WORLD HISTORY : FROM HUNTING TO FARMING
As the world changes at an accelerated pace, for problem after problem and subject after subject, national frameworks for political action and academic enquiry are recognized as unsatisfactory. Historians are being asked for a deeper perspective on the technological, political and economic forces that are now transforming traditional frameworks for human behaviour, and reshaping personal identities around the world. Philip's Atlas of World History has been designed, constructed and written by a team of professional historians not only for the general reader but to help teachers of history in schools and universities to communicate that perspective to their pupils and students.
World histories cannot be taught or read without a clear comprehension of the chronologies and regional parameters within which different empires, states and peoples have evolved through time. A modern historical atlas is the ideal mode of presentation for ready reference and for the easy acquisition of basic facts upon which courses in world history can be built, delivered and studied. Such atlases unify history with geography. They "encapsulate" knowledge by illuminating the significance of locations for seminal events in world history. For example a glance at maps will immediately reveal why explorers and ships from western Europe were more likely (before the advent of steam-powered ships) to reach the Americas than sailors from China or India. More than any other factor it was probably a matter of distance and the prevailing winds on the Atlantic that precluded Asian voyages to the Americas.
1. ASIA (12,000 BC-AD 500)
Changes occurred in regional vegetation, with associated changes in fauna. Throughout Asia, particularly in the southeast, plant foods became increasingly important. In the Levant wild cereals at first spread to cover a much larger area, increasing the opportunities for sedentary communities to develop. A cold, dry interlude around 9000 to 8000 BC caused a decline in the availability of wild cereals and the abandonment of many of these settlements, but communities in well-watered areas began to plant and cultivate the cereals they had formerly gathered from the wild. By 8000 BC, when conditions again became more favourable, these first farming communities had grown in size and number and they began to spread into other suitable areas. Initially these new economies combined cultivated cereals with wild animals, but around 7000 BC domesticated sheep and goats began to replace gazelle and other wild game as the main source of meat.
Subsequent millennia saw the rapid spread of farming communities into adjacent areas of West Asia. They appeared over much of Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by about 7000 BC, largely confined to areas where rain-fed agriculture was possible. Agricultural communities also emerged around the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea, and at Mehrgarh on the western edge of the Indus plains. Pottery, which began to be made in the Zagros region around this time, came into widespread use in the following centuries, and copper also began to be traded and worked. Cattle, domesticated from the aurochs (Bos primigenius) in the west and from native Indian cattle (Bos namadicus) in South Asia, were now also important. In Anatolia cattle seem to have played a part in religion as well as in the economy: for example, rooms in the massive settlement at Qatal Hoyiik in Anatolia were decorated with paintings of enormous cattle and had clay cattle-heads with real horns moulded onto the walls.
DIVERSIFICATION OF AGRICULTURE
By 5000 BC the development of more sophisticated agricultural techniques, such as irrigation and water control, had enabled farming communities to spread into southern Mesopotamia, much of the Iranian Plateau and the Indo-Iranian borderlands. It was not until the 4th millennium BC, however, that farmers growing wheat and keeping sheep, goats and cattle moved into the adjacent Indus Valley and thence southward into peninsular India. The development of rice and millet cultivation by the Indus civilization led to a further spread of agriculture into the Ganges Valley and the south of India. Eastern India also saw the introduction of rice cultivation from Southeast Asia, while sites in the northeast may owe their development of agriculture to contact with northern China. In the latter region farming probably began around 7000 BC and was well established by 5000 BC.
In two areas in the Huang He Basin, at sites such as Cishan and Banpo, communities emerged whose economies depended on cultivated millet, along with fruits and vegetables, chickens and pigs, while further south, in the delta of the Yangtze River, wet rice cultivation began. Hemudu is the best known of these early rice-farming communities: here waterlogging has preserved finely constructed wooden houses and a range of bone tools used in cultivation, as well as carbonized rice husks and the remains of other water-loving plant foods such as lotus. Here also was found the first evidence of lacquerware: a red lacquered wooden bowl. Although water buffalo and pigs were kept in this southern region, both hunted game and fish continued to play an important role in the economy. By 3000 BC wet rice agriculture was becoming established in southern China, northern Thailand and Taiwan, and millet cultivation in northern China.
