We’ve seen how unsatisfactory most theories of the Agricultural Revolution are. The truth of the matter is almost certainly a gradually increasing population. Or, at least, that’s part of the story. 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.

Trade is an activity well documented archaeologically in the Mesolithic and Upper Paleolithic. Even far-ranging trade was not beyond the capabilities of pre-Neolithic foragers. However, without beasts of burden, transportation of food was extremely difficult, and the items traded seem to have been primarily luxury goods: feather, sculptures, etc. The importance of trade for subsistence directly has no doubt been greatly exaggerated; food could not reasonably have been transported very far without spoiling in transit. (Hirth, 1992) Such trade should be seen primarily as an elite activity (Hirth, 1992; Gilman, 1981). Unlike modern elites, the power of ancient elites lay primarily in their control of social resources, rather than material ones. They were powerful because they could convince others, not necessarily because they themselves were rich. Interregional exchange was a means of expanding that social network beyond the local group. This can be used as a sort of “insurance� against periodic shortfall of resources, and is a far more reasonable response to population pressure, climatic change, or other causes of malnutrition than intensifying cultivation beyond the point of diminishing returns.

However, trade requires a surplus. Either a surplus food supply which can be traded directly, or else (and perhaps more probably) indirectly, to feed the artisans who could manufacture trade goods.

The “Big Men� who were the informal elites of tribe and band level society gained power, prestige and prominence through social networks. Though trade is necessary for bigmanship on a larger scale, the aspiring “Big Man� must use competitive
feasting or some equivalent extravagant show of generosity to gain such position in the first place. Then, once the position is acquired, it must constantly be maintained against other rivals eager to take the position. We will look more at “Big Men� and competitive feasting shortly, but for now, we may be content with the fact that the two primary activities of early elites both required surplus food production. It should not be surprising that “Big Men� would be capable of goading their followers and peers into such a system, since convincing their fellows to work harder and intensify production is the primary role of “Big Men� in modern tribe and band level societies. (Harris, 1993)

All of the “push� models of agriculture failed to account for the Agricultural Revolution in one respect or another. Both “pull� models are quite valid, but only the Social Hypothesis shines any light on the question of why the Neolithic occurred.

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) 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. Melanesian 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; it is essentially a redistributive economy. 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. 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.

Bibliography

Eckhardt, W. 1992. Civilizations, empires and wars: a quantitative history of war. New York: McFarland & Co., Inc.

Gilman, A. 1981 “The development of social stratification” Anthropology 22(1) pp. 1-23

Harris, M. 1993. Culture, people, nature: an introduction to general anthropology, 6th edition. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

Godesky, J.E.F. 2000. “War and Society.� Published online: http://anthropik.com/pdf/godesky2000.pdf

Hirth, K. 1992. “Interregional exchange as elite behavior: an evolutionary perspective.” In: Chase, D.Z. and Chase, A.F., Mesoamerican elites: an archaeological assessment. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Kottak, C.P. 2000. Cultural anthropology, 8th edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Van Bakel, M.A., Hagesteijn, R.R. and Van de Velde, P. 1986. Private politics: a multi-disciplinary approach to ‘Big Man’ systems. Leiden: E.J. Brill