Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the moment the climate settled down, primitive hunter gatherers started cities. Not megalopolises but trading centers. Where useful items were traded. In other words, the petite bourgeoisie came to being almost the moment it was possible. Making commerce a basic human trait. Who knows what Göbekli Tepe was, but the perpetual need for resources that come from other areas, is a problem that’s plagued mankind since the dawn of time. The answer apparently has been, and will probably always be, commerce. There would be no examples of towns in the archaeological record, since a wooden town abandoned five thousand years ago, would have rotted into nothing millennia ago. Even the cities of American First nations people, are gone, but for arrowheads.
Imagine the utility for hunter gatherers to have a central location to trade items. A trade network of fine obsidian would be invaluable. Tribes could go to a central location, or pass through once a year, and trade goods. A large chunk of obsidian could be made into a myriad of tools. Arrowheads, knives and scrapers to name a few. A tribe so equipped could venture into places that are devoid of good stone for tools. They would be like people forging into the wilderness with bronze or iron tools. In fact the archaeological record does show vast trade networks set up thousands of years ago. The bronze age was made possible by the importation of tin from Britain to Sumeria. Such a trade network didn’t spring up overnight. It was an evolution of the ancient trade networks that traded stone, hides and cinnabar.
Farming is often considered to be the turning point of human civilization. It’s creation allowing people, “for the first time,” to gather into towns and cities. Thus began the city state age. Yet, how does farming create bronze? Or copper for that matter? In good years farming can give the farmer spare time to innovate, but innovation requires access to materials. The more exotic the materials available the greater the ability to innovate. Meanwhile, there are examples of farming from before Göbekli Tepe, in the Levant during the glacial maximum, yet they didn’t even have pottery. It was trade that opened up mankind to innovations such as effective farming, metallurgy and shipbuilding. Because no one place could supply everything that’s needed. As with making a pencil today, much had to be imported.
Göbekli Tepe predates pottery, yet sported relief carved stone, pillars and plazas. It and the other sites like it may have been for rituals, public meetings or, open air markets. I think they were neolithic shopping malls if you will. Tribes might pass through once or twice a year, to trade the things they picked up in their travels, for things they needed. A trading center would start out as a good well, and someone with a propensity to talk, instead of do. The talker, and well, becomes a nexus. His family specializes in commerce for a living instead of hunter gathering. That life choice makes it easier for the hunter gatherers. By opening up a much larger territory of materials to them than they could ever find themselves. That good well and trader could, in a thousand years, turn into Göbekli Tepe.
We tend to think everything is recent. Like Adam Smith’s division of labor. But the efficiency of that system was used by cavemen. It wasn’t named. Much of what we “know” is simply the named wisdom of the ages. Making us feel smart since we have words for them. The best proof however are hunter gatherer tribes with little contact with the outside world. They always have a village. To fabricate cloth, pottery and projectiles. Archaeology proves people had settlements even before pottery. So I maintain, mankind created settlements the moment the climate made it possible, maybe before. Civilization and wealth leading to a Göbekli Tepe, doesn’t have to be based on farming as the historians say… the wealth can, and usually is, based on commerce.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