Communities in the northwest also grew wheat and barley, introduced from the agricultural communities of West or Central Asia. In Southeast Asia tubers and fruits had probably been intensively exploited for millennia. By 3000 BC wet rice was also grown in this region and buffalo, pigs and chickens were raised, but wild resources remained important. The inhabitants of Korea and Japan continued to rely on their abundant wild sources of food, including fish, shellfish, deer, nuts and tubers. Often they were able to live in permanent settlements.
The world's earliest known pottery had been made in Japan in the late glacial period: a range of elaborately decorated pottery vessels and figurines was produced in the later hunter-gatherer settlements of the archipelago. Trade between communities circulated desirable materials such as jadeite and obsidian (volcanic glass). Around 1500 BC crops (in particular rice) and metallurgica techniques began spreading from China into these regions, reaching Korea via Manchuria and thence being taken to Japan. By AD 300 rice farming was established throughout the region with the exception of the northernmost island, Hokkaido, home of the Ainu people, where the traditional hunter-gatherer way of life continued into recent times.
2. EUROPE (8000-200 BC)
EUROPE'S FIRST FARMERS
From around 7000 BC farming communities began to appear in Europe. Early farmers in the southeast built villages of small square houses and made pottery, tools of polished stone and highly prized obsidian, as well as ornaments of spondylus shell obtained by trade. Once established, many of the sites in the southeast endured for thousands of years, gradually forming tells (mounds of settlement debris). By 5000 BC some communities were also using simple techniques to work copper.
Between 5500 and 4500 BC pioneering farming groups rapidly spread across central Europe, settling predominantly on the easily worked loess (wind-deposited) river valley soils. They kept cattle, raised crops and lived in large timber-framed long houses which often also sheltered their animals. At first these groups were culturally homogeneous, but after about 4500 BC regional groups developed and farming settlements increased in number, spreading out from the river valleys.
The hunter-gatherers in the central and western Mediterranean came into contact with early farmers colonizing southern parts of Italy. They acquired pottery-making skills and domestic sheep and goats from these colonists, and later they also began to raise some crops. By 3500 BC communities practising farming but still partly reliant on wild resources were established over most of western Europe. Huge megalithic ("large stone") tombs were erected, which acted as territorial markers affirming community ties to ancestral lands. These tombs took many forms over the centuries and were associated with a variety of rites, generally housing the bones of many individuals, usually without grave goods.
THE USE OF METALS
By 3500 BC a new economic pattern had developed as innovations emanating from West Asia spread through Europe via farming communities in the southeast and the east, on the fringes of the steppe. These included the use of animals for traction, transport and milk, woolly sheep, wheeled vehicles and the plough. Plough agriculture allowed new areas and less easily worked soils to be cultivated, and there was a general increase in animal husbandry; specialist herders also appeared. Trade, already well established, now grew in importance, carrying fine flint and hard stone for axes over long distances in a series of short steps between communities.
Major social changes were reflected by a significant shift in the treatment of the dead: in many regions communal burial in monumental tombs gave way to individual burials with personal grave goods, often under a barrow. New types of monuments erected in western areas suggest a change in religious practices, with a new emphasis on astronomical matters. From around 2500 BC copper was alloyed with tin form bronze. The need for tin, a rare and sparsely distributed metal, provided a stimulus to the further development of international trade in prestige materials. These were particularly used as grave goods and votive offerings, emphasizing the status achieved by their owners.
