Theories on why the Neolithic occurred

The Neolithic Revolution was recognized as a major cultural event even during the early years of archaeology. As the discipline proceeded from an emphasis on excavation and culture history towards theoretical explanations for past human behaviour, many scholars postulated a variety of reasons why the Neolithic occurred.

One of the first models was Childe's classic, environmentally oriented formulation often known as the ‘oasis propinquity theory'.^[398] This assumes that major climatic change at the end of the Pleistocene caused the drying of broad areas and forced plants, animals, and humans to congregate in oases and river valleys. People rapidly realized that some animals and plants were more useful than others, and eventually domesticated these. Childe's model was widely embraced at the time, although it lacked much empirical data. This was partially rectified by Robert (and Linda) Braidwood's interdisciplin­ary field-based investigations in Iraq that set out to explicitly test the oasis hypothesis. Braidwood believed there was a ‘nuclear zone' for domestication in the foothills of the Zagros mountains. Hence, his model is often referred to as the ‘hilly flanks' model. A pioneering component of Braidwood's investi­gations was the incorporation of a wide range of scientists from the biological and earth sciences. Braidwood viewed food production as the culmination of increasing human specialization, a natural result of cultural evolution.^[399]

In light of archaeological data that have accumulated over the past several decades, it is easy to refute many earlier models. For example, the oasis propinquity model is too simple for the facts. There is no evidence of drastic or catastrophic climatic changes in the early Neolithic; furthermore, most early sites do not occur in major river valleys and oases (Jericho is an exception).

Early agriculture in Southwest Asia earliest Neolithic sites are not located in the foothills. Nonetheless, these early models were first attempts to understand why the Neolithic occurred, and certainly have historical significance.

With the advent of processual, or ‘new', archaeology, many scholars turned their attention to explanatory, if often conflicting, models. Many used the Near East as their primary data source. Typically, processual models are variants on themes of broad spectrum subsistence, population growth and expansion, resource stress, climatic change, or combinations of these. Most involve the interplay between agricultural intensification, environmen­tal change, land use, and sedentism. A basic premise was that larger popula­tions led to agriculture, and not the reverse. This was contrary to many older views that essentially saw domestication as coming first, leading to popula­tion increase. Based on current data, however, it is likely that, in the Near East at least, sedentism and population increase during the early Natufian ultimately created the need for agriculture.

One of the earliest processual models was that of Louis Binford, who argued that once early Natufians became sedentary in favourable Mediterranean environments, populations increased, as did aridity, placing new stresses on expanding populations and forcing some groups to 'bud off into more mar­ginal areas.^[400] These groups then used previously under-exploited resources, such as wild cereals, resulting in domestication.

Around the same time, Kent Flannery proposed a ‘broad spectrum sub­sistence' model in which a wide variety of resources were used at the end of the Epipalaeolithic, leading to population growth.^[401] Wild cereals were con­sidered second or third choice foods but their chief benefit was that they could support higher populations and thus people began to specialize more, domesticating them.

There are numerous other processually oriented Near Eastern models that rely on population increase, resource stress, and environmental variables. Likewise, with the advent of ‘post-processual archaeology' there have been a number of models emphasizing social causation. Neither processual nor post- processual approaches have escaped criticism. For example, Henry argued that many processually oriented models generally did not fit the archaeolo­gical data.^[403] Social and post-processual models have also been challenged, with Smith effectively dismantling many as ‘fact-free'.^[404] Likewise, Cauvin's ‘symbolic revolution' concept has been criticized, even by post-processual archaeologists.^[405] While Cauvin's model may have considerable merit as an intellectual concept, it, too, is not well supported by empirical archaeological data. It, and some more recent works,^[406] also seem to implicitly assume that somehow pre-Neolithic peoples were not quite fully modern in their mental capabilities, a concept out of tune with much current anthropological thought.

Despite some well-deserved criticisms, much is currently known about the transition to food production and its consequences. Smith notes that several interdisciplinary technological innovations have advanced the search for why domestic economies were adopted.^[407] These include refinements in dating, better environmental data, searching for relationships between domesticates and their wild progenitors at the molecular level using ‘molecular archae­ology', and DNA analyses for genetic ‘fingerprinting'.

Thus, while there is no consensus on the emergence of agriculture, many feel that there is a core of recurring traits.^[408] These include sedentism, storage facilities, high population density, high resource diversity, appropriate har­vesting and processing technology, and suitable potential domesticates.

Other possibly significant factors include competition, ownership of produce and resource localities, changes in climate or vegetation, and population pressure. These variables all continue to influence theoretical concepts of the Neolithic.