The Commodification of Water
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The Commodification of Water The Commodification of Water Hans Georg K. Gebel Free University of Berlin [email protected] Water and the Neolithic Ethos1 used by the productive milieus of the new Neolithic life modes. Often construction work had to be invested to Two basic behavioral dispositions in human water harvest, manage and process water in these permanent consumption should be distinguished: passive ones acquisition, use and discharge frameworks: This that could show a variety of adaptive behavior to notion of Neolithic water, still neglecting the changed forage or routinely access available surface water for cognitive disposition of man to water and the vital role it immediate consumption, and more active and preventive played to sustain sedentary territoriality, only started to dispositions that are in addition governed by the need change after 2000 when domestic water findings forced to secure and manage water for drinking and its use in questions about the domestication of water (Peltenburg productive milieus. The latter represents the new sectors et al. 2000, 2001a-b; Gebel 2004b; Garfinkel et al. of complex human water management that increasingly 2006; Gillmore et al. 2007a-b; Fujii 2006, 2007, 2010- spread with sedentary life and its socioeconomies, based this issue). Since the 1190’s Neolithic research had on the need for stable conditions for their territories, become more open to the idea that “domestication” climate and hydrology, agriculture, flocks, crafts, is not only a signal of biological mutation, but also of and social systems. More than ever before, water in cultural mutation, of - partly fundamental - behavioral the Neolithic became an agent of vulnerability. Both changes in symbolism, technological strategies, dispositions might already appear linked to some extent resource and space management, etc. Such sights had in hunter-gatherer groups (for example, in areas or cases opened ways to new approaches and understanding of of potential water pollution or in deficit locations), but Neolithic abiotic resources, including water. basically the character of water behavior in these groups More than any other basic element or substance, remained adaptive and exploitative. The two dispositions water and the ability to manage its productivity were cannot be seen as opposed behavioral patterns; they crucial for the establishment and preservation of remained linked in Neolithic times, with the productive permanent productive life modes. Beyond “foraging” water behavior involving increasingly complex risk- water, settled life had to make water subject to buffering strategies throughout the millennia of the permanent preventive care, as in cases of territorial, Neolithic evolution. Sedentary conditions require such seasonal, hygienic, climatic impacts, among others. active water strategies, or water management, since As the major agent securing the success of Neolithic even a secure natural consumption based on rich nearby production and storage modes in the emerging cultural springs would require a „hydrosocial“ management to landscapes of the Near East (e.g. Watkins 2009), avoid deficits created by other impacts, such as territorial domestic water studies deserve to become integral or ideological claims, hygiene, etc. The new Neolithic parts of Neolithic research projects without which human territoriality must have created a new vital and evaluations of Neolithic socioeconomic strategies fail potentially conflict-loaded level of dependence on to be comprehensive and conclusive. water (Gebel n.d., 2010b), and human hydrological I propose to consider all human behavior and competence must have gained momentum in nature- measures to secure water and water access and observation, water technologies, and sociohydrological discharge beyond its immediate consumption as strategies. Neolithic water subsistence; this definition includes Among other topics, much research needs to be the features of permanent “water territoriality“ as well invested into the ethological questions related water as measures of water storage and safeguarding against subsistence in early Near Eastern villages, since they water. In other words, Neolithic water subsistence is would allow working out the assumed fundamental characterized by an active behavior to secure and changes in water behavior coming up with the Neolithic. optimize the biotic and abiotic conditions by which food For example, to what extent was the choice of a spring and other water-dependent products become available. location for an early village part of an active disposition It means that productive milieus were maintained and or that shared much of the foraging attitude (e.g. the ruled by artificial water conditions, and artificial water Ba‘ja case, Gebel 2004b)? Or, what are the parameters conditions determine productive milieus. Developing by which simple water tapping from wadi gravels could water techniques found their immediate reaction and be understood as Neolithic „water work“? expression in the communities‘ social, technical, environmental and symbolic evolution. Water storage of its various kinds and water-based land use are Water and Productive Milieus the key socio-economic sectors in which new water techniques influenced, triggered and protected new Water, like mineral resources, forests, grazing land modes and structures of sedentary life. The specific etc., was available in the sites’ environments and was regional or local blend of water conditions and related 4 The Domestication of Water Neo-Lithics 2/10 The Commodification of Water technological opportunities created the special regional been a motor of innovation, and water deficits appear and local modes of water management. It is especially to have set free the strongest innovative energy. We the storage aspect - from the possible harvesting of have to expect that not only did water consumption water in the sediments caught by wadi barriers to the increase due to the increasing population sizes, but also introduction of impermeable containers - that makes that the individual water consumption increased by the water a subject of domestication, or commodification various new and prolific production spheres, probably (Gebel 2010a), if not to speak of the „Neolithization introducing “modern” problems like the depletion of of water“. water resources and their quality or the reduction of Water was a basic commodity of Neolithic life. It was biodiversity. part of the early village reciprocity that was generated Basic work has been carried out on protohistoric and supported by the commodification processes (cf. and historic productive water milieus (e.g., Wilkinson below) of its productive milieus, and played its vital 2003, Brunner n.d., and others), and studies such as role in many interacting contexts (landscape types, that by Araus et al. (1999) remain scarce in Neolithic settlement patterns, resources, goods and labor, internal research. Rather, prehistorians “meet” findings of settlement/house organization, social identities, Neolithic water work and so far interprete them in their technological and ideological innovation); the need conventional frameworks. However, and as a start, for, and use of, corporate and pacifying behavior and several models developed for later periods could be strategies to use water must have characterized the transferred with some modification to the Neolithic emerging Neolithic water frameworks. The Neolithic (such as the “water cube” of Ueli Brunner, Fig. 1). productive milieus are also known for their tendency Among others, the key questions of T.J. Wilkinson for prolific momenta and accelerated developments, (2010- this issue) are vital for research success in including the implosion of such processes (e.g. Neolithic water management. Especially obstacles the Mega-Site Phenomenon, Gebel 2004a, 2007). and limits have to be taken into account, such as Progressive population dynamics and surplus the preservation of Neolithic water installations in production appear to be related to new strategies of the landscape (their ephemeral or non-permanent water management (e.g., the development of hydraulic character, the re-use of such structures in succeeding and pastoral societies in the 7th millennium BC): Water periods, etc.). The Ma‘an evidence (Fujii 2010- this and its management in Neolithic times appears to have issue), for instance, has probably survived because it came to exist in a marginal location that was not later re-useable as an water collection irrigable wadi system. Apart from standard methods (sedimentology/ 14 drip granometry, C/TL/OSL dating, well / pump ICP-MS, palaeoethnobotany/ sprinkler qanat palaeopalynology, traditional furrows low walls survey and excavation) much outlet / weir pioneer research would be needed waterflooding distribution deflector dam to evaluate chances for data from massive dam indirect evidence of water use. episodical surface water Water and Commodification This contribution to the special topic issue of Neo-Lithics on The Domestication of Water (Neo- Lithics 2/10) aims to adumbrate a new interpretative framework perennial surface water for Neolithic water, leading beyond the limits of its segregated understanding as an individual ingredient of Neolithization (or as water source an isolated “cultural domesticate”), offering rather its holistic contexts by understanding water as part of the Neolithic commodification groundwater processes (cf. Table 1).2, 3 The domestication of water Fig. 1 The “water cube” of Ueli Brunner,