Chiefs were now buried under massive barrows with splendid gold and bronze grave offerings, while lesser members of society were interred under barrows in substantial cemeteries. Command of metal ore sources gave certain communities pre-eminence, while others derived their importance from a key position at the nodes of trade routes. The Carpathian region enjoyed particular prosperity around this time; Scandinavia, which lacked indigenous metal ores, nevertheless now became involved in international trade, and by the late 2nd millennium developed a major bronze industry based on metal imported in exchange for furs and amber.
Agriculture and livestock also brought wealth to favoured areas, and there was a major expansion of farming onto light soils formerly under forest. Substantial field systems mark the organization of the agrarian landscape in at least some regions. By the start of the 1st millennium, however, many of the more marginal areas for agriculture had become scoured or exhausted and were abandoned.
WARFARE AND RELIGION
By the late 2nd millennium warfare was becoming a more serious business. Often settlements were located in defensible positions and fortified. (In previous centuries fortified centres had been far fewer and more scattered.) However, until the late centuries BC armed conflict between individual leaders or raids by small groups remained the established pattern, rather than large-scale fighting. A greater range of weapons was now in use, especially spears and swords, their forms changing frequently in response to technical improvements and fashion. Bronze was in abundant supply and made into tools for everyday use by itinerant smiths. Iron came into use from around 1000 BC and by 600 BC it had largely replaced bronze for tools and everyday weapons, freeing it for use in elaborate jewellery and ceremonial armour and weaponry.
Major changes occurred in burial practices and religious rites. In most areas burial, often under large mounds, was replaced by cremation, the ashes being interred in urns within flat graves (urnfields). Funerary rites became more varied in the Iron Age and many graves - particularly in wealthy areas - contained lavish goods, as in the cemetery at Hallstatt in western Austria, which profited from the trade in salt from local mines. Substantial religious monuments were no longer built, religion now focusing on natural locations such as rivers and lakes.
CELTIC EUROPE
During the 1st millennium BC much of France, Germany and the Alpine region came to be dominated by the Celtic peoples, who also settled in parts of Britain, Spain northern Italy and Anatolia. By the 3rd century BC towns (known to the Romans as oppida) were emerging in many parts of Europe, reflecting both increased prosperity and more complex and larger-scale political organization. In the west this development was short-lived as Europe west of the Rhine progressively fell to Roman expansion. In the east and north, however, Germanic and other peoples continued the life of peasant agriculture, trade, localized industry and warfare that had characterized much of the continent for many centuries.
3. AFRICA (10,000 BC-AD 500)
Rising sea levels encouraged the utilization of coastal resources, such as shellfish in southern Africa. Many groups moved between the coast and inland sites, exploiting seasonally available food resources, and people also began to hunt smaller game in the forests that were spreading into former savanna regions. In the Sahara belt, largely uninhabited during the arid glacial period, extensive areas of grassland now developed and the existing restricted bodies of water expanded into great lakes, swamps and rivers. These became favoured areas of occupation, often supporting large permanent settlements whose inhabitants derived much of their livelihood from fish, aquatic mammals (such as hippos), waterfowl and water plants, as well as locally hunted game. Similar lakeside or riverine communities developed in other parts of the continent, for example around Lake Turkana in East Africa.
EARLY FARMING IN AFRICA
Some communities began to manage their resources more closely: they weeded, watered and tended preferred plants, and perhaps planted them, and they herded local animals, particularly cattle but also species such as eland and giraffe In the Nile Valley, nut-grass tubers had been intensively exploited since glacial times, and by 11,000 BC cereals such as sorghum and probably barley were also managed. Sheep and goats, and some crop plants such as wheat, were introduced, probably from West Asia. By about 5000 BC many communities in northern Africa were raising indigenous crop plants such as sorghum and keeping domestic cattle, sheep and goats, though they also continued to hunt and fish and to gather wild plant foods. Dependence on agriculture intensified, domestic resources grew in importance, and the number of farming communities increased. From around 4000 BC, however, the Sahara region became increasingly dry; lakes and rivers shrank and the desert expanded, reducing the areas attractive for settlement.
