Min, I'm reposting this because I tihnk you may missed it:
dannan14 wrote:Time is a whole lot more valuable than money.
Couldn't agree more.
In his book, Inside the Neolithic Mind, David Lewis Williams says that it is now accepted that agriculturalists had to work harder and longer hours than hunter gatherers, as they have to cope with the following disadvantages:
§ domesticated herds, as opposed to wild herds, have to be tended , protected from predators and provided with pasturage
§ domesticated plants and animals, as opposed to wild, are prone to disease
§ disease – plant, animal and human – can rampage through closely packed populations
§ starch diet can lead to tooth decay and other health problems
§ farming fields degrades soil, causing erosion
§ as fields grew in size, they demanded more water, thus watering and irrigation systems became necessary
Lorna Marshall, an ethnographer, who worked with the HG southern African Bushmen (San) in the 1950s, described them as enjoying ‘a kind of material plenty’.
The French archaeologist Jacques Cauvin argues that the major changes in thought (superstructure) preceded changes in subsistence (infrastructure). He says that people changed their religion and symbolism
before they became farmers,
not as a result of becoming farmers.
“...given that this chronological sequence is now indisputable, it is necessary to challenge and dismiss former materialist theories in which symbolic constructions were only derived superstructures ... the great civilising changes of the Neolithic were first anticipated and played out in religious and ritual contexts.”
I contend that the Biblical story of Exodus could be a prime example of this. The 40 years the Children of Israel wandered in the wilderness could be a metaphor for the 40,000 years approx that man pursued a nomadic lifestyle up to the Neolithic.
The CoI lived on manna that 'fell from the skies' and that had to be collected fresh every day. They couldn't store it to get a surplus. This could be a metaphor for hunting and not being able to store seeds.
I believe tht the purpose of the CoI settling down in "the land of milk and honey" was to build a permanent temple. Not that it really happened. It is a metaphor, or a playing out of a ritual as Cauvin says, that preceded the real thing.
The same story is told in a different way in Cain and Abel, although in that story, the HG is closer to God than the farmer.