Early Neolithic Social Organization - Essay Example

Is it possible to reconstruct Early Neolithic social organization on the basis of the evidence from megalithic tombs and mortuary deposits The early Neolithic period was called or tagged as the new Stone Age and just like any other generation, it is also characterized and identified though a particular culture that it carried. During the said period, people already had the idea on farming although they produced limited crops, still they were able to survive the test of time. Taking care of animals both wild and domestic also helped them in their daily need for survival. The use of pots can also be regarded though not everyone was using the same craft for living. The trend usually follows that the Neolithic age is considered to be one particular period but Wikipedia gives the three different stages that still divide the Neolithic age. The first one is Pre Pottery Neolithic which is all about the "true farming" that occurred where people were used to planting and harvesting wheat. Along with farming is the domestication of animals, also to answer their day-to-day needs. This stage was followed by the pre-pottery period where people tried to build their houses made of mud bricks. No long before they learned pottery which further improved their lives and this was the peak of the Neolithic period. The Neolithic period that slowly evolved along with knowledge and experience, somehow showed the presence of social organizations. The presence of hierarchies can somehow be traced through the burial grounds and an example of this is the one found in the excavation in Central Europe where some tombs were found to be different from others in a way that they looked more sophisticated and hard to make, suggesting that others could have afforded labor to create such tombs. Through the Neolithic sites that were explored, what were visible were signs of possibilities for group feuds where others could have been treated more superior like the leaders and the chiefs in tribes. These were more visible in the European Bronze age. (Wikipedia) Moving forward to the possibility of reconstructing the early Neolithic social organization, it is important to look closely to the concept or idea of megalithic tombs which not only tell us about the said period but also offer bigger possibilities for changing of ideas and perceptions about the seemingly built image and picture of the Neolithic era. As discussed partly a while ago, there were already the different kinds of tombs found during the excavation. These tombs will then connect us to their culture and social structure, ways and means that they tried to adopt in the past. But firs we try to define what megalithic tombs are and how significant are they to historians, researchers and archaeologists. Maximilian Baldia explores in his essay "Megalithic Tombs and Interregional Communication" how long and how significant these tombs are to us. He said that the closely five thousand megalithic tombs signify how people were connected in different aspects. He also explained that the presence of timber mortuary during the Neolithic period can and might have been the start of the small primeval dolmens in the Early Neolithic. "Furthermore, the popularity of the primeval dolmen may have arisen as a practical solution resulting from the need for suitable large trees required for building houses, palisades, boats and apparently even single-piece wagonwheels. Increased village size, more numerous fields, and larger herds of domesticated grazing animals during the later part of the EN C would have reduced the forests containing these timbers near the villages, making stone construction more cost effective. A decline in tree trunk diameter used in construction from the ENto the MiddleNeolithic (MN), has been noted in conjunction with likely woodland management and supports this argument. Therefore, stone chambers should first have occurred in areas where a large population would have been confined to limited land. The most likely place in the TRB culture area would have been the islands and adjacent coastal areas in the western Baltic, particularly Sjlland. This is precisely the area where most of the primeval dolmen are located. Opinions regarding the beginning and end of megalithic chamber construction vary. Long-mounds with simple graves and wooden chambers may have appeared at 3900B.C., if not earlier. Megalithic chambers were built into long-mounds and tumuli starting sometime during the EarlyNeolithic Fuchsberg phase (ENII). They continued to be built until the MiddleNeolithic Blandebjergphase (MNII). Danish archaeologists provide absolute dates of 3400-3100B.C. for their construction, but others date the first primeval dolmen at 3600B.C. and the earliest passage-graves to 3350B.C. In the absence of a solid list of radiocarbon dates for primeval dolmen, I estimate their range of construction at 3750-3530B.C., while the transition from larger dolmen, i.e. polygonal dolmen and rectilinear dolmen with corner entrance, to passage-graves may be placed between 3400-3340B.C. The earliest true passage-graves may appear as early as 3360B.C. Nonetheless, regional differences must have existed. Thus the building of passage-graves may have ceased in Denmark first and somewhat later in Germany and the Netherlands." The social organization where chiefdoms and territories for example can be also be seen through the tombs' patterns. Example of this also given by Baldia was in the areas of Sweden where the Swedish West Coast distribution implies a north-south line of communication in the community. Recognizing that there is a flow of power and there is a start of civilization anywhere, in the case of Sweden, it started from the North. It is important to study the patterns however, because in the larger sense there is a possibility, the line of communication which Baldia focused on could have been the basis to control power, knowing that communication even in the past was already regarded as a very significant tool for improvements and trade. The following quote from Baldia further explains and expands the possibilities of a more complex social organization evolution through the Mesolithic tombs becoming power evidences to be used to analyze the past. "As the reader may have already guessed, this is not a description of Sweden's WestCoast during the EarlyNeolithic, but rather of the American NorthWestCoast only a century ago. Here the magic sources of power came from the spirits of the ancestors and were celebrated in fantastically elaborate totem carvings and designs by hunters and gatherers who developed a complex social organization without agriculture or animal husbandry. If it were not for the ethnographic record, archaeologists would never suspect the existence of this social complexity. The social interactions of Northern Europe's Late Mesolithic and EarlyNeolithic population must have been similar, leading to increasing social complexity and ever more elaborate burial structures. The rivalry between more powerful clans led to a chiefdom-like social organization, particularly in strategic areas through which the trade of the sought after status goods, including copper, amber and flint had to flow due to geographic limiting factors. The ever larger and more elaborate tombs and the ceremonies near the entrance area, or parvis, bear witness to this process. The routes, along which these goods were exchanged, were guarded by the spirits of the ancestors enshrined in these tombs." In addition to this, the significant dolmens that can be found in Asia, usually in clusters can be a sign of a far better interconnection of people in a group or community during the Neolithic period. The excavations from different regions, in Europe in particular as given for an example above have one voice to say that regions and areas no mater how far have a connection in a greater sense. Patterns and clusters signify the already established organization and systems in the society that on the basis of megalithic remains and mortuary deposits cannot be changed. Now what is being explored by our archaeologists, the great diggers even, is the additional fact that can lead us to learn the scenes and situations from the past. But this doesn't mean that social organization can be changed. Whatever remains are found, it is a fixed factor, a fixed story that has to be figured out ad not a puzzle that can change its form for the purpose of recreating the society on the basis of modern structures created by man. The real fact, the real story through the remains and the megalithic tombs will connect us to the present and any form of desire to touch and change the said social organization is like touching the sun and changing the idea of revolution. Sources 1. Wikipedia. "Neolithic." May 9, 2007. 2. Baldia, Maximilian. "Megalithic Tombs and Interregional Communication." May 9, 2007 3. Tees Archaeology. "Early Bronze Age burials at Windmill Fields, Ingleby Barwick, Stockton on Tees." May 10, 2007. Read More