Many farmers moved southwards into West Africa. Although harder to document than cereal agriculture, the cultivation of tubers such as yams and of tree crops such as oil palm nuts probably began around this time. Local bulrush millet was cultivated and African rice, also indigenous to this region, may well have been grown, although at present the earliest evidence for its cultivation is from Jenne-jeno around the 1st century BC. By around 3000 BC farming communities also began to appear in northern parts of East Africa.
THE SPREAD OF METALWORKING
Around 500 BC metalworking began in parts of West Africa. Carthaginians and Greeks had by this time established colonies on the North African coast. They were familiar with the working of bronze, iron and gold and were involved in trade across the Sahara, and this may have been the means by which knowledge of metallurgy reached sub-Saharan Africa. Sites with early evidence of copperworking, notably Akjoujt, have also yielded objects imported from North Africa. Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia were now working metals and may also have been a source of technological expertise. Alternatively, the working of gold and iron may have been indigenous developments: the impressive terracotta heads and figurines from Nok were produced by people well versed in smelting and using iron.
Although iron tools were very useful for forest clearance, agriculture, woodworking and other everyday activities, the spread of ironworking was at first extremely patchy. While some areas in both East and West Africa were working iron as early as the Nok culture around 500 BC, other adjacent regions did not begin to do so until the early or middle centuries of the first millennium AD. In some cases, however, such as the equatorial forests of the Congo Basin, the absence of early evidence of metallurgy is likely to reflect the poor preservation of iron objects: ironworking was probably well established there by the late centuries BC.
EARLY FARMING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
The early centuries AD saw the spread into much of the rest of Africa of ironworking, along with pottery, permanent settlements, domestic animals and agriculture. By the 2nd century the eastern settlers had reached northern Tanzania, from where they quickly spread through the coastal lowlands and inland regions of southeastern Africa, reaching Natal by the 3rd century. Depending on local conditions and their own antecedents, groups established different patterns of existence within the broad agricultural framework: those on the southeastern coast, for example, derived much of their protein from marine resources such as shellfish rather than from their few domestic animals.
4. THE AMERICAS (12,000-1000 BC)
Nevertheless, despite (as yet unsubstantiated) claims for early dates, humans probably reached the far north of the Americas about 16,000 BC, during the most recent glacial episode, and spread south when the ice sheets retreated around 12,000 BC. Not only do the earliest incontrovertibly dated sites belong to the period 12-10,000 BC, but biological and linguistic evidence also supports an arrival at this time. In addition, the adjacent regions of Asia from which colonists must have come seem not to have been inhabited until around 18,000 BC.
The colonization of the Americas after 10,000 BC was extremely rapid, taking place within a thousand years. The first Americans were mainly big-game hunters, although occasional finds of plant material show that they had a varied diet. Their prey were mostly large herbivores: bison and mammoths in the north, giant sloths and mastodons further south, as well as horses, camels and others. By about 7000 BC many of these animals had become extinct (except the bison, which became much smaller in size). Humans probably played some part in these extinctions, although changes in climate and environment are also likely factors.
HUNTER-GATHERERS AND EARLY FARMERS
After 8000 BC bison hunting became the main subsistence base of the inhabitants of the Great Plains of North America. Hunting was generally an individual activity, but occasionally groups of hunters and their families combined in a great drive to stampede bison over a cliff or into a natural corral, so that huge numbers could be slaughtered at once. Elsewhere in North America, a great range of regional variations developed on the theme of hunting and gathering, and in many areas these ways of life survived until the appearance of European settlers in recent centuries. The people of the Arctic regions led a harsh existence. Their inventiveness enabled them to develop equipment such as the igloo and the kayak to withstand the intense cold of winter and of the Arctic seas, and to hunt large blubber-rich sea mammals such as whales and seals.
