Henry’s continuation on Stark’s pull model shows that he believes that environmental pull factors resulted in the origins of agriculture. This is especially clear in the Levant where location dominated the resource development, for example: either hunter gathering and foraging or cultivation and domestication – resulting in agriculture. It can be assumed that the majority of highly populated areas of the Levant went to cultivation and that led to the growth of domestic dwellings. Those in marginal areas would have shifted towards domestic dwellings instead of staying as a mobile community.
I also believe that technological advancement had a significant impact on the origins of agriculture and the further development of agricultural ways of life. Diamond (1997a) hold technological advancement as one of three linked developments which can be included within Stark’s pull model to try and develop a reason for the agricultural genesis. Technological development allowed people greater ways to “collect, process and store foods” (Simmons 2007: 21), which is crucial when harvesting and cultivating is used to process foods and store the years amount of food. Without this development ensuring significantly greater storage capabilities, it causes hunting and gathering daily obsolete. Technological advances created developments, which could be used to “kill or displace hunter/gatherers” (ibid: 21-22). With violence being a consequence of technology, it would have force those hunter-gatherers into some form of agricultural developments just to survive. Technological advances started to produce greater items for warfare that were superior to what hunter-gatherers were using, mainly for the collection of resources, not fighting. Also, the other variables within Diamonds reasons for the origins were that there was a significant drop in species that used to be wild and resulted in the “human occupation of available habitats in order to decrease the risk of unpredictability” (ibid: 21). With the decline of wild species, the only option for the population would be to occupy their habitats to ensure that food could be hunted. However, by moving into the habitats were wild species were growing and living, it would have led to significant domestication of the species to ensure that the food is always present.
However, there is some opposition to pull models, as Green (1980) says that “invention-pull models, which attributed agricultural change to technological innovation [which resulted in] considerations of agricultural change being dependent on technological innovation were considered non explanatory because they did not deal with the causes of innovation”. By being pulled into a change, populations would not be able to revert back to their earlier systems of gathering and hunting for food. However, others believe that social changes had a significant impact on the agricultural origins and were developed as one of Stark’s models for agricultural origins – the social model.
Within the social model, there are numerous theories as to the origin of agriculture, however, all the theories, as Bender (1978) emphasised and “found that social changes acted independent of technology and economy to create pressures in production” (Simmons 2007: 18). Similar to Bender, Tilley (1996) also believes that greater social and ideological beliefs and their significance played an overwhelming part in the domestication of food rather than economic reasons. The theories that are under the umbrella of the social model are based on social development and competition.
Competition feasting was a key theory set forward for the social model. It represents food as power and has been categorised as the ““food fight” model” (Simmons 2007: 18) by both proponents and critics (Hayden 1995: 282; Smith 2001: 218-221) With certain individuals accumulating surpluses of food, these could be transformed into items with value. With the accumulation of surplus food, it would allow people to create feasts for the population. The individuals creating the feast would be held in higher regard in the community because it shows people who were generating the most food for the population. Feasting is a key part of the social model “given that the Neolithic revolved around food in one way or another; it seems somehow appropriate that feasting be considered as a reasons for its origin” (Simmons 2007: 18-19). By feasting, it was the first aspect of competition within communities. Competitive feasting would have been used as a method for the development and consolidation of power. Competition is a very important aspect of human society as it leads to the best being in positions of power. Within the Neolithic, extra resources must be utilised to ensure that power, influence and status is promoted and competed for. “Feasting, gift exchange, trade, and other forms of codified, often ritualised contact” (Pluciennik and Zvelebil 2009: 469) are the main ways for people to promote their own standings.
This promotion of people’s own standards resulted in the need for extra resources beyond their dietary needs in the immediate timescale. This would result in overproduction. Overproduction by hunting and gathering would have got significantly harder with the climatic ever so slightly changing during the early Neolithic. Therefore, agriculture, a “more intensive system of exploitation” (ibid: 469) must be adopted to ensure overproduction can occur. Hayden (1995) believes that the need for competitive feasting lead to the first domestication of both plants and animals for the production of extra foodstuffs. With the use of food designated as prestige items, the accumulators could exceed their rivals in the consolidation of power (ibid). Runnels and van Andel (1988) have suggested that social customs, such as trade and competitive feasting would have led to motives for food production. Cowgill (1975) mentions that the more food an individual produces, the greater social and political power they possess. This analogy perfectly shows how important food was within a competitive environment and was used significantly to gain the upper hand. Without the implementation of agriculture, the excess food would not have been able to be produced and the ability to gain competitive edge over other individuals would have been diminished. As Miller (1992: 51) says, “[cultivation was] to ensure a reliable food supply or to increase their food supply to satisfy growing social or dietary needs”.
