Striving towards a sedentary lifestyle. §2

Consciousness(according to Wundt) - is the sum of the states or contents that I experience at the moment, of which I am directly aware at the moment. WITH(according to Locke) - as a defined process of reflection, the cat develops at a defined level of development. WITH- this is a collective and shared knowledge about ourselves and the world, each of us has a cat, a cat is represented with the help of meanings and words learned in childhood together with an adult. WITH- an active process of formation, retention, control of goals, fortunately we can perform actions (i.e. conscious behavior - purposeful). WITH - this is the highest level of mental reflection of objective reality, as well as the highest level of self-regulation, inherent only to people as a social being. 1) structure C includes a body of knowledge about the world, thanks to language, not only from personal experience, but also the cult-historical experience. 2) separation of subject and object (distinction between I and not I). A way to separate an object from your relationship to it. 3) With the ability to set goals (formation of goals, retention, implementation), thanks to which voluntary regulation of behavior is possible. A major stage in the development of psychology is associated with the name of Rene Descartes (rationalist philosophy). In the 17th century he first introduced the term “C”. In order to find the truth, you must first question everything, including the reliability of the information received by the senses. Only our doubt remains, and this is a sign that we think - we follow, we exist, we know about it - we are aware - consciousness. To think not only to understand, but also to desire, imagine, feel.

Consciousness as the highest form of mental reflection. Genesis and structure of consciousness. Consciousness and its characteristics The psyche as a reflection of reality is characterized at different levels. The highest level of the psyche, characteristic of a person, forms consciousness. Consciousness is the highest, integrating form of the psyche, the result of the socio-historical conditions of human formation in activity, with constant communication (through speech) with other people. Consequently, consciousness is a social product. Characteristics of consciousness.

1. Human consciousness includes a body of knowledge about the world. The structure of consciousness includes cognitive processes (perception, memory, imagination, thinking, etc.), with the help of which a person truly enriches knowledge about the world and about himself.

2. The second characteristic of consciousness is a clear distinction between “I” and “Not-I”. A person who has separated himself from the surrounding world continues to maintain peace in his consciousness and exercise self-awareness. A person makes a conscious assessment of himself, his thoughts, and actions.

3. The third characteristic of consciousness is ensuring goal setting. The functions of consciousness include the formation of goals, while motives are compared, volitional decisions are made, and the progress of achieving goals is taken into account.

4. The fourth characteristic is the inclusion of a certain attitude in the composition of consciousness. The world of his feelings enters a person’s consciousness; it represents the emotions of assessing interpersonal relationships.

In general, consciousness is characterized

1. Activity (selectivity),

2. intentionality (direction towards an object),

3. motivational and value character.

4. Different levels of clarity.

A. N. Leontiev has a hypothesis about the origin of consciousness. According to his definition, conscious reflection is a reflection of objective reality in which its “objective stable properties” are highlighted “regardless of the subject’s relationship to it.” This definition emphasizes the “objectivity,” that is, the biological impartiality, of conscious reflection. In accordance with the general position, according to which any change in mental reflection occurs following a change in practical activity, the impetus for the emergence of consciousness was the emergence of a new form of activity - collective labor. Any joint work presupposes a division of labor. This means that different members of the team begin to perform different operations, and different in one very significant respect: some operations immediately lead to a biologically useful result, while others do not give such a result, but act only as a condition for its achievement. Considered on their own, such operations appear biologically meaningless.

So, in conditions of collective work, for the first time, operations appear that are not directly aimed at the object of need - a biological motive, but have in mind only an intermediate result.

Within the framework of individual activity, this result becomes an independent goal. Thus, for the subject, the goal of an activity is separated from its motive; accordingly, a new unit is distinguished in the activity - action.

In terms of mental reflection, this is accompanied by experiencing the meaning of the action. After all, in order for a person to be encouraged to perform an action that leads only to an intermediate result, he must understand the connection of this result with the motive, that is, “discover” its meaning for himself. Meaning, according to A. N. Leontyev’s definition, is a reflection of the relationship between the purpose of an action and the motive.

To successfully perform an action, it is necessary to develop an “impartial” type of knowledge of reality. After all, actions begin to be directed towards an increasingly wider range of objects, and knowledge of the “objective stable properties” of these objects turns out to be a vital necessity. This is where the role of the second factor in the development of consciousness—speech and language—manifests itself. Most likely, the first elements of human speech appeared during joint labor actions. It was here, according to F. Engels, that people “had the need to say something to each other.”

A unique feature of the human language is its ability to accumulate knowledge acquired by generations of people. Thanks to her, language became the carrier of social consciousness. Thus, meanings and linguistic meanings turned out to be, according to A. N. Leontyev, the main formative elements of human consciousness.

Leontyev says that consciousness is a specifically human form of subjective reflection of objective reality; it can only be understood as a product of relationships and mediations that arise during the formation and development of society.

Structure of consciousness according to A.N. Leontiev. Components of consciousness:

a) Sensory fabric - sensory components of specific images of reality, actually perceived or emerging in memory, related to the future, or even just imaginary. The special function of sensory images of consciousness is that they give reality to the conscious picture of the world that is revealed to the subject, i.e. The world appears for the subject as existing not in consciousness, but outside his consciousness - as an objective field and object of his activity. The development of the sensory content of consciousness occurs in the process of development human forms activities. In humans, sensory images acquire a new quality, namely, meaning.

b) Meaning - the generalized experience of humanity, knowledge, expressed in language. The carrier of meanings is language, but behind the linguistic meanings are hidden socially developed methods of action, in the process of which people change and cognize objective reality

c) Personal meaning - meaning for me. The function of personal meaning is the partiality of consciousness (subjectivity of thinking).

According to Vygotsky, the components of consciousness are meanings (cognitive components of consciousness) and meanings (emotional and motivational components).

Consciousness is the highest, human-specific form of generalized reflection of the objective stable properties and patterns of the surrounding world, the formation of a person’s internal model of the external world, as a result of which knowledge and transformation of the surrounding reality is achieved.

The function of consciousness is to formulate the goals of activity, to preliminary mentally construct actions and anticipate their results, which ensures reasonable regulation of human behavior and activity. A person’s consciousness includes a certain attitude towards the environment and other people.

The following properties of consciousness are distinguished: building relationships, cognition and experience. This directly follows the inclusion of thinking and emotions in the processes of consciousness. Indeed, the main function of thinking is to identify objective relationships between phenomena of the external world, and the main function of emotion is to form a person’s subjective attitude towards objects, phenomena, and people. These forms and types of relationships are synthesized in the structures of consciousness, and they determine both the organization of behavior and the deep processes of self-esteem and self-awareness. Really existing in a single stream of consciousness, an image and a thought can, colored by emotions, become an experience.

The primary act of consciousness is the act of identification with the symbols of culture, which organizes human consciousness and makes a person human. The isolation of meaning, symbol and identification with it is followed by implementation, the child’s active activity in reproducing patterns of human behavior, speech, thinking, consciousness, the child’s active activity in reflecting the world around him and regulating his behavior.

There are two layers of consciousness (V.P. Zinchenko): I. Existential consciousness (consciousness for being), which includes: - biodynamic properties of movements, experience of actions, - sensory images. II. Reflective consciousness (consciousness for consciousness), including:

The epicenter of consciousness is the consciousness of one’s own “I”. Consciousness: 1) is born in being, 2) reflects being, 3) creates being. Functions of consciousness:

1) reflective, 2) generative (creative - creative), 3) regular-evaluative, 4) reflexive function - the main function that characterizes the essence of consciousness. The object of reflection can be: * reflection of the world, * thinking about it, * ways a person regulates his behavior, * the processes of reflection themselves, * his personal consciousness. The existential layer contains the origins and beginnings of the reflective layer, since meanings and meanings are born in the existential layer. The meaning expressed in a word contains: image, operational and objective meaning, meaningful and objective action. Words and language do not exist only as language; they objectify the forms of thinking that we master through the use of language.

As has been shown, different types of early primitive economic and cultural systems also presupposed different types, more precisely different quality human individuality. And the type and quality of man as a subject of the historical process, along with objective factors of the climate, animal and plant worlds, etc., played a very important, but, unfortunately, almost elusive role in the history of primitive society using the methods of scientific analysis.

