LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

one of the biggest changes in human history, namely the switch from food acquisition, in the form of hunting, fishing and gathering, to food production, in the form of arable farming and animal husbandry.² With hindsight – of course something fundamental to archaeology – this switch looks more dramatic than in fact it was. Its consequences were indeed revolutionary, but the original processes of change probably weren’t. In fact, they were remarkably gradual. This confusion between cause and effect, plus an imperfect appreciation of the timescale involved, has led archaeologists in the past to view the period of the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition as somehow special, and even traumatic to people living at the time. Personally, I doubt this.

      The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers belonged to the Middle Stone Age, and the farmers to the Neolithic or New Stone Age. It is important not to lose sight, however, of the lithic, the ‘Stone Age’ suffix of their labels. To my mind both were the same Stone Age people whose roots lay back in the Upper Palaeolithic, at sites like Paviland or Gough’s Caves. The fact that they decided to adopt the techniques of farming did not make them culturally different – at least not at first. What it did do was allow them to populate the landscape far more densely, because farming is a vastly more efficient means of producing food calories than hunting or gathering.³ It allows many more people to live in the landscape, and that in turn means that communities have to live alongside each other. So they must find ways of settling disputes, coping with individual and tribal rivalries, moving goods, animals and people, and dealing with the emergence of what later we would recognise as politics.

      All of these social transformations took time: from the beginning to the end of the process, right across Britain, it took centuries – as long as two millennia before the farthest-flung areas acquired a fully Neolithic lifestyle. Despite what some earlier authors would have had us believe, the arrival of farming was not the ‘Neolithic Revolution’.⁴ It was certainly not comparable with the Industrial or Agricultural Revolutions of recent times, which happened rapidly and had immediate as well as long-term effects. It was a process of change, not a revolution.

      Let’s examine what was probably going on as the waters of the North Sea spread relentlessly south. To do this I must return to the decks of the trawler in the North Sea that opened this chapter. That trawler was built in 1954, and was powered by a marine-oil engine. It was noisy and smelly, but it was powerful, capable of hauling a large trawl through high seas. But until quite recently, trawlers that worked closer to the shore than my ship from Grimsby were not powered at all. One such vessel was the sailing trawler Colinda.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgAAZABkAAD/7AARRHVja3kAAQAEAAAAPAAA/+4ADkFkb2JlAGTAAAAAAf/b AIQABgQEBAUEBgUFBgkGBQYJCwgGBggLDAoKCwoKDBAMDAwMDAwQDA4PEA8ODBMTFBQTExwbGxsc Hx8fHx8fHx8fHwEHBwcNDA0YEBAYGhURFRofHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8f Hx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8fHx8f/8AAEQgC+QH0AwERAAIRAQMRAf/EALoAAAICAwEBAQAAAAAAAAAA AAECAAMEBQYHCAkBAQEAAwEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAABAgMEBQYHEAABAwIFAgQEAwYCCQIFAQkBABEC IQMxQRIEBVFhcSITBoGRMgehsRTwwdFCUiPhFfFicoKSMyQWCKJDslMlNRfCYzRzk7MmRXU3EQAC AgEDAQYDBwQBBQEAAwEAARECAyESBDFBUXEyEwVhgSKRobFCIzMU8MHRUmLhcoIkFfGiQzRE/9oA DAMBAAIRAxEAPwDekByMewX5afeiEBjRiPxUKKx/bFUAL/FAMMBT4oB3aNSX7IQAIJZCjRcVNOiE HBJNQR2CEGo+OGXghBiNfWlfFUFZDn93dQopcOHqMfBClc4gF/w6IUrq5GKAWNQQyAZq0oUA4jXB +qAkcq1qgCQSCMz0QEDijIAiRwPV0ASY0ahdjRCDROLVH70BbAxzNEMWITEEjHIIUWjVDPn4IUMI 5g41BPZCMaFwMZEYCncoGiRkCK4/vQDSJJYZZoRBBJP5hAKcEAhJbH96FIYklmqf2dAQQ00bx6oW QjOJwGCEIKFhQZoCEeZj4ICG1GEQQ7vUIJEcEufpOCFIJOQezoAyLgAfVmgQ0XAcVrQOhGA6vjig HGsEElwBj1QgwkwfFzigAZl5MHydBBUSMCfNmhkRy2OOA7IAymBBn8EJAuoO7kgIUms6S3jTsggB kZHVLFChiACB8QX/AAQhDcLEAAxOHZkECHUwatHZClZx7hANAuXOGaAs1OXb4oQtjMmZJHl6ZIRo thLyN8X7KmLQdY+PXJkEGOYkSpiMVDIrlE/UaDohkLE0PXCqAmkklsEA4i8cQyEGZ6M/dAQwrXE4 hBJNBamfyQSPLVEjohEPEOJdSqYgOoUfzZnsoUlG8lXZyqBDGhyULJRMnMhuyGQgi7npigJF6hAN EMC+DIBo6ieyAI00JB7NmgBGE8j4oGDVLDPAoA+SpAQDRjPVkx6IQYQLkYDMoJGiaeb59kIyGLgE VHZBJJxlqBEaIEKSdLn6TggH0GMQ4Z8B0Qkj2rflIIAIwVQbDoixOSEkmmQfDsyAaMGHcISRTEB6 eCFFIzekkKExc1LBBIIgvRuhIUEkjEtU17IJAQMc/kgIY0JOVQ+KAUwGJyq2aFkMbZ0k4QwrmUDY RGPXFCFkYxAILj+kqkbK56QaKFQuskChxp3dCwWUfpHqhBJwlpxxGGSFTEnCQi4qeqFTK4i5lj0Q oJQIDk1wQBgTXqFAMQ0QX+CoIxbBiAgBTMsPyQEiA7GnhmgITUAFooAaRpLP4hAIPn1Qo8ISkwH0 hCF0TGJYUkfwQxLo2yT5Wiwq+NVTGSelHQ/wSBOpRe1CTDHN6KGSK6nOqGQNMg0aIBogVA8AhAgM +AogCDpq2FCUBAfjlVAXAOA2GJCpgNKMiQGHcIBQCADFg2fdCkJMouztjkShAE6cQPDJkKJLFiQR +4qFMeQL9ghkKdOXxQEAYhAPpr+aAZsnpmUIFm7AICaWALv2QCy/HNChA8rYOgGh4+KELKCX7kIO QA5AcNj3VIS2XFQHIp2RBlZFSTmagKFHhEkgADwVIy8gSMQCGGL5KmAJRlGTMKVZCokYE5gBnQSO RFqBno4yQgkonU0j3BOSFQJWzIgkufxUgSPEW2rF2VIxdGNK50QsgjACvWhyUDYxt0BxdWCSJO3I x7EY91CplUwXbPBsVDJCyJAAAQowNBFq5/6EIG2ccDQsWVDHAJpTxQgk44OoVMMYsMfgqCRlIy0i p7qCCGEtVYtE9a1VJIC7EHH9qKFKi4wFSMsUMhMKAfHwzQpLcsmxxJQMXXHU+fRAGUwRXEoAlyDV ASNP3MgCRHpiUINoYs3igkrMRU

Скачать книгу