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Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 08 July 2011 Version of attached le: Published Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Scarre, Chris. (2002) 'Jacques Cauvin and the origins of agriculture.', Antiquity., 76 (292). pp. 293-295. Further information on publisher's website: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/076/292/Default.htm Publisher's copyright statement: c 2002 Antiquity Publications Additional information: Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk EDITORIAL 293 EVERSHED,K.P.. S.N. DIJDD. S. CHARTERS, 11. h$oTTKAhi, A.W. STOTT. A. Rams, P.F. VAN BERGENh H.A. BLAND. 1999. Lipids as carriers of aiithropogenic sigiials from prehis- tory, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society se- ries R 354: 19-31. JrlNES, M. & T. RKOWY. 2000. Agricultmal origins: the widelice of iriodurn and anrii:rit DNA, Hdocene 10[6]: 775-82. Some studies of the transition to agriculture are distant from the underlying change in diet. The cultural-philosophical approach to the change to farming and food production is dis- cussed by CHRISSCARRE (University of Cam- bridge), who revisits the ideas and work of Jacques Egyptian ngriculturnl scene. (Pi1 otn Hclen/Nigcl Cauvin who recently died. Was agriculture a single Strci rl wick.j global phenomenon? Cauvin focused on the de- velopment of sedentism and food production in nologies and environments, and were associ- the Levant and equated the Neolithic Revolution atcd with a diversity of social and economic with the foundations of modern human society, regimes. Yet any such project to deconstruct do- culture and mentality. This is a viewpoint that mestication would run counter to other recent has been energetically taken up by some Post- approaches which seek to iindcrstand the origins Processual thinkers. Chris Scarre writes on ‘Jacques and spread of domesticates not in terms of eco- Cauvin and the origins of agriculture’: nomic adjustment hut as a cognitive or symbolic ‘In a recent issue of American Antiquity, shift which redefined human self-awareness. Richerson, Boyd & Bettinger pose the key qiies- ‘A leading proponent of this approach was tion why agriculture did not emerge during the French archaeologist Jacques Cauvin, who died Pleistocene (Richerson et al. 2001). They present late last year. Cauvin spent his professional life their argument in the form of two propositions: working on early agricultural sites in the Le- that agriculture was impossible during the last vant, and was a leading figure in the impor- Glacial (owing to c:limatic instahilitp),and that tant excavations at Mureybit in Syria. His in the long run, agriculture was compulsory in observation that innovations in symholism pre- the Ho1or:ene. Their explanation is lrrarned at figured and accompanied the Neolithic transi- the broadest geographical and chronological tion was a major influence on Hodder’s The scale, and comes down heavily in favour of donzestication of Europe (1990). What Cauvin climatic change - notably the abrupt transi- envisaged was nothing less than a change in tion from Glacial to Holocene - as the driting human cognitive and symbolic outlook, that factor behind intensification. The search for preceded and made agriculture possible. The comnion themes or common factors at such a case was set out most fully in Naissonce des general scale is of course entirely appropriate divinitgs, naissance de j’agricuhre (1994), where agricultiirc is vie~wdas a global phe- which appeared in English translation six years nomenon. There are, however. alternative per- later under the title The birth of the gods and spectives, which consider specific: regional or the origins of agriculture (Cauvin 2000). In es- local trajcctorieq as the more relevant scale of sence, his thesis argues “that it is actually in analysis. We might, for instance, question the Neolithic Revolution that we find the roots whether agriculture is indeed a single phenom- of the present state of the human race, not only enon. or rather a series of individual instances in its domination and exploitation of the envi- of a gencral trend towards intensified interac- ronment, hut also . in the very foundations of tions between modern humans and their food our culture and mentality” (Cauvin 2000: 3). resources (e.g. Higgs 1972: 1975;Kindos 1984). ‘An important influence on the development ‘The reified concept of “agriculture” 011 which of Cauvin’s ideas was the discovery of Ain many traditional acrounts are predicated is as Mallaha in 1955 by Jean Perrot. This was a “vil- much a target €or legitimate critique as is the