Most favorable conditions for the development of personal qualities of people we find in consanguineous communities of the subtropical-temperate zone with its clearly defined gender and age division of labor (including within the family) and a developed reciprocal system (within which, as noted, everyone was interested in contributing to the public consumption fund as as much as possible in order to get more, but in the form of prestigious symbols and signs of public respect and recognition). In these conditions, faster than in other places, there was an improvement in the tools of individual labor (bows and arrows, the so-called “harvesting knives” and other things made using the microlithic-liner technique appeared), the development of individual ambitions (a powerful incentive for activity to satisfy them ) and an individual sense of responsibility both as a person (primarily a male breadwinner) to the community, and as members of a nuclear family to each other (wife and husband, parents and children). These trends, of course, should have been consolidated in traditional culture, be reflected in ritual practice and myths.

Thus, By the time of the catastrophic climatic and landscape shifts that occurred at the boundary of the Pleistocene and Holocene about 10 thousand years ago, a type of society had already developed on Earth, potentially capable of 190

the development of more complex, including productive, forms of life activity than hunting and gathering. Its representatives (thanks to a sufficient degree of individualization of economic and social life) were capable of relatively quick and effective adaptation to new conditions, and multidirectional adaptation. The choice of forms of adaptation to changing conditions of existence was determined by a complex interweaving of objective (landscape, climate, relief, number of people) and subjective (the volume and nature of people’s knowledge, the presence among them of authoritative enthusiastic innovators - the Toynbean “creative minority”, the willingness of others to take risks and change forms of life) moments. There were significant differences between different regions.

A planetary catastrophe caused by the rapid melting of glaciers, shifts and changes in the boundaries of climatic zones and landscape zones, rising sea levels and the flooding of colossal areas of coastal lowlands, changes in the coastline throughout the planet, led to a crisis in almost all life support systems of the late Pleistocene. The only exception was the societies of tropical gatherers, since near the equator the climate remained almost unchanged, although vast expanses of land went under water, especially in the regions of Indochina - Indonesia - the Philippines. The former ecological balance, a certain balance between the hunting-gathering communities scattered across the planet and the environment, was destroyed everywhere. This, in turn, was associated with a crisis in information support for the life of people whose traditional knowledge did not meet the requirements of changed circumstances.

Humanity has found itself at a bifurcation point. In conditions when the degree of instability of traditional systems (based on an appropriating economy) has sharply increased, a crisis of previous forms of life activity has broken out. Accordingly, a rapid increase in spontaneous fluctuations began - in the form of experimental, so to speak, “blind” searches for effective “responses” to the “challenges” of changed circumstances.

Success in this fight against the challenges of external forces was associated not least with the active and creative potential of people who found themselves in a critical situation. And they depended to a decisive extent on the type of sociocultural system that they represented. The greatest flexibility and mobility (including in spiritually) were demonstrated among them by those whose individual creative potential was less constrained by the traditional regulation of life activity. The corresponding societies had (other things being equal) the best chances of success.

However, we should not forget that external conditions in different regions were very different. The optimal combination of the challenge of external forces, the sociocultural type of society (with the corresponding nature of human individuality) and external conditions favorable for the transition to new types of economic activity (mild climate, the presence of reservoirs rich in fish, as well as plant and animal species suitable for domestication) was observed in the Middle East . Local protoneolithic societies at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene created, for the first time in human history, the prerequisites for the beginning of the civilizational process. Formation of a productive economy and breeding organization 191

Here, in the Eastern Mediterranean-Foreign Asian region, among communities, quite individualized in production and social terms, hunters and gatherers of rugged coastal-foothill-forest subtropical landscapes, approximately 12 thousand years ago we observe the formation of several lines of further evolution of primitive humanity. Among them, only one, associated with agricultural and pastoral farming, directly led to civilization. Somewhat later, similar processes occur in other regions of the globe, in particular in East Asia, as well as Central and South America.

Planetary environmental shifts associated with the melting of the glacier led to a divergence in the development paths of hunting-gathering groups of the Mediterranean-Central Asian region. I will note two of their main directions. On the one hand, in the conditions of the spread of forests north of the Alps and Carpathians, hunting-gathering groups from Northern Mediterranean(from the Iberian and Apennine peninsulas, southern France and the Balkans) began to explore the wide spaces of Central and Eastern, and then Northern and Northeastern Europe. The excess population settled in new, already forested spaces left by those who had gone to the high latitudes for herds reindeer hunters. On the other hand, with the increasing drying out of North Africa and Western Asia and the parallel advance of the seas, the population of many regions of the Middle East found themselves in a critical situation. The number of game animals was rapidly declining, which was especially acutely felt in Palestine, sandwiched between the sea, the spurs of Lebanon and the deserts approaching from the south (Sinai) and east (Arabia). Under these conditions, the “responses” to the “challenge” of external forces were, firstly, a reorientation towards the intensive use of food resources of water bodies, which quickly led to the development of specialized fishing, and, secondly, the formation of an early agricultural-pastoral economic and cultural complex - the basis further civilization process.

The first, Western Mediterranean-Central European line of development of hunting-gathering societies of closed landscapes of the first millennia of the Holocene is represented by materials from numerous Mesolithic cultures of the forest and forest-steppe spaces of Europe. They were characterized by adaptation to existing natural conditions and settlement within the corresponding landscape zone familiar to them. Wielding a bow and arrow, and being well adapted to life in the water-rich forest zone of Europe, small consanguineous communities of several families formed, as before in the Mediterranean, groups of related proto-ethnic groups. Within such intercommunity communities, information circulated and marriage partners, useful experiences and achievements were exchanged.

Constantly living near water, such people, without abandoning hunting and gathering, paid increasing attention over time to the use of food resources of water bodies. The first permanent settlements of specialized fishermen appeared in Europe (at the Dnieper rapids, in the area of ​​the Iron Gates on the Danube, along the southern coast of the North Sea, in the Southern Baltic, etc.) approximately in the 8th-7th millennium BC. BC, while in the Eastern Mediterranean they date back at least one to two millennia earlier. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether shuttle-net fishing is being formed 192 ________________________________________

production in the most convenient places in Europe independently, or by borrowing the corresponding economic and technical achievements from the Middle East, from where groups of fishermen through the Mediterranean and the Aegean could get to the Black Sea and Danube regions quite early.

In conditions of a balanced hunting-fishing-gathering (with an increasingly focused on fishing) economic system, the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic proto-ethnic groups were distinguished by low population density and its very slow growth. With the increase in the number of people, it was possible to resettle several young families down or up the river, since the spaces were suitable for conducting a complex appropriative economy in Europe, as in North America, Siberia or the Far East, for many millennia there was plenty.

As in Paleolithic times, these kind of consanguineous communities organically fit into the landscape, becoming the highest link of the corresponding biocenoses. But the consumer attitude towards the environment, which presupposed the already conscious "(as evidenced by ethnographic data) maintaining a balance between the number of people and the natural food base, blocked the possibilities of further evolution. Therefore, significant economic and sociocultural changes in the forest belt of Neolithic Europe were caused, first in total, by the spread of foreign, more developed population groups from the south, mainly from the Middle East through the Balkan-Danube-Carpathian region and the Caucasus.

In the Middle East, during the first millennia of the Holocene, a fundamentally different picture was observed, determined by the “Neolithic revolution” that swept the region. Researchers, in particular V.A. Shnirelman, managed to connect the areas of the most ancient agricultural crops with the centers of origin of cultivated plants N.I. Vavilova.

The emergence of agriculture was preceded by fairly effective gathering, thanks to which man learned the vegetative properties of plants and created the appropriate tools. However, the undoubted origin of agriculture based on gathering does not yet answer the question: why do people, instead of collecting ready-made crops in areas where edible plants naturally grow (as was the case in Paleolithic times), begin to cultivate the land in other places? Such places of land cultivation have always been areas located near places of permanent residence of people. Consequently, the origin of agriculture presupposed the presence of at least early forms of sedentary life, which should have appeared somewhat earlier than the cultivation of cultivated plants. According to the well-founded conclusion of V.F. Geninga, sedentarism arises primarily as a result of the reorientation of hunting-gathering communities to the specialized use of aquatic food resources. This was due (particularly in the Middle East) to a catastrophic decrease in the number of game animals.

The focus on the active use of food resources in water bodies contributed to the concentration of the population along the banks of rivers, lakes and seas. Here the first permanent settlements appeared, known in Palestine from the X-IX millennium BC. e. - on Lake Hule (Einan settlement) and nearby Mediterranean Sea near Mount Carmel. In both cases, evidence was found of sufficient Formation of a producing farm and breeding organization ___________________________193

but developed net-shuttle fishing (sinkers from nets, bones of deep-sea fish, etc.).

