Economic and Social Platform for the Neolithic of South-West Asia

Plateforme Economique et sociale du NEOlithique d’Asie antérieure.

CEDRIC BODET, Muğla University (CV english, CV français, CV Türkçe) cedric.bodet@yahoo.com

Abstract

This program is seeking to reconstruct the evolution of the social structures affected by the process of neolithisation in SW Asia and in Anatolia  in particular. The investigation blends first-hand economic data (archaeozoological and archaeobotanical) with ethnological  analyses  to replace them within the evolutionary perspective offered by archaeology. Primarily concerned with the advent of animal and plant domestication (relating to the economic infrastructure), the project extends to various social superstructures like ideology,  symbolism, decision-making or kinship. The results take the form of articles, thesis, charts and maps.  

Le programme Peneo est destiné à décrypter l’évolution de la structure sociale des communautés impliquées dans la révolution néolithique d’Asie Antérieure. Les données paléo-économiques sont d’abord collectées dans les domaines de l’archéozoologie et de l’archéobotanique. L‘analyse s’appuie sur des analyses ethnologiques correspondantes afin de leur donner un contenu social dans des registres tels que l’idéologie, le symbolisme ou la parenté. Finalement, c’est l’approche archéologique qui en permettra un agencement évolutif cohérent. Les résultats prennent la forme d’articles, thèse, tableaux et cartes.

An archaeo-sociology of the first farmers 

A bird’s-eye view of human history informs us that, at the structural level, societies evolve along a rather uniform sequence  (1). All ‘Agricultural Domestic Communities’ (following Meillassoux’s terminology) have thus evolved from the previous hunter-gatherer ‘Primitive Communist’ stage (following Testart’s), and the Neolithisation process necessarily stands in between, whether it emerged as a local innovation or as an outside influence (by diffusion). Characterized by this transitional aspect, Neolithic societies are not easily defined: ethnological analyzes lack the temporal depth to evaluate the changes, while archaeology alone cannot have access to the social dynamics and relations. However, the economic infrastructure can help bridging these separate pieces of evidence. Mixing several relevant fields, the PENEO project thus proposes to identify the causes and consequences of the social reorganization that accompanied the transformation affecting Near Eastern communities at the dawn of the Holocene.

From a historical-materialist point of view, the superstructures of every human society, like kinship patterns, religion, ideology or laws, are expected to be ultimately determined by the economic infrastructure (Echaudemaison 2007: 259, 474), and most particularly by the relations of production : who makes what / who takes what. The data relating to the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry is therefore considered to be a fundamental basis for every study. This process begun in the doctoral thesis (published below) with the analysis of animal domestication, and it is currently being followed with the data concerning the domestication of plant foods. Such estimations rely on the analyses of archaeobotanists and archaeozoologists, but indirect methods like the pace of genetic modification can also be of great help (Zeder et alii 2006).

The overall methodology is straightforward. Following the estimation of the investigated community’s mode and level of production, the next step consists in finding the closest economic analogies among ethnographic societies. Finally, because every region considered in our chrono-geographical framework (below) represents a particular step of the Neolithic revolution, supra-regional comparisons of the investigated archaeological societies allows the reconstitution of a coherent evolutionary sequence. This is the general approach referred to, here, as archaeo-sociology, in the prolongation of Forest’s (1992: 31) archaeo-ethnology, with an emphasis on the interdependence of economic and social structures.   

(1) To answer the question “did humans make the only kind of history they could?”, Cook (2005: 38-42) compares the evolution of Old and New World societies from the perspective of what we call here social structures (centralized and irrigated agriculture, state formation, polytheist religions, clergy, hierarchy etc.) and concludes : “yes, there was only one kind of history waiting to emerge from the coincidence of behaviorally modern humans and the Holocene”.