Other northern groups relied more on land mammals, notably caribou. The inhabitants of the Pacific Coast region grew prosperous on their annual catch of salmon and other marine and riverine resources. They acquired slaves, constructed spectacular wooden structures and gave magnificent feasts. In the deserts of the southwest, seasonal migration enabled people to obtain a diversity of plant, animal and aquatic foodstuffs at different times of the year, while the wooded environment of the east also provided a diverse range of such foods. In areas of abundance, some eastern groups were able to settle in camps for much of the year, burying their dead in large cemeteries.
These woodland folk also developed long-distance trade networks, exchanging such prized commodities as copper, marine shells and fine-quality stone for tool-making. Later, groups in the Ohio Valley and adjacent areas (the Adena and Hopewell cultures) elaborated their exchange networks and raised substantial mounds over their dead. By about 2500-2000 BC some groups in the eastern region were cultivating local plants, such as sunflowers and squashes. In the southwest similar developments were encouraged by the introduction around 1000 BC from Mesoamerica of maize, a high-yielding crop which did not reach the eastern communities until around AD 800.
DEVELOPMENTS IN MESOAMERICA
After 7000 BC hunter-gatherer bands in highland valleys of Mesoamerica supplemented the foodstuffs they obtained through seasonal migration by sowing and tending a number of local plants such as squashes and chillies. By 5000 BC they were also cultivating plants acquired from other regions of Mesoamerica. Among these was maize, at first an insignificant plant with cobs barely 3 cm (1.2 in) long. However, genetic changes progressively increased the size of the cobs, and by 2000-1500 BC maize had become the staple of Mesoamerican agriculture, supplemented by beans and other vegetables.
Villages in the highlands could now depend entirely on agriculture for their plant foods and were occupied all year round. As there were no suitable herd animals for domestication, hunting remained important into colonial times; the only domestic animals eaten were dogs, ducks and turkeys (introduced from North America). Lowland regions of Mesoamerica followed a somewhat different pattern: coastal and riverine locations provided abundant wild foods throughout the year, making year-round occupation possible at an early date. Agriculture, adopted in these regions later than in the highlands, provided high yields, particularly in the Veracruz region where the Olmec culture emerged around 1200 BC.
EARLY FARMING IN SOUTH AMERICA
Preserved organic remains from arid caves in the Andes provide evidence that plants were cultivated in South America by around 6500 BC. Along with local varieties like potatoes, these included plants (such as beans and chillies) native to the jungle lowlands to the east. It is therefore likely that South American agriculture began in the Amazon Basin, although humid conditions in this area precluded the preservation of ancient plant remains. Pottery and other equipment used to process manioc (cassava) offer indirect evidence that this important American staple food was grown in South America by 2000 BC.
By this time village communities were established throughout the Andean region and had developed strategies to exploit a variety of local resources. The coast provided exceptionally rich fisheries, while inland crops were cultivated using irrigation, with cotton particularly important. The lower slopes of the Andes were also cultivated, with crops such as potatoes at higher altitudes, while the llamas and alpacas of the high pastures provided meat and wool. Apart from residential villages, often furnished with substantial cemeteries, early South Americans also built religious centres with monumental structures. By 1200 BC the Ghavin cult, centred on the great religious monuments of Ghavin de Huantar and marked by characteristic art, architecture and iconography, had united peoples along much of the Peruvian coast.
5. AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC (10,000 BC-AD 1000)
THE FIRST COLONIZATION OF AUSTRALIA
The early inhabitants of Australia were confined initially to the coast and inland river valleys, spreading to colonize the south by 40,000 BC. They gathered a variety of wild resources and hunted the local fauna, which at that time included a number of large species such as a giant kangaroo, Procoptodon. Between 25,000 and 15,000 these huge creatures became extinct: humans may have been partly to blame, although increasing aridity was probably also responsible. By 23,000 BC ground-stone tools were being made - the earliest known in the world - and by 13,000 BC people had learnt to process the toxic but highly nutritious cycad nuts to remove their poison. The harsh desert interior of Australia was colonized by groups who adapted their lifestyle to cope with this challenging environment. By 3000 BC further major changes had taken place.
