investment placed into a specific geographic location increased drastically. Already sedentary due to the immobility of the processing equipment an emphasis on cereal grains required, the Agricultural Revolution required the clearing of fields, irrigation, terracing, and other large initial investments of labor that made simply moving away a difficult prospect. This changed the dynamics of human politics; whereas the primary means foragers use of settling disputes is to simply go somewhere else, this was no longer an option. The difficulty of group fission allowed “Big Men” to become chiefs with permanent, ascribed position and title (Gilman, 1981).
War, rather than being a strategy for maintaining the peace, became a tool for economic expansion (Godesky, 2000), leading directly to the intensification of conflict found among agricultural societies (Eckhardt, 1992; Harris, 1993). Further bolstered by
intensified conflict, elites became administrators of defense as well (Gilman, 1981), and were able to create permanent power structures for themselves. Without recourse to group fission due to the huge investments placed into the specific region, groups had no choice but to capitulate to the rulers thus created.
Transporting food over significant distances was generally difficult in the ancient world. The Roman Empire exercised sufficient control to feed the Eastern Empire with grain from Egypt, and the West from Britain, but this was a feat of administrative and logistical prowess which even the Romans could not sustain forever. Their inability to continue such Herculean feats was one of the primary reasons for the end of the Western Empire.
More generally, one had to be relatively close to one’s food. Every city was surrounded by a hinterland that fed that city; this was the ancient city-state, whether that city-state be Greek or Teotihuacani. The Roman Empire itself was primarily a patch-work of various civitates, or city-states, that paid tribute to the central city of Rome–the perfect model of inter-community trade, so far as any one community might be concerned.
As Hirth points out, every agricultural society faces a dilemna of whether to specialize to create a greater surplus, or diversify to offset the danger of a bad harvest. It is a classic dilemna in economics, and the classic answer has always been trade; I specialize in A, you specialize in B, and if we trade, then we can both have more of A *and* B.
But trading food was difficult. Most foods spoil, so they can’t be taken very far. They’re heavy, and the profits are not usually very high. It is generally more economical to trade light-weight, expensive luxury items. We have significant evidence that, prior to the Neolithic Revolution, trans-continental trade of lightweight luxury items occurred both in North America and Europe, if not elsewhere.
But if trading food is difficult, why does trade help anything? Because trading food is difficult–not impossible. The trade of luxury items and prestige goods helped create a marked upper-class: those who controlled this exotic trade with other groups. These would be the same “Big Men” who emerged in competitive feasting. Such goods helped demarcate their power and status, and were major assets in reinforcing their power. Like the kings of medieval Europe who would universally condemn peasant revolts, even against their enemies, the Big Men knew when to stick together. They needed one another for the trade on which their power and position relied, and if one of their primary trading partners fell on hard times, they could marshal their resources to rescue their ailing neighbors in the most ancient form of foreign aid.
So we have a clearer picture of the late Mesolithic coming together. The end of the Pleistocene fluctuates the climate, alternating between times of plenty and times of want. While starvation is rare and it would be a stretch to call the bad times “famine,” some years are undeniably harder than others.
In such uncertain times, “Big Men” emerge, providing some level of stability. In fat years, their lavish potlatches and mokas increase their own prestige and indebt neighboring groups–providing insurance against the hard years that will follow. These Big Men further bolster their position within the group, and cultivate a reciprocity network *beyond* the group, by using their power and influence to engage in long-distance trade. As a last resort, when all other possibilities are gone, they can call on neighboring Big Men to provide food.
These late Mesolithic foragers spend more and more time cultivating at more intensive levels, to produce enough food for the escalating competition of the Big Men’s feasts. It is hard, and they must sacrifice the freedom and liesure of their former life, but at least they have some security. Eventually, those Big Men have sufficient influence to make their followers stop thinking of themselves as hunters who farm, and begin thinking of themselves as farmers who hunt.
Big Men become chiefs, chiefs become kings, populations explode and civilization moves inexorably from that beginning to the present crisis.
In the years since 9⁄11, a quote from Benjamin Franklin has enjoyed renewed popularity in certain circles: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The loss of civil liberties and freedoms suffered by the United States’ citizenry under the second Bush regime, though significant, remain small when compared to the freedoms lost 10,000 years ago when our forebears (memetically, if not genetically) took up civilization. Agriculture is a hard life, as we have already seen. Malnutrition and disease followed almost immediately; war, tyranny and poverty followed inexorably. By relying solely on domesticated crops, intensive agriculture becomes the only subsistence technology that is truly susceptible to *real* famine. The safety the Big Men offered was illusory; in fact, that ancient bargain put us in a more precarious position than we had ever known–or will likely ever know again.
Ten thousand years ago, our ancestors traded the bulk of that very real freedom that is our species’ birthright, for a little temporary safety. If there is an original sin, a fall of man, that was it. From that day to this, we have not deserved–nor have we had–either one.
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