lage of hunter-gatherers” that defied the then- Neolithic or the state. Early agricultural sys- dominant model that sedentism should follow tems involved different species, different tech- agriculture: a small settlement of five or six 2 94 EDITORIAL sunken-floored round houscs with storage pits it was houses that domesticated people before and heavy ground stone tools designed for people doniesticated plants: “the dornestica- pounding and grinding. Such Natufian settle- tion of plants and animals follows the domes- ments developed all the technology that was tication of human heings and is inspired by it” needed for farming but continued to rely on (Wilson 1988: 3). Yet, as is well known, wild resources. It was in the following period sedentism did not precede plant domestication - the Khiamian - that the great change oc- in key areas of the world such as Mesoamerica curred, and this was not an economic, climatic (e.g. Pearsall 1995). or technological adjustment, but a symbolic one. ‘The notion of the Neolithic as a symholic: It was marked by the appearance of female figu- revolution brings Cauvin close to current think- rines and by the plarement in houses of aurochs ing on the Neolithic of northwest Europe. There bucrania, both themes that recur in later con- is little evidence in this region, however, that texts such as Catalhoyuk. For Cauvin, the a cognitive or symbolic change preceded the Woman and the Bull were representations of adoption of agriculture. In northwcst Europc, deities, and revealed a new religious aware- the primacy given to the cultural and symbolic ness that underlay and indeed inspired the dimension of the Neolithic is one of significnnce development of domestication in the follow- rather than chronology. These societies at the ing PPNA phase. Thus the Neolithic Revolu- very outset of the Neolithic appear to have en- tion provides “the clear demonstration of the gaged in a new project of enculturing the land- fact that man could not completely transform scape, constructing monuments of earth, timber the way he exploited his natural environment, and stone that indicate a changed perception his own settlements as much as his means of of the world. In many areas evidence for sub- subsistence, without showing at the same time stantial permanent residential structures is a different conception of the world and of him- slight, and life-styles may have remained rela- self in that world” (Cauvin 2000: 220). tively mobile for many generations. Further- ‘The primacy which Cauvin accords to the more, a number of authors (e.g. Bradley 1998; revolution of symbols and a new religious un- Thomas 1999) have sought to play down the derstanding are worlds away from traditional significance of cereal cultivation in early ecological or demographic: models for the ori- Neolithic: societies, a revision which would focus gins of agriculture. One wonders, perhaps, how the spotlight all the more sharply on the Nco- well they would work as a general explanation, lithic transition as a cultural or ideological applied to other agricultural origins in other phenomenon. areas. We may, furthermore, pose the same ‘Whether such interpretations will stand the question with which we started: if modern test of time remains to be seen: palaeodietary humans had already been in existence for tens evidence from northwest Europe is increasingly of thousands of years, why did these changes supporting the alternative argument, that the not occur earlier? There is a mysticism about beginning of the Neolithi was marked liy a Cauvin’s argument which invites caution. relatively abrupt and signi cant switch to cul- Hodder’s interpretation of the Neolithic tran- tivated plants (Schulting 1998). Whatever the sition gives symbolism a rather different and outcome of this debate, the importance of an more concrete role. He notes how at Catalhoyuk associated symbolic shift is beyond question. and other East Mediterranean sites, “human In the final analysis, indeed, both Cauvin and death, skulls, vultures ands wild animals were Richerson may be held to be right, the differ- brought into the house. I animal death is linked ence being one of scale. Viewed in the broad- to human death, ‘malc’dangers to ‘female’ dan- est perspective, it may be entirely appropriate gers. This juxtaposition enhances the prestige to consider agriculture the outcome of a “natu- of the social and cultural order which confronts ral” evolutionary process operating at a global and controls the agrios [the wild]. It identifies level, waiting only on the development of mod- the domestication metaphor as the main mecha- ern humans and suitable climatic conditions.