Aşıklı Höyük – Age of Noah

It was commonly held that agriculture was the driving force behind early cities, cultures and civilizations. Discoveries in recent decades reveal that commemorative sites pre-date the earliest cities, thereby bringing people together culturally ahead of permanent cohabitation and advanced agriculture.

Permanent settlements developed before full agricultural domestication. Humans first began to give up their nomadic life before there were fields and flocks to tend. Instead, the first requirement was to set up common belief systems and social boundaries. These allow non-related humans to spend time together, within the context of predictable behaviour and mores. Once a cultural language is established, humans can spend more time in proximity than just clan-gathering celebrations and ceremonies.

Changing the way humans feed themselves was a secondary consideration to this early cultural era in humans. The value of urban trade of wares and stories was understood early. Settlements were a focus of human interest.

Another important feature to keep in mind is that many societies of this time had this developing ‘culture’ begin and blossom. No civilization grew in isolation; there were always others some distance away, or before / after them.

Great civilizations are like majestic buildings. They are hugely interesting and complex, but they must be appreciated in the context of a city where other, smaller buildings and cultural groups share the landscape, and many of the same features.

Early Social Casting

Agriculture was a slow development that lasted thousands of years, arguably until today. It is now seen as a result of cultural developments, not its origin. Then, as now, being a farmer is a harder lifestyle than that of a hunter. A farmer must tend the flock, the orchard, the fields every day, and can never really be away from it; the hunter is required more intermittently.

Labour division in the family naturally falls into young adults and children, with older family members assisting. Tasks divided among those best capable lead the way to social classes. The first specialization is likely to be best hunter or most knowledgeable gatherer. But a clan`s storyteller and cultural keeper would be held in high regard, and this was often a role for the elders. It seems to follow that those in charge of sanctuary, of monument building would be seen as a priestly caste.

The specialist making valuable contributions will be sought after, while the unskilled offer less. Specialization will drive barter, more formal education, and status. During fishing season, the hook maker is king, while the successful well-digger is exalted during drought.

Genetics can hand natural skill to the next generation, but formal grooming is usually how young people grow into the social position. Achieved and ascribed status play a central role in the development of social classes and inequalities, a feature less prominent in hunter-gatherer culture.

As the last cultural artifact to develop, agriculture may have been the last resort for those without other skills. There may in fact be truth to the age old saying: vegetarian is another word for bad hunter.

Before the Copper Age

After the Younger Dryas a geological period from approximately 10,900 – 9700 BCE (c. 12,900 to c. 11,700 years ago), winter finally relented. It was the final heave of the the last ice age, the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation which had lasted 2.8 million years and with it, winter began to retreat.