Re: Neolithic Revolution

[Tommy Tyrberg]:

> Actually there have been some rare cases where substantial houses and
> villages, social stratification etc. has developed in non-agricultural
> societies. The obvious recent case are the Northwest Coast Indians from
> Oregon to Alaska. Another interesting case is the Jomon culture of Japan,
> which was actually the first in the world to adopt pottery (during the Late
> Glacial c. 12-13,000 BP). One might perhaps also cite the South Island
> Maori as an example. In all these cases a highly productive coastal
> environment which permits a fairly dense sedentary population seems to be
> the crucial factor.

I think that we can obtain the full-scale contrast between "neolithized" and
"not-neolithized" communities only if we take a Paleolitic culture (big game
hunting with spears and gathering plants) as the latter. Mesolitic cultures
(fishing or sea hunting or gathering sea products or small game hunting with bow
and arrows) actually are something between them and often have some elements of
the Neolithic way of life (I think because they need not permanent migrations).
However principally they belong to the pre-Neolithic phase and have already
achieved the limit of their development.

Alexander