The reduction in the number of game animals and the success of fishing thus contributed to the concentration of people around water bodies, creating conditions for the transition to sedentism. Fishing provided constant food without the need to move all members of the community. Men could sail for a day or more, while women and children remained in the communal village. Such changes in lifestyle contributed to the beginning of a rapid increase in population size and density. They made it easier (compared to the mobile lifestyle of hunters and gatherers) for pregnant and lactating women, and helped reduce the number of cases of death or injury to men (more frequent during hunting than during fishing).

Since fishing settlements were usually located at a considerable distance from fields of wild cereals and places of growth of other edible plants, there was a natural desire to bring such fields closer to communal settlements, especially since the conditions for growing plants (well-manured soils around settlements located near water, protection from wild animals and flocks of birds) were very favorable here. In other words, for the emergence of agriculture it was necessary the presence of at least three conditions (not taking into account the very fact of the crisis of the appropriating economy):

1) the presence in the environment of plant species that are fundamentally suitable for domestication;

2) the emergence, as a result of thousands of years of specialized collecting practice, of sufficient knowledge about the vegetative properties of plants and the tools necessary for agricultural work (at first, not very different from those used by the gatherers);

3) transition to a sedentary lifestyle near water bodies due to long-term intensive use of their food resources, primarily through the development of fisheries.

However, it is noteworthy that the primary cells of agriculture everywhere arise near reservoirs with limited supplies food resources, while on sea coasts, in floodplains and the mouths of great rivers, fishing retains a leading role for a long time. Thus, in the Middle East, the most ancient forms of agriculture are found in the Jordan Valley, as well as along the tributaries of the Tigris in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains and near the lakes of Central Anatolia (where they apparently came from Palestine and Syria), in areas where there were wild ancestors of many domestic plants, and the food resources of reservoirs were limited, but not in the then swampy Nile Valley, the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, or on the Syro-Cilicia coast.

In the same way, the lakeside area of ​​the Valley of Mexico, located among the dry plateau of Central Mexico, and the nearest coasts of the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, lakes and river valleys of the Andean plateau are contrasted with the Peruvian coast. The same, it seems, can be said about the relationship between economic development trends in the interior regions of Indochina with the eastern foothills of Tibet - and the coasts of Southeast Asia, China and Japan.

Opportunities for the emergence of agriculture probably existed in much wider areas than those where it first appeared. 194 Primitive foundations of civilization

But under conditions of fairly productive fishing, people, leading a sedentary life and even having necessary knowledge in the field of agriculture, quite consciously retain their traditional way life activity.

The reorientation of the economy to the cultivation of edible plants occurs only in the case when the declining food resources of water bodies were no longer able to satisfy the needs of the growing population. Only the crisis of the traditional appropriating economy forces people to switch to agriculture and animal husbandry. As R. Carneiro showed using ethnographic materials from the Amazon, unless absolutely necessary, hunters and fishermen do not reorient themselves to agriculture.

That is why the Neolithic population of the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, the coasts of Syria and Cilicia, the Persian Gulf and Japan, the Caspian and Aral, Yucatan and Peru, and many other regions for a long time, maintaining direct relations with neighboring agricultural and pastoral societies and being familiar with the basics of their economic structure, remained committed to the fishing way of life, only partially and to a low extent supplementing it with hunting and gathering, and then with early forms of agriculture and cattle breeding.

During the 9th-6th millennium BC. e. specialized fishing societies in thin chains from the Middle East spread throughout the Mediterranean, rise to the middle reaches of the Nile, and develop the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Groups similar to them at the same time become the leading ethnocultural force in the Caspian and Aral regions, the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. Such communities left traces of Neolithic settlements in the area of ​​the Kerch Strait, on the Dnieper and Danube, along the coasts of the Baltic and North Seas, etc. But, being strictly tied to their ecological niches, fishing groups, in general, have little influence on the hunting societies of neighboring, internal regions. In addition, the possibilities for their development were fundamentally limited by natural resources, which man could only deplete, but not restore. Therefore, the line of evolution based on specialized fishing leads to a dead end, the only way out of which can be a reorientation to agricultural and pastoral activities. As G. Child rightly noted at one time. If societies with an appropriating economy live at the expense of nature, then those oriented towards a reproducing economy enter into cooperation with it. The latter ensures further development towards civilization.

Thus, in areas with limited food resources of water bodies, in the presence of favorable external factors, under conditions of increasing demographic pressure, a relatively rapid transition occurs from fishing-hunting-gathering forms of economy to an early agricultural-pastoral economy. However, in areas rich in fish resources, society can exist for quite a long time on the basis of specialized fishing and sea hunting. Over a fairly long period, both noted lines of evolution provide approximately equal opportunities for increasing - based on the regular receipt of surplus food products and a sedentary lifestyle - demographic potential, the effectiveness of the system of social organization, the accumulation and movement of cultural information, the development of religious and mythological ideas, ritual and magical practices, various typesEstablishment of a producing farm and breeding organization

arts, etc. Among the early farmers and higher fishermen, we equally see large stationary settlements and clan cults, a system of gender and age stratification with the first elements of dominance within the communities of individual noble clans and families. Ethnographically, this is well illustrated by materials from New Guinea and Melanesia.

At the same time, it is important to emphasize that, as V.F. rightly noted. Gening, the actual clan relations, based on the idea of ​​vertical kinship associated with the counting of tribes and genealogical lines, going into the depths of the past, appear only with the transition to settled life. They have a certain socio-economic content: justification (through the continuity of generations) of the right of those living to permanent fishing grounds (primarily fishing) and land used (for agricultural crops or pastures). Tribal settled communities own their territories on the basis that these lands belonged to their ancestors, whose spirits retain supreme patronage over them.

It was in the Neolithic, with the transition to sedentarism based on higher forms fishing and early agriculture, a clan appears as a social institution with a clear knowledge by its members of the stages of kinship, as well as rituals of honoring the founder of the clan and other ancestors, including those that no one living has seen, but heard about them from representatives of older generations. This is reflected in the veneration of graves and the cult of the skulls of ancestors, in the practice of creating ancestral burial grounds and the appearance of totem poles with symbolically represented images of ancestors, often endowed with expressive totemic features. Such pillars are well known, for example, among the Polynesians or the Indians of the northwestern coast of North America.

Meanwhile, as the food resources of water bodies are depleted and the crisis of fishing societies begins, especially with the increase in population, when some people were forced to settle far from water bodies rich in fish, we observe a constant increase in the role of agriculture and livestock farming (naturally, where it was possible ).

Moreover, in many places previously inhabited by groups wholly focused on fishing, rapid rates of development (in relation to neighboring territories with more ancient agricultural traditions) are observed. The above applies to Egypt, Sumer and the river valley. Indus (compared to Palestine and Syria, Zagros and Central Anatolia) starting from the 5th millennium BC. e., and to the coasts of Yucatan and Peru (compared to the plateau of Central Mexico and the valleys of the Andes) from, respectively, the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. e.

It should also be noted that while the population of the centers of rapid development, based on increasingly improved forms of agriculture, intensified its development, on their periphery the rate of evolution and population growth was much lower. Therefore, the excess human mass from such centers increasingly settled in the surrounding lands, where natural conditions were favorable for farming.

The demographic potential of the early farmers was always significantly greater than that of their neighbors, and their economic and cultural type was higher and more perfect. Therefore, when interacting with their neighbors, they, as a rule, either displaced or assimilated them. However, in some cases, if

Primitive foundations of civilization

Fishermen came into contact with the advancing farmers; the latter, perceiving the basis of a reproducing economy, could preserve their ethno-linguistic identity. This, obviously, happened in Lower Mesopotamia during the formation of the community of the ancient Sumerians.

The relevance of the problem of the transition of nomadic peoples to sedentary life is determined by the tasks put forward by life, on the solution of which further progress in the social development of a country where a nomadic way of life still exists largely depends.

This problem has repeatedly attracted the attention of ethnographers, economists, historians, philosophers and other researchers.

Since the 1950s, international organizations - the UN, the ILO. FAO, UNESCO, as well as progressive scientists from many countries began to study the situation of modern nomads and look for ways to improve it.

