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The term secondary-products revolution grew out of the focus, from the 1960s to the 1980s, on whether innovations in farming practices arose in response to ecological opportunities and growing population densities, or whether growing social complexity and centralization made such innovations possible. Anthropological theorists in the twenty-first century take a balanced view to encompass both perspectives.
The most fundamental transformation in human conditions in the last ten thousand years was undoubtedly the beginning of farming, termed the “Neolithic Revolution” by the archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957). In several parts of the world, the cultivation of plants permitted unprecedented aggregations of population and the emergence of village communities. The most rapid development took place in the Fertile Crescent of western Asia, the arc of mountains running parallel to the eastern end of the Mediterranean and enclosing the basin drained by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which saw the emergence of urban life around 4000 BCE. This latter event, which Childe termed the “Urban Revolution,” was the second decisive turning point in human history and took place as a consequence of the growing scale of interconnections and concentration of resources.
While farming began with the cultivation of cereals and pulses (legumes), the rapid sequence of developments that followed was intimately associated with the keeping of domestic livestock. At first, domesticated animals (sheep, goat, cattle, and pigs) were kept simply as a captive supply of meat. Only later was their potential as draft animals and as suppliers of products such as milk and meat explored and utilized. Early varieties of sheep, for instance, had hairy coats with only a small amount of wool, while primitive breeds of cattle would have yielded only small amounts of milk. By the time of the first urban communities, however, not only were cattle used for pulling wagons and plows, but new species such as the donkey had been domesticated as pack animals for moving supplies. Soon other species of animals joined the list, including horses and camels for transport, complementing the movement of goods by boats—some of which were now equipped with sails. New types of crop came into cultivation, notably tree crops such as olives, dates, and grapes, which could produce liquid commodities such as oil or sugar-rich liquids suitable for fermentation, paralleling the large-scale use of cow’s and sheep’s milk for ghee (clarified butter) and cheese. Moreover woolly breeds of sheep were in existence, supporting a textile industry that provided one of the major exports of the first cities. It is clear that just as human relationships had grown more complex and diverse, so had the human relationship with crops and livestock, with the domestication of new species and an appreciation not just of the calorific value of plants and animals but of their role as providers of secondary products. The patterns of consumption and technology that arose from these relationships (including alcohol, the plow, horses, wheels, and the wearing of woolen clothes) gave a distinctive character to the societies in which they were present, including the first literate civilizations, and had a major impact on the rest of the world. To signal this transformation in the nature of farming, and in particular the effects that the introduction of these innovations had on neighboring areas such as Europe and the steppe belt (and, ultimately, even China and the Americas), a third “revolutionary” label in the style of Gordon Childe came into use: the secondary-products revolution of the Western Old World.
It is necessary in this inquiry to raise the question of cause and effect. Did innovations in farming practice arise spontaneously, or at least in response to ecological opportunities and growing population densities, and then make possible a growing scale of trade and more complex social arrangements? Or should the causal arrow be reversed, with growing social complexity and centralization making possible experimentation and the exploitation of innovations? Anthropological theorists of successive generations have given different answers, with the ecological emphasis of the 1960s to 1980s (during which time the term secondary-products revolution was formulated) giving way to viewpoints stressing social factors and human agency. A balanced view would encompass both perspectives, including on the one hand ecological possibilities and constraints, on the other the cultural dimension of consumption patterns and economic factors of capital formation and the scale of production. In reality there would have been complex interactions between the two, in a co-evolution of material and social relationships.
We may begin with the distinctive ecology of the region. It is no accident that this area, the meeting point of Africa and Eurasia, between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, should so consistently have produced innovations in material and indeed spiritual life. Its diversity of habitats included highlands and lowlands, forests and deserts, steppes and inland seas, whose contrasts both supported distinctive floras and faunas and promoted specialization and exchange. Its long history of mixed farming encouraged experimentation and the emergence of distinctive local specialties. Recent evidence suggests that milk-products were in use by the sixth millennium BCE, perhaps as early as the use of pottery (which would have been important in making use of it), and a similar time depth may be implied for the emergence of woolly breeds of sheep in western Iran. Cattle may have been used for treading grain or even to draw simple threshing sledges. Use of wild olives, grapes, and dates may be equally old in the areas where they grow naturally.
Nevertheless there is a perceptible horizon of change associated with the emergence of the first cities in the fourth millennium BCE. It is in this context that we may first observe the use of donkeys as pack animals and the employment of pairs of draft oxen to pull threshing sledges, plows, and solid-wheeled wagons, as well as the keeping of large numbers of wool-bearing sheep and dairy cattle. Some of these activities are reflected in the earliest uses of writing, in the form of pictographic symbols on clay tablets, recording the delivery of commodities at Mesopotamian temple centers. It seems likely that this new scale of production was instrumental in applying what had previously been small-scale regional specialties on an industrial scale to produce commodities, some of which were used as exports, and that these patterns of production and consumption were propagated throughout the region and beyond, stimulating further adaptations and experiments—for instance in the first use of the horse and the camel. From this viewpoint, there is a striking analogy (as Childe perceived) with the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England and its accompanying agricultural revolution. It is in this context—as the agrarian dimension of the “Urban Revolution”—that the secondary-products revolution is best interpreted.
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