References

Cook M. 2005, A Brief history of the Human Race. London : Granta Books.
Forest J.-D. 2006, Le processus de neolithisation proche oriental: pour une archéologie sans frontières. Syria 83 : 125-38.
Forest J.-D. 1992, L’archéologie et l’ethnologie ou la nécessité de mélanger les genres. In Ethnoarchéologie: APDCA: Juan-les-pins.
Meillassoux C. 1991, Femmes, Greniers et Capitaux (2^e ed.). Paris : L’harmattan.
Perrot J. 2001, Réflexions sur l’état des recherches concernant la Préhistoire récente du Proche et du Moyen Orient, Paléorient 26/1: 5-28.
Testart A. 1992, La question de l’évolutionnisme dans l’anthropologie sociale. R. franç sociol.XXXIII: 155-187.
Testart A. 1985, Le Communisme Primitif. Economie et Idéologie. Paris: Maison des sciences de l’homme.
Zeder M., et alii 2006, Documenting Domestication: new genetic and archaeological paradigms. Berkeley: University of California.       

  The framework of the project

The PENEO project evolves on the base of a  stable spatial, temporal and economic reference system developped below. 

The Geography –

 The geographical frame covers South-West Asia, or more accurately l’Asie Antérieure (Perrot 2001), here divided into 7 main regions  : Eastern Taurus, Central Anatolia, North and South Levant and the Levantine coastal band (2013), Jezirah, Zagros (Eastern Fertile Crescent) and Cyprus (2013). Large and densely populated regions (in terms of sites) are divided in territories. Click on the region for a detailed map with the location of the neolithic sites.    

The Chronology

The investigated time-period spans from about 10 000 to 6000 cal. BC. The chronological frame  is based on the Euphratean sequence, where the neolithisation process can be tracked down to its roots and its evolution followed all the way to the dawn of the Urban revolution; when several regions are compared, it is also used as a supraregional chronological reference. As for the temporal position of individual sites, the charts of Upper Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia elaborated by Bischoff in 2006 (originally intended for the Canew project) are reproduced here with the permission of their author.  Updated (2013) site chronologies have been composed by the author for NW/Central Levant, Cyprus and the Zagros.

A collection of all published C-14 dates from sites all over SW Asia can be found here: http://context-database.uni-koeln.de/index.php

All BP dates are calibrated with the CalPal program: www.calpal-online.de.

Finally, a number of maps showing the distribution of sites for every sub-period, PPNA, E PPNB , M PPNB, L PPNB, F PPNB / PN, provide an elementary chrono-geographical work frame.

  The Economic Framework  – 

In SW Asia, the advent of the Holocene climatic warming-up allowed for the accumulation of storable food resources, like cereals, which slowly paved the road for permanent sedentism. In a context where groups became, over generations, gradually dependant on local resources, the hunting and gathering means of subsistence production were seriously reorganized. This context naturally saw the rising control of the reproduction cycle of a number of selected resources. Economically speaking, this chain of events gives birth to the farming mode of production, composed of plant cultivation and animal herding. From the resource point of view, these practices, if intensively conducted, end up causing the physical and genetic domestication of plants and animals. Though resource domestication is a direct consequence of farming, it is important to conceive them as two distinct processes that do not necessarily immediately follow each other.

_ As for herding, a specific form of human/animal relationship for every subphase and every (sub)region of the South-West Asian Neolithic has been identified. The determination proceeds from direct (genetic) and indirect (anthropic*) evidences. The results have then been compiled in an evolutionary chart, which is permanently subject to future modifications as research advances and new results are published (in 2013, its main conclusions were still holding) : the emergence of herding in the Near East  (Bodet 2008).

 _ Concerning the emergence of plant-food cultivation, the chart, on the lines of that for herding, is (still !) under construction. For an updated review of some of the latest advances in neolithic archaeozoology and the advent of agriculture and plant domestication, the site of George Willcox (with access to his articles) is recommended: http://g.willcox.pagesperso-orange.fr/first.htm

* Changes in the herd sex/age ratio, in the geographical distribution of the species, in the representation of skeletal parts etc. Please note that the chart is followed by a definition of the concepts used to make sense of the data.

Publications & Works

Articles –

The articles below as well as the other works presented on this page are not meant to stay still. Comments from reviewers as well as new readings are permanently susceptible to modify or specify the elaborated views. When a substantial change is needed, articles may be subject to some rewriting. The figure after the slash refer to the number of times the article has been (re)edited (eg: Peneo 2/2). When a whole paragraph is added, it appears in italic.