Soviet scientists made a great contribution to the development from a Marxist-Leninist perspective of issues related to the history, culture, economy and life of nomads. The history of nomadic life, the peculiarities of the culture and life of nomads, the patterns and prospects for the development of their economy and culture, ways to solve the problem of settling down - all this was illuminated in the works of S. M. Abramzon, S. I. Vainshtein, G. F. Dakhshleiger, T. A. Zhdanko, S. I. Ilyasova, L. P. Lashuk, G. E. Markov, P. V. Pogorelsky, L. P. Potapov, S. E. Tolybekova, A. M. Khazanova, N. N. Cheboksarov and others.

Even during the Neolithic period, a complex settled agricultural and cattle-breeding economy arose in a number of regions of Eurasia. At the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. at its base in some mountain-steppe regions there was a transition of individual tribes to nomadic cattle breeding.

G. E. Markov and S. I. Vainstein believe that the transition to nomadic life was caused by landscape and climatic changes, the development of the productive forces of society, socio-economic characteristics, political and cultural conditions.

Before the victory of the Mongolian People's Revolution, the Mongols were typical nomads. They adapted to their extensive nomadic economy and their family life, morals, and customs depended on it. However, nomadic peoples were never isolated throughout their historical development. They were in close economic and cultural contacts with neighboring settled tribes. Moreover, as K. Marx noted, in the same ethnic group there was a certain “general relationship between the sedentism of one part... and the continuing nomadism of the other part. The process of settling of Mongolian nomads was observed throughout historical eras either as a mass phenomenon, or as a departure from the nomadic clans of certain groups of the population who began to engage in agriculture. This process was also noted among other nomads of Eurasia.

A massive transition to a sedentary lifestyle can take two paths. The first is the forced displacement of nomads and semi-nomads from the pasture territories they have developed, while maintaining private ownership of the means of production and deepening property inequality, legal and actual national discrimination. This is how this process goes in capitalist countries. The second way - voluntary settlement - is possible with the establishment of national and social equality, a developed economy, and with targeted material and ideological assistance from the state. The psychological preparedness of the masses for the transition to settled life and their active participation in breaking up archaic forms of property and economy are also necessary. This path is typical for socialist countries.

The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution opened such a path for the previously nomadic peoples of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tuva. Simultaneously with the voluntary cooperation of individual farms, the problem of the transition of nomads to a sedentary lifestyle was solved.

As a result of the victory of the people's revolution, favorable economic and ideological conditions were created for solving the problem of settlement in Mongolia. The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party has outlined a realistic program for the gradual and systematic implementation of the transition to sedentism over a certain period. The first stage of its implementation was the cooperation of individual Arat farms. By the end of the 50s, certain successes had been achieved in the development of the economy, social relations, and culture, and the living standards of the working people had become stronger. Thanks to the selfless assistance of the fraternal socialist countries, especially the Soviet Union, the Mongolian People's Republic began to complete the construction of the material and technical base of socialism. At this time, the transition of livestock breeders to a sedentary lifestyle began. The promotion of this task is a natural and objective phenomenon in the process of progressive development of the country. Its solution is of great theoretical and practical importance, since the experience of Mongolia can be used by other countries where nomadic and semi-nomadic livestock farming still exists

The famous Mongolian scientist N. Zhagvaral writes that the transfer of hundreds of thousands of Arat farms to settled life is not an end in itself. The solution to this problem will make it possible to more widely introduce mechanization into agriculture, the achievements of science and advanced experience to sharply increase food production, strengthen agricultural associations (hereinafter - Agricultural Associations) and on this basis raise the material standard of living of the arats.

Soviet scientist V.V. Grayvoronsky traces two main ways of settlement of nomads in the Mongolian People's Republic. The first involves the transition from traditional forms of economic activity, in particular nomadic animal husbandry or reindeer herding, to new ones - agriculture, work in industry, construction, transport, etc. This path usually requires a relatively short period of time. The second way is based on the transformation, modernization and intensification of nomadic livestock farming while maintaining traditional look farms.

Currently, in the Mongolian People's Republic, a pastoral nomadic lifestyle is characteristic of more than 50% of arats. Mongolian researchers define the concept of “nomadism” differently.

Soviet and Mongolian scientists were engaged in typologizing Mongolian nomads. Thus, A.D. Simukov identified the following six types: Khangai, steppe, Western Mongolian, Ubur-Khangai, Eastern and Gobi. N.I. Denisov believed that, in accordance with the traditional division of the country into the Khangai, steppe and Gobi zones, there are only three types of nomads. However, if A.D. Simukov, in his too detailed classification, classified the usual change of pastures, characteristic of limited areas, as nomads, then N.I. Denisov did not take into account the specifics of nomads in the steppes of Eastern Mongolia. N. Zhagvaral, based on a careful study of the characteristic features and traditions of the economy of Mongolia, its natural conditions, and the change of pastures in different regions of the country, came to the conclusion that there are five types of nomads: Khenteisk, Khangai, Gobi, Western and Eastern.

The migrations of Mongolian arats, methods of breeding livestock - all this characterizes the features of cattle breeding. The entire material culture of pastoralists, due to tradition, is adapted to nomadism. However, since the arats roam in small groups consisting of several families, this way of life makes it difficult to introduce price elements of culture into their era and the formation of socialist features in the life of members of agricultural associations.

At the same time, migrations also play a positive role, since they allow livestock to graze on pastures all year round and obtain significant products with relatively little labor input. Both of these opposing tendencies are constantly at work as livestock farmers transition to a sedentary lifestyle.

Changing camps during migrations in the Khangai zone is called nutag selgekh (selgegu) (literally “to step aside”), in the steppe - tosh (tobšigu) (literally “to change the nomads”). These names and the corresponding methods of migration have been preserved to this day.

In the USSR, three main types of migrations are known: 1) meridional (from north to south and back); 2) vertical (from valleys to mountains, to alpine meadows); 3) around pastures and water sources (in semi-desert and desert areas).

To typology of nomadism in the Mongolia, as well as in other regions of the globe, in addition to geographical conditions, it is important to take into account the methods of nomadism and equipment of the arats, their way of life, and the geographical location of enterprises for processing agricultural raw materials.

As field studies show, the direction of pastoralist migrations in certain regions of the Mongolian People's Republic depends on the location of mountains and springs, soil characteristics, precipitation, air temperature, meteorological conditions and grass stand. In each area, certain directions of migrations predominate.

The most typical migrations for the Mongols are from the northeast to the southwest or from the northwest to the southeast, i.e. meridional direction; these are migrations of the Khangai or mixed zone, most pastoralists of the steppe zone graze cattle in the Khangai zone in the summer, and in the steppe zone in the winter.

In the steppes of Eastern Mongolia, in the basin of the Great Lakes, in the Mongolian Altai region, the population migrates from west to east, that is, in the latitudinal direction.

The classic form of Mongolian migrations, depending on their length, is divided into two types: close and long-distance. In the mountain and forest-steppe zone (Khangai, for example) they migrate over a short distance, in the valley of the Big Lakes they migrate relatively far; they are even longer in the Gobi zone. Agricultural enterprises in the Mongolian People's Republic are distributed over five zones: about 60 are assigned to the high mountain zone, over 40 to the forest-steppe zone, 60 to the steppe zone, 40 to the Great Lakes basin, about 40 to the Gobi zone. In total, there are 259 agricultural enterprises and 45 state farms in the country. On average, one agricultural enterprise now accounts for 452 thousand hectares of land and 69 thousand heads of public livestock, and one livestock and agricultural state farm has 11 thousand hectares of crop area and 36 thousand heads of livestock.

In addition to the above-mentioned nomads of the classical form, agricultural organizations of all five zones also use a lightweight type of nomadism, which allows the transition to a semi-sedentary lifestyle.

About 190 agricultural organizations already make only short and ultra-short migrations. Approximately 60 agricultural enterprises roam long and ultra-long distances.

Analyzing the migrations of members of the association in Khangai and Khentei over four seasons, we found that in mountainous areas livestock breeders migrate twice a year over distances of 3-5 km. Such migrations are characteristic of a semi-sedentary lifestyle. In some steppe and Gobi regions, migration over a distance of 10 km is considered short-range. In the Eastern Steppe, in the basin of the Great Lakes, in the Gobi belt, they sometimes migrate over long distances of 100-300 km. This form of migration is characteristic of 60 agricultural enterprises.

In order to determine the nature of modern migrations, we divided livestock breeders - members of agricultural cooperatives into two main groups: those raising cattle and breeding small livestock. Below is a summary of some data collected during field research in the Eastern and Ara-Khangai aimags.

