Making Sense of the Past

Human history is both fascinating and extremely disturbing. Our ancestors made a wondrous journey from life in the open wilderness to civilization but also committed unforgivable violence and injustice. Past scholars knew less about the ancient world, and popular writers depicted glorious images of their favorite leaders. Now, the statues of those men are being pulled down, and history is being rewritten. But in rewriting history, some authors have not abandoned imagining a golden era in the past; only its date has been pushed back. Several recent books blame the advent of agriculture as the turning point from that golden age. Our knowledge of the pre-agricultural time is scarce, but nothing suggests it was the paradise lost forever.

​

It is time we start seeing history without any ideological and emotional lenses. One thing we know for sure is that human societies have evolved over time from a humble origin. To understand that long evolutionary past in a proper perspective, we propose a three-stage model of social evolution. The first stage began when modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared around a hundred thousand years ago, and it ended when agriculture became the predominant source of food. Hunting and gathering were the dominant modes of livelihood during this stage, and people lived in small mobile groups. The second stage began with the onset of the Holocene and the advent of agriculture. Farming and animal raising became the main sources of livelihood, and most people lived in villages. The second stage ended with the beginning of the industrial era in the 18th century. The third stage of history is still unfolding, but the world has already changed.

​

Our knowledge of Stage One is based on scanty archaeological relics, such as a few buried skeletons, rock paintings, and figurines found in caves. They tell us very little about the social customs and worldviews of the people of that era. Did they get enough to eat throughout the year? Were they egalitarian and peaceful? We do not have answers to many such questions. We even do not know the motive behind paintings on cave walls. The once prevailing peaceful image of prehistoric societies now seems wishful thinking. Anthropologists Mark Allen, Robert Bettinger, et al. point to remains from an apparent massacre of mobile foragers in Turkana during the early Holocene. This and other findings, such as the one from the earlier Jebel Sahaba site in Jordan, suggest intergroup violence among mobile forager societies of that time.[i] Despite such incidents, the long pre-agricultural period attained a kind of stability. The global population remained nearly steady; an egalitarian social structure based on small community size was nearly universal, and the environmental footprint of the species was minimal.

Agriculture ushered in a new era of diversified economic activities, higher productivity, and a growing population. An important social development of the era was the private ownership of land and other assets. These developments shattered the stability of the past. On the positive side, the end of stability forced humanity to break out of social stagnation. Technological innovations came at a faster rate. But progress brought troubles, too. Mobile bands had few things to fight over. Population growth and private ownership of assets raised the stakes for violence. Many societies responded to the new challenges by creating political institutions. Political authorities were able to reduce the level of violence within the community, which helped them prosper and grow in population. However, larger communities were more capable of inflicting harm on others, and this advantage provided an incentive for imperialist conquests, which caused many more tragedies.

​

The flare-up of violence in agrarian societies was inevitable. Agriculture provided more food than before, causing population growth, which often outpaced food production. The result was a climate of competition that sometimes led to violence. The existence of powerful states exacerbated the problem by causing more deaths and large-scale enslavement, but violence was also endemic in many small-scale farmer societies.

​

In some village societies, violence may have been an ecological adaptation to keep the population growth under control. William T. Divale of the American Museum of Natural History noticed more boys than girls under 15 in many tribal communities, even though more girls than boys are born naturally. In some places, the ratio of boys to girls was close to 3:2. The disappearance of a third of the females was a mystery. Curiously, the male-to-female ratio bounced back to 1:1 in the adult population. Anthropologist Marvin Harris suggested that New Guineans practiced female infanticide, which explained the low number of girls. But then, many young men died in tribal warfare, which brought the ratio back on par.[ii]

​

No region of the world can claim innocence of committing violence. The Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Iranians established empires long before the days of European colonialism. The two continents that suffered most under European occupation—America and Africa—had their own imperial powers. Slavery, too, was global. The Mediterranean region was once the major destination for slaves, most of whom were obtained from Northern Europe. Later, America became the prime destination and Africa the main source. British capital and Portuguese ships facilitated the trade, but African tribes and chiefs were responsible for slave hunting. Before the Atlantic trade routes became the most lucrative one, the Arab traders were the main suppliers of captives from the continent.

There is no point in blaming anybody for a tragic past in which every society played a role. History cannot be changed, and complaining does not heal. Societies stuck in ruminating about the past are prone to repeat it. The best way to deal with past sins is to accept them as our collective shame. Those tragedies must not be forgotten, but the scars should not hinder future progress. The twelve thousand years of the agricultural era should be understood for what it was—a tumultuous time of social adaptation following the end of the Ice Age and a stable lifestyle. We can take comfort in the fact that this era was not entirely a waste of time. There has been tremendous progress in technology, remarkable accomplishments in culture, and astounding advancements in the intellectual capacity of our species. These developments have lifted humans out of mere biological existence and set the stage for an unprecedented new era.

​

Stage Three is the age of science and technology, which began only a few centuries ago. We only need to look back to a few historical occasions to see how much the world has changed already. When the Great Plague hit Europe in the fourteenth century, people were helpless against it. But when another deadly epidemic spread worldwide in 2019, scientists developed vaccines in just about a year, saving millions of lives. In the eighteenth century, Thomas Malthus observed that global food production was not growing at the same rate as the population. He predicted disaster. The world population has increased about six times since then, but the prospect of a disastrous food crisis has receded. Science and technology have given humanity the capacity to deal with challenges. Unlike in the past, one does not have to steal from another to be rich. We are now in an era when cooperation can be more rewarding than competition. The last chapter of the book focuses on this new era of possibilities.

​

​

End Notes:

[i]       Mark W. Allen, Robert Lawrence Bettinger, Brian F. Codding, Terry L. Jones, and Al W. Schwitalla; “Resource scarcity drives lethal aggression among prehistoric hunter-gatherers in central California”; PNAS October 25, 2016; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607996113

[ii]      Marvin Harris; Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches; Vintage Books; 1974