• Bodet 2018- Alliance, lineages and domestication: The structure of Anatolian Neolithic Socities. Peneo 6: 1-30.
• Bodet 2013- The NW and Central Levant within the formative zone of the farming system. Peneo 5/1: 1-20.
• Bodet 2012- Kinship patterns as a doorway to apprehend the symbolic and social structure of Göbekli Tepe communities. Peneo 4/2: 1-17.
• Bodet 2010 – The ideological gap, or the diffusion of Neolithic farming from the Middle Euphrates to Central Anatolia. Peneo 3/1: 1-23.
• Bodet 2013b- Deciphering Neolithic Cyprus : a reflection of the mainland, a reflection on society. Peneo 2/2: 1-20.
• Bodet 2009 – The emergence of animal husbandry in South-Western Asia : an insight of Neolithic social structures. Peneo 1/1: 1-30.
• Bodet 2002 – Remarks on the end of the Çayönü culture (2). Orient-Express 2002/2: 47-51. Peneo 0/2.

Conference –

• 2014, Muğla Universitesi – Arkeoloji Bölümü : « Anadolu ve Önasya Neolitik Toplumlarının Ekonomik ve Sosyal Yapısını Anlamak« .

Books, dissertations –

An update of my thesis has been published by the Editions Universitaires Européennes (2012, cover). A hard copy can be purchased at this site : https://www.morebooks.de/store/fr/book/l%e2%80%99apparition-de-l%e2%80%99%c3%a9levage-en-asie-ant%c3%a9rieure/isbn/978-3-8417-9621-9

Here is the PDF version :

•  2012 – L’apparition de l’élevage en Asie Antérieure – Reflet des structures socio-économiques néolithiques. Sarrebruck : Editions Universitaires Européennes.
•  2008 PhD – L’apparition de l’élevage en Anatolie: un reflet de la structure économique et sociale du Néolithique d’Asie Antérieure. Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.  Volume 1 (texte) et Volume 2 (illustrations).

 Procès verbal de la soutenance de thèse par les membres du jury (thesis defense report by the board).

• 2001 MA – Le rôle des sociétés d’Anatolie du Sud-est dans la néolithisation du Proche-Orient. Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. DEA (Master’s thesis). Volume 1 (texte).

Works in Preparation –

• Chart and Article the emergence of plant cultivation in the Near East. Projet détaillé en Français
  
• Article : burial practices as a projection of the living community.
• Update and revision of the Peneo 3 and Peneo 1 articles.
• Answer to comments – interdisciplinarity as an approach to understand the process of neolithisation. 

On the theory and its application –

Articles to appear in Peneo are expected to encompass a wide range of topics, but this should not hide the fact that all these works remain tightly bound together by the unalterable unity of the investigated subject: the human society, however altered it may have been by the advent of farming. These articles should, therefore, not only be viewed as separate works, but also as intertwining parts of a wider, and coherent, reconstruction. Presenting this structural unity of the research as well as the ability to constantly modify, specify and update earlier works are considered to be some of the precious  opportunities  offered by Internet in enhancing social research, in particular its interdisciplinary approach.

However, it can be argued that the most fundamental asset of the use of Internet lies in the instant interaction between researchers. Peneo is committed to post any work or event (conferences, publications etc.) relating to any of the subjects of interest here. Inspired by the success of the Canew project in 2001, this space has been conceived as an open platform of discussion, and can be used to address the research community.

The Peneo Library –

Over the years, I have constituted a small personal library of books and articles (ca. 500 references) focused on the subjects treated in this project (Near Eastern neolithic, ethnology of the modes of production, archaeozoology and archaeobotany of domestication etc.). It is presently in Kadiköy, Istanbul, open to anyone interested, my thoughts going in particular to those students who do not necessarily have access to the required reading material. Upon request, certain documents of reasonable size can also be sent via e-mail. The available bibliography (last up date in May 2012): the Peneo library.

Financial Support –

• 2014- : Muğla University, Departement of archaeology.
• 2013 : TÜBITAK-Ankara (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). At IFEA -Istanbul
• 2009-2010: TÜBITAK-Ankara (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). At IFEA -Istanbul.
• 2003-2007: MAE – French Foreign Affairs Ministry. At IFAPO -Damascus.