Livestock breeders raising small ruminants unite in groups of several people and quite often change their camp sites, since their herds are much more numerous than herds of cattle. For example, the shepherd of the first brigade from the Tsagan-Obo somon of the Eastern aimag Ayuush, 54 years old, together with his wife and son are responsible for herding more than 1,800 sheep. He changes pastures 11 times a year, transporting pens for livestock with him, and goes to the pasture 10 times. The total length of its migrations is 142 km; it stays at one site from 5 to 60 days.

Another example of the organization of livestock breeders’ nomads in the east of the country is R. Tsagandamdin’s sur. R. Tsagandamdin herds sheep, making a total of 21 migrations a year, 10 of them he does together with his entire family, housing and property, and 11 times he goes alone to drive away the cattle. These examples already show that at present there have been changes in the nature of migrations. If previously livestock breeders roamed all year round with their families, housing and farming, now about half of the migrations per year are spent on transhumance.

In Khangai, there are nomadic herders grazing cattle. Khangai cattle breeders are currently switching to a semi-nomadic lifestyle, which is manifested in the organization of livestock suras and farms, the nature and form of rural-type settlements. Thus, workers of the farms of the Ikh-Tamir somon put their yurts in one place in the summer.

Although the migrations of all herders engaged in cattle breeding have many common features, they also have their own characteristics in different areas. For comparison with the above-mentioned farms of the Ikh-Tamir somon of the Ara-Khangai aimag, we can take the nomadic herders engaged in cattle breeding in the steppe zone of Eastern Mongolia. Based on a combination of the experience and working methods of arat-pastoralists and the recommendations of specialists in the Tsagam-Obo soum of the Eastern aimag, a schedule of migrations of livestock breeders has been compiled, who change pastures depending on weather conditions.

The appearance of electricity on winter roads, the construction of economic and cultural facilities, residential buildings - all this convincingly indicates that fundamental changes have occurred in the life of the arats and stationary points have emerged around which nomads are settling. The transition to sedentarism, in particular, can already be observed in the example of 11 cattle breeding farms of the “Galuut” agricultural enterprise in the Tsagan-Obo soum of the Eastern aimag. During the year, these farms make only two small migrations (2-8 km) between winter roads located in the areas of Zhavkhlant, Salkhit and Elst, and summer pastures in the valley of the river. Bayan-goal.

In places where individual livestock surnas and farms are located, joint efforts are being made to build red corners, nurseries and gardens, cultural and community facilities, which gives the Arats the opportunity to spend their leisure time culturally, and also helps to overcome their traditional disunity. When creating such cultural and social centers, the prospects for their development are taken into account: the presence of nearby cattle shelters, water sources, the possibility of harvesting hay and feed, and the characteristics of various types of economic activities engaged in by residents of the area. Be sure to select the most densely populated areas (winter roads, summer roads) and accurately determine the wintering sites, as well as the duration of the nomads’ stays. Similar processes were noted by K. A. Akishev on the territory of Kazakhstan.

In this regard, there is no need to travel long distances. The main natural factor that determined the emergence of nomadic cattle breeding as a specific form of economy and constant migration routes is the frequency of consumption of sparse vegetation by livestock, unevenly (distributed over vast areas of steppes, semi-deserts and deserts, and seasonal alternation of grass stand. In accordance with the state of the grass stand in one or another area, as well as the time of year, the nomad is forced to periodically change camping sites, move from already depleted pastures to still unused... Therefore, the arats, along with their families and herds, were forced to constantly move throughout the year.

So, we can conclude that the direction of migrations depended primarily on the natural features of the area, and then on its socio-economic development. The directions of migrations in mountain forest areas with rich vegetation and good pastures can be traced more clearly compared to migrations in the steppe and desert zones.

The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party and the government of the Mongolian People's Republic pay great attention to strengthening the material base of agriculture in order to intensify agricultural production. First of all, this is strengthening the food supply, storing hay and watering pastures.

During the years of the fifth five-year plan, the state invested 1.4 times more funds in strengthening the material and technical base of agriculture than in the previous five-year plan. A large biological plant, 7 state farms, 10 mechanized dairy farms, 16.6 thousand livestock buildings for 7.1 million heads of small cattle and 0.6 million heads of cattle were built and put into operation. 7 thousand watering points were also built for additional watering of more than 14 million hectares of pastures, and 3 large and 44 small irrigation systems engineering type in a number of aimags.

With the complete victory of the socialist industrial relations In the agriculture of the Mongolian People's Republic, the material well-being and cultural level of agricultural association members began to grow rapidly. This is also facilitated by the continuous process of transition to sedentarism. Since the beginning of the 60s, this process has become more intense, which is associated with the spread of the transhumance method of livestock farming. At the same time, a search began for ways to transition all livestock breeders to a settled state. This takes into account that nomads are forced to adapt to the sedentary population.

Until 1959, the transition to settled life took place in an unorganized manner. In December 1959, the IV Plenum of the Central Committee of the MPRP was held, which determined the tasks of further organizational and economic strengthening of the agricultural enterprise. Currently, the process of settlement presupposes, on the one hand, the transition of livestock breeders to a sedentary life, and on the other, the development of a sedentary method of animal husbandry.

The nature of the subsidence process changes depending on the stages of the socialist transformation of agriculture. It includes such interconnected and interdependent moments as staying in one place, “light” type nomadism, using pastures as the main food supply and driving away livestock.

Differences in the degree and pace of settlement of pastoralists in different areas countries are manifested, firstly, in the provision of settled settlements with cultural and consumer services; secondly, in the appearance, along with the central points of settlement - the estates of agricultural associations - the beginnings of the transition to sedentism in the places where livestock farms and suryas were located. Both factors are determined by the organizational and financial capabilities of agricultural organizations.

In most agricultural enterprises in the country, livestock farming is currently combined with agriculture, as a result of which a new type of economy has emerged. The party and government are striving to develop local industry based on the processing of agricultural, livestock and poultry products. In this regard, in Lately Locally, there is an increase in the specialization of livestock farming and the emergence of industries designed for its sustainable development.

The majority of agricultural organizations and state farms face such important questions, as the specialization of the main production, the development of those industries that best correspond to the specific economic conditions of a given zone, the creation of a strong and sustainable foundation for their further development. The correct choice and development of the most profitable sectors of the economy will help solve the problem of settled life on the basis of the current level of economic and cultural development of society.

Each agricultural enterprise has main and auxiliary sectors of the economy. In order to select the most profitable ones, further increase production efficiency and specialize it, it is necessary:

1. to ensure conditions under which all sectors would comply with these natural and economic conditions;
2. to target agricultural organizations at the development of only the most suitable sectors of the economy;
3. streamline the species structure of the herd;
4. develop livestock farming in combination with agriculture;
5. clearly establish the direction of specialization of the economy;
6. improve basic techniques and methods of livestock farming.

Pasture-nomadic cattle breeding in Mongolia is successfully combined with transhumance, a more progressive method of livestock farming that meets new social conditions. Centuries-old folk experience and data from modern science, complementing each other, contribute to the gradual and successful introduction of this method into the country’s economy.

There is still no consensus on what transhumance livestock farming is: some authors classify it as a sedentary type of farming; others consider it one of the varieties of nomadic animal husbandry; some believe it is a new method of animal husbandry; a number of scientists claim that the basis of the transhumance method is the centuries-old experience of cattle breeders, which is being creatively used at the present time. Transhumance livestock farming creates favorable conditions for the population's transition to sedentary life and provides opportunities for taking the first steps in this direction. Transhumance is one of the old traditional progressive methods of livestock farming, which allows, on the one hand, to ease the work of cattle breeders, and on the other, to get a good feeding of livestock. During the transition to sedentary life, in principle, two development paths are possible: 1) transition to livestock keeping in stalls and 2) improvement of methods of using pastures as the main source of feed. Depending on factors such as the natural and climatic conditions of a given area, the state of the livestock feed supply, the nature of the economy, traditions, the level of socio-economic development, for a certain period within the framework of one state farm or agricultural association, various forms of nomadism and migration can simultaneously exist. settled life. During this period, nomadic, semi-nomadic, semi-sedentary and sedentary lifestyles will be preserved to one degree or another.

Our observations and collected materials allow us to identify differences in the lifestyle of pastoralists involved in breeding large and small livestock. The former are characterized by a semi-sedentary lifestyle, while the latter are dominated by a pastoral-nomadic form of farming, combined with transhumance. Nowadays, the majority of Mongolian pastoralists are engaged in breeding small ruminants. They, as a rule, combine “light” migrations with the transhumance method of grazing livestock, which is becoming increasingly widespread. “Lightweight” migrations are one of the ways to transfer the arats - members of the agricultural association - to sedentary life.