However, Hayden has also put an argument across that does not believe the social model to be a significant reason for agriculture to begin. Hayden (1990: 57-62, 1992: 13) mentions that the social model could not have resulted in a Neolithic revolution to occur immediately as a lot of arguments believe happened. Hayden comments include the fact that a new culture of sharing food would have taken a large amount of time to implement and the fist domesticated plants and animals would not have been appropriate for daily consumption due to his belief that they would have been delicacies. Despite this, I find this argument extremely thin and in my opinion, find it difficult to dismiss such a inquisitive social model, which, due to the change in social behaviour in the Neolithic, could have been very likely to occur, especially when the Neolithic “was an ideological phenomenon, a new way of thinking” (Simmons 2007: 20). I find that the Neolithic was an era where new ideologies and cultures were being developed and implemented globally throughout the Neolithic on an unprecedented scale. The arguments about how and why agriculture was developed and adopted throughout the globe in the Neolithic have produced very different and sometimes contradictory reasons why the origins of agriculture occurred. However, no one can deny the importance that agriculture had on the world as a whole and the impacts that it had to society as a whole. The impact that agriculture had, in my opinion, is unprecedented and extremely important to how we live in the society today. I can assume that most academics on the topic of agriculture believe that the impact of its adoption during the Neolithic was massively important to the world. Cole (1967: ix) made this quite clear by saying, “the development of full food production was an evolution rather than a sudden revolution; yet there is no doubt that the consequences of this change were revolutionary in the fullest sense of the world” and as Pluciennik and Zvelebil (2009: 467) also put forward the idea that the adoption of agriculture was one of revolutionary proportions, a “quantum leap in human history, and the basis for the development of widespread societal characteristics, both good and bad.” There are many main impacts that can be connected to the implementation of agriculture as the main characteristic of subsistence. By domesticating both plants and animals, it led to “increased sedentism, smaller social units, individual domiciles, investment in burial ritual and trade” (Bogucki 1999: 191), “specialisation in diet [was] also encouraged by the localisation of agricultural production” (Rindos 1984: 270) and “populations practicing agriculture come to be more successful relative to both domesticating and non-domesticatory. These populations not only will be generally larger but will also be dispersing at far greater rates [than populations that are not practicing agriculture]” (ibid: 267). Pluciennik and Zvelebil (2009: 467) mention that the impacts include “sedentism, population growth, certain endemic diseases, social and political hierarchies, literacy, cities, specialised arts and crafts, widespread environmental degradation, extensive trade, property, laws, morality, and more generally civilisation.” It could be very easy to use these and suggest the impacts that agriculture had on today’s society, without thinking about the immediate impacts that occurred to the Neolithic society when agriculture was implemented. When agriculture was implemented in the early Neolithic, it can be assumed this would have led to a population increase due to the majority of early farmers becoming settled and becoming sedentary, resulting in a decrease in mortality rates due to better diets and better immune systems. With improved sedentary conditions, population numbers would begin to increase at a much quicker rate, putting significant pressure on food stores, resulting with the need for improved agricultural efficiency and crop numbers. This continues the cycle of population increase, greater sedentary conditions and thus, more agriculture. However, in the background of this cycle, an evolution of social, economic and religious (Bogucki 1999) norms would have occurred changing the culture of the Neolithic significantly. With the culture changing constantly to include agriculture, it would have led to the societies having a greater involvement with agriculture especially when it became the main and/or only way for food to be acquired. The agricultural revolution led to the societies throughout the globe being hit by these impacts and resulting in a totally different world, and in the grand scheme, the beginnings of agriculture and the beginning of the Neolithic revolution could be argued to be the beginnings of civilisation, as we know it today. The impacts that agriculture had on societies throughout the last 10,000 years are unprecedented and the effects of which are still seen today – with some arguing that without agriculture, the world, as we know it in the modern time would not be the same. “Social, economic, and political complexity [] would not have emerged without the existence of agriculture” (ibid: 203) To conclude, “in the last 30 years, archaeologists have made considerable progress towards understanding the origins of agriculture, but the question of why prehistoric people made the transition from foraging to farming is still elusive” (ibid: 191) pinpointing one reason for why agriculture was adopted would be impossible. However, in my opinion, I believe that understanding why agriculture was developed, a number of reasons must be acknowledged and inter-link to fully determine the true reasons why agriculture was developed during the Neolithic revolution. The “push”, “pull” and social models that were established by Stark (1986) provided the most efficient way of trying to understand why agriculture was developed and it led to a significant advance in the way of thinking for its origins. However, “in the 1990s, social factors [had] begun to assume prominence in attempts to explain the origins of agriculture, although “push” and “pull” models still have considerable importance” (Bogucki 1999: 190). I believe that the social model provides more all-round reasons for agricultural origins, especially competitive feasting which provided an activity for the whole society to undertake together, thus, producing the beginnings of a society, and trade. This would increase in importance with the development and the increase of more sedentary populations. Despite this, I also feel that the push and pull models are very important. Without population pressures and some climatic change, agriculture would never have been produced. In my opinion, agriculture created the easiest and most efficient way for agriculture to spread and disperse across the globe through trade. Socially, trade was very important within a society, but in the greater picture, it played a much more important role in its dispersal. With the increase in trade, societies would have improved in prosperity and developed. Without agriculture, this would not have been possible. This leads to how much of an impact agricultural development and its adoption had on societies across the globe. Without food production from agriculture, cultural advancements leading to the growth of urban areas, including technological, economic and political developments, which eventually led to the modern societies, we know today (Simmons 2007; Diamond 1997a). The impact that agriculture had on societies cannot be measured electronically, scientifically or any other way because the impacts are on an unprecedented scale; impacts spanning from one corner of the globe to the other and affecting everything. With the beginning of agriculture came the beginning of the New World, a world of new culture, beliefs and ways of life, economic, political and technological change and developments, resulting in the way we are today.
Food production triggered the emergence of kings, bureaucrats, scribes, professional soldiers, and metal workers and other full time craftsmen. Literacy, metallurgy, stratified societies, advanced weapons, and empires rested on food production. (Diamond 1997b) Word Count: 5298
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