New tools were now in use, including the boomerang (invented by 8000 BC) and small, fine stone tools suited to a variety of tasks, of which wood-working was of prime importance. The dingo, a semi-wild dog, had been introduced into Australia, perhaps brought in by a new wave of immigrants from Southeast Asia. Dingoes outcompeted the native predators such as the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), a carnivorous marsupial which became extinct.
Although they never adopted farming Australia's aborigines exercised considerable control over the wild resources at their disposal, clearing the bush by Presetting in order to encourage new growth and attract or drive game, and replanting certain preferred plant species. New Guinea's first inhabitants were also hunters and gatherers, but by 7000 BC some communities here had begun cultivating local plants like sugar cane, yam, taro and banana, and keeping pigs. At Kuk, in the highlands, there is evidence at this early date for a network of drainage channels to allow crops to be grown in swampland.
MIGRATION AFTER 1500 BC
Farming communities were also developing in East and Southeast Asia; around 1500 BC a new wave of colonists began to spread out from this area, moving from the mainland into Taiwan and the Philippines, then into the islands of Southeast Asia and from here into the Pacific. By 1000 BC they had reached the Marianas in the north and, much further afield, Tonga and Samoa in Polynesia to the east. The movement of these people can be traced from the distribution of their distinctive pottery, known as Lapita ware, a red-slipped ware decorated with elaborate stamped designs. They also used obsidian (volcanic glass) and shell for making tools, and brought with them a range of Southeast Asian domestic animals, including dogs and chickens.
By this time the colonists had become skilled navigators, sailing in double canoes or outriggers large enough to accommodate livestock as well as people, and capable of tacking into the wind. The uniformity of their artefacts shows that contacts were maintained throughout the area, with return as well as outward journeys. The Polynesians used the stars, ocean currents, winds and other natural phenomena as navigational guides, and they made ocean charts of palm sticks with the islands marked by cowrie shells.
THE COLONIZATION OF EASTERN POLYNESIA
This wave of colonization came to a standstill around 1000 BC in western Polynesia. Groups from the colonized regions spread north and east to complete the settlement of Micronesia from that time, but it was not until about 200 BC that a new surge of eastward colonization took place, establishing populations on the more scattered islands of eastern Polynesia, including the Society Islands, Tahiti and the Marquesas. These people evolved a distinctive culture which differed from that developed by groups in the areas already settled - areas that were still open to influence from Southeast Asia.
By now the Polynesians had almost entirely abandoned pottery: eastern Polynesians began making distinctive new types of stone adze, shell fish-hooks and jewellery. They also built stone religious monuments. The best known and most striking of these were the Easter Island statues. Easter Island and Hawaii were settled in a further colonizing movement by around AD 400. Nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) from Pitcairn, its nearest neighbour, Easter Island was probably never revisited after its initial settlement. The resulting isolation allowed its people to develop a unique form of general Polynesian culture, notable for its mysterious stone heads.
NEW ZEALAND'S FIRST SETTLERS
There was also a large population of huge flightless birds (moa), which had evolved in great diversity due to the absence of mammals and predators. Reverting to their distantly ancestral hunter-gatherer way of life, the new settlers (early Maori) hunted these birds to extinction within 500 years, aided by the dogs and rats they had introduced. The native flora also became depleted. As South Island was unsuited to agriculture its population declined, and on North Island increased reliance on horticulture went hand in hand with growing warfare between the communities, accompanied by the building of fortified settlements, trophy head-hunting and cannibalism.
In the book 'PHILIP'S ATLAS OF WORLD HISTORY', general editor, Patrick K.O'Brien (Institute of Historical Research, University of London), Octopus Publishing Group, London, 2007, p. 18-27. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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