The central estates of state farms and agricultural enterprises are becoming increasingly urbanized. These are administrative, economic and cultural centers in rural areas; their task is to provide all the needs of the population who have switched to a sedentary lifestyle.

Considering that about 700 thousand people currently live in the cities of the Mongolian People's Republic, we can say that the lifestyle of Mongolian workers has changed radically; 47.5% of the population completely switched to a sedentary lifestyle. The process of transition of pastoralists to a sedentary lifestyle has acquired completely new features: traditional material culture is enriched, new socialist forms of culture are spreading.

Became widely used in households electrical devices(washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, televisions, etc.) and various types of furniture made abroad, as well as yurts, all parts of which - the pole, walls, haalga (door), felt - are manufactured at industrial enterprises of the Mongolian People's Republic.

Along with traditional furniture and household utensils, the rural population uses industrially produced household items, which improves the living conditions of the arats and promotes the development of a culture that is socialist in content and national in form.

Currently, Mongols wear both national clothes made of wool and leather, and clothes of European cut. Modern fashion is spreading in the city.

Both in the city and in rural areas, food includes meat sausages and canned fish, various vegetables, industrial flour products, produced by the food industry, the range of which is constantly increasing. The food industry of the Mongolian People's Republic produces various semi-finished and finished products, which facilitates women's domestic work. Urban and rural populations are increasingly using bicycles, motorcycles, and cars. The introduction of urban culture into the life and everyday life of the arats leads to a further increase in the material well-being of the people.

Thus, the general trend in the development of the daily production and home life of pastoralists is to reduce the proportion of its specifically nomadic components and to increase such elements of cultural behavior that are more characteristic of a sedentary lifestyle, leading to it or associated with it.

The settlement process of pastoralists has an overall impact positive influence on general development Agriculture. When transferring agricultural workers to settle down, it is necessary to take into account the division of the country into three zones - western, central and eastern and each of them into three subzones - forest-steppe, steppe and Gobi (semi-desert). Only by taking these factors into account can we finally solve the problem of the transition to sedentarization of members of agricultural associations, which will lead to the complete elimination of the negative impact of nomadic specifics on life, the final introduction of working pastoralists to the benefits and values ​​of a sedentary lifestyle.

CERTAIN FEATURES OF THE TRANSITION TO A SEDENTARY WAY OF LIFE IN THE MONGOLIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

The paper deals with certain features characterizing the transition of nomads to a sedentary way of life in the Mongolian People’s Republic. The author distinguishes several types of nomadism according to geographical zones, with corresponding types of transition to sedentary life. He dwells upon both favorable and unfavorable features of nomadism and then shows how some of the former can be made use of in the development of modern animal husbandry.

The paper takes into consideration all those innovations in the life of sheep and cattle breeders that have accompanied the completion of co-operation and the intensive process of urbanization in the steps.

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* This article was written based on the author’s study of the forms and characteristics of the nomadic and sedentary life of livestock breeders of the Mongolian People’s Republic. Materials were collected during 1967-1974.
T. A. Zhdanko. Some aspects of the study of nomadism at the present stage. Report at the VIII International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences. M., 1968, p. 2.
See: V.V. Grayvoronsky. Transformation of the nomadic way of life in the MPR. - “Peoples of Asia and Africa”, 1972, No. 4; N. Zhagvaral. Aratism and Arat farming. Ulaanbaatar, 1974; U. Nyamdorzh. Philosophical and sociological patterns of development of settled life among the Mongols. - “Studia historical, t. IX, fasc. 1-12, Ulaanbaatar, 1971; G. Batnasan. Some issues of nomadism and the transition to sedentary life of members of an agricultural association (on the example of the Taryat somon of Ara-Khangai, the Uldziit somon of Bayan-Khongor and the Dzun-Bayan-Ulan somon of the Uver-Khangai aimaks). - “Studia ethnographical, t. 4, fasc. 7-9, Ulaanbaatar, 1972 (in Mongolian).
T. A. Zhdanko. Decree. worker, p. 9.
S. I. Vainshtein. Problems of the origin and formation of the economic and cultural type of nomadic pastoralists temperate zone Eurasia. Report at the IX International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences. M., 1973, p. 9; G. E. Markov. Some problems of the emergence and early stages of nomadism in Asia. - “Sov. ethnography”, 1973, N° 1, p. 107; A. M. Khazanov. Characteristic features of nomadic societies of the Eurasian steppes. Report at the IX International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences. M., 1973, p. 2.
G. E. Markov. Decree. worker, p. 109-111; S. I. Vainshtein. Historical ethnography of Tuvans. M., 1972, p. 57-77.
S. M. Abramzon. The influence of the transition to a sedentary lifestyle on the transformation of the social system, family life and culture of former nomads and semi-nomads (using the example of the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz). - “Essays on the history of the economy of the peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.” L., 1973, p. 235.
By lightweight migration, the author understands migration over a short distance, on which the herder takes with him only the most necessary things, leaving the property in place with one of the adult family members.
Sur is the primary form of production association of livestock farmers in Mongolia.
G. Batnasan. Some issues of nomadism and the transition to sedentary life..., p. 124.
K. A. Akishev. Decree. worker, p. 31.
Ya. Tsevel. Nomads. - “Modern Mongolia”, 1933, No. 1, p. 28.
Yu. Tsedenbal. Decree. worker, p. 24.
V. A. Pulyarkin. Nomadism in the modern world.- “Izv. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Ser. Geogr", 1971, No. 5, p. thirty.
V. A. Pulyarkin. Decree. worker, p. thirty.

Sedentism and domestication, together and separately, transformed human life in ways that still influence our lives today.

“Our Earth”

Sedentism and domestication represent not only technological changes, but also changes in worldview. Land is no longer a free commodity available to everyone, with resources randomly scattered throughout its territory - it has become a special territory, owned by someone or a group of people, on which people grow plants and livestock. Thus, a sedentary lifestyle and high levels of resource extraction lead to property ownership that was rare in previous forager societies. Burial sites, heavy goods, permanent housing, grain processing equipment, and fields and livestock tied people to their place of residence. Human influence on the environment has become stronger and more noticeable since the transition to sedentism and the growth of agriculture; people began to increasingly change the surrounding area - building terraces and walls to protect against floods.

Fertility, sedentary lifestyle and food system

The most dramatic consequences of sedentism are changes in female fertility and population growth. Row various effects together led to an increase in population.

Fertility Distribution Intervals

Among modern foragers, female pregnancy occurs once every 3-4 years, due to the long period of breastfeeding characteristic of such societies. Duration does not mean that children are weaned at 3-4 years, but that feeding will last as long as the child needs it, even in cases of several times an hour (Shostak 1981). This feeding stimulates the secretion of hormones that suppress ovulation (Henry 1989). Henry points out that “the adaptive significance of such a mechanism is obvious in the context of nomadic foragers, because one child who needs to be cared for for 3-4 years creates serious problems for the mother, but a second or third during this interval will create an unsolvable problem for her and will jeopardize her health...”
There are many more reasons why feeding lasts 3-4 years among foragers. Their diet is rich in proteins, also low in carbohydrates, and lacks soft foods that are easy for babies to digest. In fact, Marjorie Szostak noted that among the Bushmen, modern foragers in the Kalahari Desert, food is coarse and difficult to digest: “To survive in such conditions, a child must be over 2 years old, preferably much older” (1981). After six months of nursing, the mother has no food that can be found and prepared for the baby in addition to her own milk. Among the Bushmen, infants over 6 months old are given solid, already chewed or crushed food, complementary foods, which begin the transition to solid food.
The length of time between pregnancies serves to maintain long-term energy balance in women during their reproductive years. In many foraging societies, increased calorie intake during nursing requires mobility, and this feeding style (high protein, low carbohydrate) may leave the mother's energy balance low. In cases where food supply is limited, the period of pregnancy and lactation can become a net drain of energy, leading to a sharp reduction in fertility. Under such circumstances, this gives the woman more time to restore her fertility. Thus, the period when she is neither pregnant nor lactating becomes necessary to build her energy balance for future reproduction.

Changes in Fertility Rate

In addition to the effects of breastfeeding, Allison notes the age, nutritional status, energy balance, diet, and exercise of women during a given period (1990). This means that intense aerobic exercise can lead to changes in period intervals (amenorrhea), but less intense aerobic exercise can lead to poorer fertility in less obvious but important ways.
Recent studies of North American women whose activities require high levels of endurance (long-distance runners and young ballet dancers, for example) have indicated some changes in fertility. These findings are relevant to sedentism because the activity levels of the women studied are consistent with the activity levels of women in modern foraging societies.
Researchers found 2 different effects on fertility. The young, active ballerinas experienced their first menstruation at age 15.5 years, much later than the inactive control group, whose members experienced their first menstruation at age 12.5 years. High levels of activity also appear to affect the endocrine system, reducing the time a woman is fertile by 1 to 3 times.
To summarize the influence of foraging on female fertility, Henry notes: “It appears that a number of interrelated factors associated with a nomadic foraging lifestyle exert natural fertility control and perhaps explain low population densities in the Paleolithic. In nomadic foraging societies, women appear to experience as many long intervals of breastfeeding during child rearing as the high energy drains associated with foraging and periodic wandering. In addition, their diet, which is relatively high in protein, tends to maintain low levels of fat, thereby reducing fertility.” (1989)
With increasing sedentism, these limits to female fertility were weakened. The period of breastfeeding was reduced, as was the amount of energy expended by the woman (Bushman women, for example, walked an average of 1,500 miles per year, carrying 25 pounds of equipment, collected food, and, in some cases, children). This does not mean that a sedentary lifestyle is physically undemanding. Agriculture requires its own hard work, from both men and women. The only difference is in the types of physical activity. Walking long distances, transporting heavy loads and children were replaced by sowing, cultivating the land, collecting, storing and processing grain. A diet rich in grains significantly changed the ratio of proteins and carbohydrates in the diet. This changed prolactin levels, increased positive energy balance and led to faster growth in children and earlier onset of menstruation.

The constant availability of grains allowed mothers to feed their children soft, high-carbohydrate cereals. Analysis of children's feces in Egypt showed that a similar practice was used, but with root vegetables, on the banks of the Nile 19,000 years ago ( Hillman 1989). The influence of grains on fertility has been noted Richard Lee among the sedentary Bushmen, who have recently begun to eat grain and are experiencing a marked increase in birth rates. Renee Pennington(1992) noted that the increase in reproductive success of the Bushmen was possibly associated with a decrease in infant and child mortality.

Decline in Nutrition Quality

The West has long viewed agriculture as a step forward from gathering, a sign of human progress. Although, however, the first farmers did not eat as well as the gatherers.
Jared Diamond(1987) wrote: “When farmers focus on high-carbohydrate crops such as potatoes or rice, the mix of wild plants and animals in the hunter/gatherer diet provides more protein and a better balance of other nutrients. One study noted that Bushmen consumed an average of 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein per day, well above the recommended daily intake for people their size. It is almost impossible that Bushmen, eating 75 species of wild plants, could starve to death, as happened to thousands of Irish farmers and their families in 1840.”
In skeletal studies we will come to the same point of view. The skeletons, found in Greece and Turkey and dating back to the late Paleolithic, averaged 5 feet 9 inches in height for men and 5 feet 5 inches for women. With the adoption of agriculture, the average height fell - about 5,000 years ago, the average height of a man was 5 feet 3 inches, and a woman about 5 feet. Even modern Greeks and Turks are not, on average, as tall as their Paleolithic ancestors.

Increased danger

Roughly speaking, agriculture probably first emerged in ancient southwest Asia, and perhaps elsewhere, to increase food supply to support an expanding population under severe resource stress. Over time, however, as dependence on domesticated crops increased, so did the overall insecurity of the food supply system. Why?

Share of Domesticated Plants in Food

There are several reasons why early farmers became increasingly dependent on cultivated plants. Farmers were able to use previously unsuitable land. When such a vital necessity as water could be brought to the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the land that was native to wheat and barley could grow them. Domesticated plants also provided more and more edible plants and were easier to collect, process, and prepare. They are also better in taste. Rindos listed a number of modern food plants that were developed from bitter wild varieties. Finally, the increase in the yield of domesticated plants per unit of land led to an increase in their proportion in the diet, even if wild plants were still used and available as before.
Dependence on a Small Number of Plants.
Unfortunately, depending on fewer and fewer plants is quite risky if the yield is poor. According to Richard Lee, the Bushmen living in the Kalahari Desert ate more than 100 plants (14 fruits and nuts, 15 berries, 18 edible resins, 41 edible roots and bulbs, and 17 leafy foods, beans, melons and other foods) (1992). In contrast, modern farmers rely primarily on 20 plants, of which three—wheat, corn, and rice—feed most of the world's people. Historically, there were only one or two grain products for a specific group of people. The decline in the yield of these crops had catastrophic consequences for the population.

Selective Breeding, Monocultures and the Gene Pool

Selective breeding of any plant species reduces the variability of its gene pool, eliminating its natural resistance to rare natural pests and diseases and reducing its long-term chances of survival, increasing the risk of serious losses at harvest. Again, many people depend on specific types of plants, risking their future. Monoculture is the practice of growing only one type of plant in a field. While this increases crop efficiency, it also leaves the entire field exposed to disease or pest damage. The result may be hunger.

Increased Dependence on Plants

As cultivated plants began to play an increasingly important role in their nutrition, people became dependent on plants and plants, in turn, became dependent on people, or more precisely, on the environment created by man. But people cannot completely control the environment. Hail, flood, drought, pests, frost, heat, erosion and many other factors can destroy or significantly affect crops, all of which are beyond human control. The risk of failure and starvation increases.

Increase in the Number of Diseases

The increase in the number of diseases is especially associated with the evolution of domesticated plants, for which there were several reasons. First, before sedentary life, human waste was disposed of outside the residential area. As the number of people living nearby in relatively permanent settlements increased, waste disposal became increasingly problematic. The large amount of feces has led to the emergence of diseases, and insects, some of which are carriers of diseases, feed on animal and plant waste.
Secondly, a large number of people living nearby serves as a reservoir for pathogens. Once the population becomes large enough, the likelihood of disease transmission increases. By the time one person recovers from the disease, another may reach the infectious stage and infect the first one again. Consequently, the disease will never leave the settlement. The speed with which colds, flu, or chickenpox spread among schoolchildren perfectly illustrates the interaction of dense populations and disease.
Thirdly, sedentary people cannot simply escape the disease; on the contrary, if one of the foragers gets sick, the rest can leave for a while, reducing the likelihood of the disease spreading. Fourth, agricultural nutrition may reduce disease resistance. Finally, population growth has provided ample opportunities for microbial development. Indeed, as previously discussed in Chapter 3, there is good evidence that the clearing of land for farming in sub-Saharan Africa has created an excellent breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, leading to a sharp rise in malaria cases.

Environmental Degradation

With the development of agriculture, people began to actively influence the environment. Deforestation, soil deterioration, stream clogging, death of many wild species- all this accompanies domestication. In the valley on the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, the irrigation waters used by early farmers carried large quantities of soluble salts, poisoning its soil, thereby rendering it unusable to this day.

Increase in Work

Increasing domestication requires much more labor than foraging. People must clear the land, plant seeds, take care of young shoots, protect them from pests, collect them, process the seeds, store them, select seeds for the next sowing; In addition, people must care for and protect domesticated animals, select herds, shear sheep, milk goats, and so on.

(c) Emily A. Schultz & Robert H. Lavenda, excerpt from the college textbook “Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition Second Edition.”

Political organization becomes more complicated with the transition to sedentism and a productive economy (agriculture and livestock farming). In archeology, this phenomenon is often called the “Neolithic revolution.” The transition to a productive economy became an important, revolutionary milestone in the history of human civilization. Since that time, early primitive local groups were replaced by stable, sedentary forms of community, the number of which ranged from many tens to several thousand people. Inequality within communities increased, age statuses, property and social differentiation arose, and the beginnings of the power of elders appeared. Communities united into unstable supra-community formations, including tribes.

Early and advanced agricultural societies were characterized by a wide range of forms of political leadership. The most interesting example of leadership in early agricultural societies is the bigman institution. bigman). The fundamental difference between the power of big men and the power of leaders is the non-inheritable nature of their social status. Big men, as a rule, became the most enterprising people who stood out for their diverse abilities, had physical strength, were hard-working, were good organizers and could resolve conflicts. They were brave warriors and convincing speakers, some of them were even credited with special magical abilities, the ability to cast spells. Through this, big men increased the wealth of their families and community groups. However, an increase in wealth did not automatically lead to an increase in social position.

The source of the big man's high status is his prestige associated with organizing mass feasts and distributions. This allowed him to create a network of dependent individuals, which further contributed to his success. However, the big men's influence was not stable. It was constantly under threat of losing its adherents. Bigman was forced to demonstrate his high status, spend significant funds on organizing collective ceremonies and feasts, and give gifts to his fellow tribesmen. “Bigman saves not in order to use it for himself alone, but in order to distribute this wealth. Every important event in a person's life - a wedding, birth, death, and even the building of a new house or canoe - is celebrated with a feast, and the more feasts a person throws, the more generously he displays treats, the higher his prestige.

Political power and the status of the big man were personal, i.e. could not be inherited, and were unstable, since they depended exclusively on the personal qualities of the candidate, his ability to ensure his prestigious position through the distribution of massive gifts.

American anthropologist Marshall Sahlins(b. 1930) notes such an aspect of the life and activities of a big man in Melanesian society as open competition of statuses. The person who has ambitions and makes his way into big men is forced to intensify his own work and the work of members of his household. He quotes Hogbin as saying that the head of a male house among the Busama of New Guinea “had to work harder than anyone else to replenish his food supplies. One who claims to honor cannot rest on his laurels, he must constantly hold great celebrations, accumulating confidence.” It is generally accepted that he has to “work hard” day and night: “his hands are constantly in the ground, and drops of sweat constantly flow from his forehead.” The point of holding festivals was to enhance one's reputation, increase the number of supporters and make others debtors. The big man's personal career had overall political significance. When he goes beyond his narrow group of supporters and begins to sponsor public celebrations, with the help of which he strengthens his prestige, he “makes a name for himself in a wide circle.” “Big men with their consumer ambitions,” writes M. Sahlins, “are the means by which a segmented society, “decapitated” and divided into small autonomous communities, overcomes this split, at least in the sphere of food provision, and forms a wider circle of interaction and a higher level of cooperation. Taking care of his own reputation, the Melanesian big man becomes the concentrating principle of the tribal structure."

Tribe. The concept of “tribe” can be interpreted in two ways: as one of the types of ethnic communities in the early stages of the historical process and as a specific form of social organization and management structure characteristic of primitiveness. From the point of view of political anthropology, the second approach to this term is important. A tribe is a supra-community political structure. Each segment of the tribal organization (community, lineage, patronymic, etc.) is economically independent. Leadership in tribes, as in local groups, is personal. It is based solely on individual abilities and does not imply any formalized positions.

Scientists distinguish two historical forms of tribal organization: early and “secondary”. Early, archaic tribes were amorphous, without clear structural boundaries and general leadership, a collection of segments of various taxonomic levels. The main characteristics of these tribes were: kinship relationships, a common habitat, common name, a system of rituals and ceremonies, its own language dialect. To designate them, the following terms are used: “tribe”, “maximum community”, “aggregation of local groups”, “primary tribe”, etc.

As an example, consider the Nuer tribes described by the British anthropologist Edwan Evans-Pritchard(1902-1973). The Nuer tribes are divided into segments. Evans-Pritchard calls the largest segments the primary divisions of the tribe; these, in turn, are divided into secondary divisions of tribes, and these into tertiary divisions. The tertiary division of the tribe covers several village communities, which consist of kinship and household groups. Thus, the Lu tribe is divided into the primary divisions of gunas and mors. The primary division of the gunas is divided into secondary divisions rum-jok and gaatbal. The secondary department of Gaatbal is in turn divided into the tertiary departments of Leng and Nyarkwach.

The smaller the segment of a tribe, the more compact its territory, the more united its members, the more diverse and stronger their common social ties, and therefore the stronger the sense of unity. The Nuer tribes are characterized by the principles of segmentation and opposition. Segmentation means dividing a tribe and its subdivisions into segments. The second principle reflects the opposition between segments of the tribe. Evans-Pritchard writes on this subject: “Each segment is also split, and there is opposition between its parts. The members of each segment unite for war against adjacent segments of the same order and combine with these adjacent segments against larger divisions."

The "secondary" form of the tribe is politically a more integrated structure. It had the embryonic organs of tribal power: the people's assembly, the council of elders and military and (or) civil leaders. L. Morgan described a similar type of society in books; "League of the Chodnosaunee, or Iroquois" and "Ancient Society". The researcher identified the following characteristics of the Iroquois tribe: unified territory, name, dialect of language, beliefs and culture, the right to approve and remove peaceful leaders - sachems, military leaders and others. The tribes were divided into two exogamous groups - phratries, the latter consisting of clans and smaller structural divisions. There were five Iroquois tribes in total. They could field a total of 2,200 warriors.

The tribal council included clan leaders, military leaders, and elderly women. All meetings were held publicly, in the presence of adult members of the tribe. At the council, disputes between clan divisions were resolved, wars were declared, peace agreements were concluded, relations with neighbors were regulated, and leaders were elected. The eldest woman proposed candidates for the position of sachem from among the elderly warriors who had distinguished themselves in wars and had a reputation for generosity and wisdom. After approval at the tribal council and at the conference council, the sachem received a symbol of his power - horns. If he failed to cope with his duties, then his horns were “broken off” - he was deprived of his sacred status. The leaders were also elected at the tribal league council. The supreme chief of the conference was elected from one of the tribes. Many of the nomadic pastoralist societies of North Africa and Eurasia (Arabs, Tuaregs, Pashtuns, etc.) can also be considered ethnographic examples of “secondary” tribes.

In the 60s XX century the view of the tribe as a universal institution of the primitive era has been criticized in Western anthropology. Currently, most foreign researchers adhere to the point of view Morton Freed(1923-1986), according to which tribes arose only as a consequence of the external pressure of developed state societies on stateless ones, and this form of social organization is exclusively secondary in nature. In accordance with this opinion, “tribe” is not included in the mandatory list of forms of transition of a political organization from local groups to statehood.

In this regard, it should be noted that the concept of tribe is important for understanding the characteristics of the chiefdom, which was the next step on the path to statehood. A tribal society is a less complex form of government and power than a chiefdom. In a chiefdom, the people are removed from governance, while in a tribal society, the people's assembly, along with the council of elders and the institution of leaders, is an important instrument for developing and making decisions. In the chiefdom, there is a hierarchy of power, social stratification, a redistribution system, and the cult of leaders is developing. The tribe is characterized by a more declared than a real hierarchy, more egalitarian social structure, the absence of a redistributive system, the institution of leaders is just beginning to take shape.

Chiefdom. Chiefdom theory (from English, chiefdom) developed by representatives of Western political anthropology. Within this concept, the chiefdom is seen as an intermediate stage between stateless societies and state ones. The most fundamental aspects of the chiefdom theory were formulated in the works of E. Service and M. Sahlins. The history of the discovery and subsequent development of the chiefdom theory is covered in detail in the works of Russian researchers S. L. Vasiliev and N. N. Kradin. The concept of “chiefdom”, or “chiefdom”, entered the scientific apparatus of Russian researchers and was reflected in scientific and educational literature.

Chiefdom can be defined as a form of sociopolitical organization of late primitive society, characterized by centralized control, social and property inequality, a redistributive system of redistribution, ideological unity, but the absence of a repressive coercive apparatus.

The main features of a chiefdom are the following:

• a) the presence of supralocal centralization. In the chiefdoms there was a hierarchical system of decision-making and an institution of control, but the existing authorities did not have a coercive apparatus and did not have the right to use force. The ruler of the chiefdom had limited powers;
• b) chiefdoms are characterized by fairly clear social stratification and limited access simple community members to key resources; there is a tendency towards secession of the elite from simple masses into a closed one class;
• c) an important role in economy chiefdoms played a role in redistribution, which meant redistribution surplus product;
• d) chiefdoms are characterized by a common ideological system, a common cult and rituals.

Chiefdoms are characterized by social differentiation. The simplest chiefdoms were divided into leaders and simple community members. In more stratified societies there were three main groups: the top - hereditary leaders and other categories of elite; middle - free full members; lower - various groups of incomplete and powerless persons.

As an example, one of the traditional societies North-Eastern Tanzania of the second half of the 19th century. Chiefdoms here usually consisted of communities of 500-1000 people. Each of them was headed by assistant chiefs (valolo) and elders (huachili), who connected communities with central settlement. General quantity these persons did not exceed several dozen people. Community members brought gifts to the leader with food, livestock, and beer. For this, the leader provided for his subjects magical protection in relations with the gods, protected from at