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The Secondary Products Revolution

In the 1980s the core idea of social change in the Copper Age was reshaped by Andrew Sherratt into the Secondary Products Revolution. Instead of just killing animals for meat, farmers began to keep them for renewable secondary products, such as milk, cheese and wool, and for transport and traction. Horses and donkeys could be ridden or carry a pack; horses or oxen could pull a plough or a wagon. Thus more could be gained from stock and soil with no increase in human effort. Any society adopting this new way of life had an advantage in wealth and mobility, and could expand rapidly. These innovations did not all crop up at the same time and place. Milking appears earliest, followed by woolly sheep, carts and ploughs. The revolution envisaged by Sherratt came with the bundling of them all into a new lifestyle, with secondary products used on a far larger scale.^{1H.J. Greenfield, The Secondary Products Revolution: the past, the present and the future, World Archaeology, vol. 42, no 1 (March 2010), pp. 29-54.}

The earliest written evidence of this lifestyle naturally crops up in the earliest region to have writing - the Near East. In Sumeria around 3300–3100 BC inventories of milk products and wool were recorded on clay tablets.^{2A. Sherratt, The trans-Eurasian exchange, in V. H. Mair (ed.), Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World (2006), p. 42.} The earliest images of milking and ploughs tend to be found in the same region. Yet the warmth of wool becomes increasingly valuable as one moves north, dairy cattle do best in well-watered lowlands such as the Northern European Plain, and the plough was vital in opening up the Northern European Plain to arable farming. This takes us into a time and place where we must rely on archaeology to detect the changes taking place.

Dairy farming

The first herders kept animals for slaughter. The idea of milking them came later. How can we tell when milking started? Archaeologists first deduced this from the study of animal bones. We would expect animals kept for meat alone to be killed young. That is indeed the picture gained from early Neolithic sites in the Near East. If the average age at slaughter rises, that is a clue that domesticated animals have another use for their keepers. If the sex ratio shifts to a predominance of females, that is indicative of intensive dairy farming.

Now scientific analysis of fat residues on pottery can clarify the place and time that milking became important. A study of more than 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe found low levels of milk fat in two sites in the heartland of the Neolithic, but the hot-spot was the lowland, coastal region around the Sea of Marmara. Pottery from these sites dating from 6500–5000 BC showed a significant amount of processed milk. Processing into cheese and other products would enhance its keeping qualities. It would also break down the lactose for a people that had not yet developed the ability to digest milk as adults.^{3R.P. Evershed et al., Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and southeastern Europe linked to cattle herding, Nature, vol. 455 (25 September 2008), pp. 528-31.} Dairy farming was an easy way to ensure a constant input of protein into the diet. Pastoralists adapted to it. Natural selection favoured those whose ability to digest milk was not switched off after weaning. Several different genes for lactose tolerance have been discovered.

Farming had gradually spread west across Anatolia. After a sparse sprinkling of pre-ceramic sites, Fikir Tepe and similar settlements were established by the Sea of Marmara between 7000 and 6400 BC.^{4M. Ozdogan, Westward expansion of the Neolithic way of life: sorting the Neolithic package into distinct packages, in Paolo Matthiae et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1 (2010), pp. 883-893.} Cattle were not predominant in the early stages. Domestic sheep and goat seem to have spread across Anatolia first, followed by cattle in about 6500 BC.^{5J. Conolly et al., Meta-analysis of zooarchaeological data from SW Asia and SE Europe provides insight into the origins and spread of animal husbandry, Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 38, no. 3 (March 2011), pp. 485-754.} But the high rainfall and greener grazing of the coastal lowland favoured cattle-keeping.

Sites on both the European and Anatolian coasts of the Sea of Marmara revealed evidence of frequent milking, and a preference for cattle over other domesticated animals, but not all were keeping animals primarily for milking, as many cattle were killed young. Yet the addition of cow's milk to the menu on a regular basis seems to have started here. Then the rich pastures beside the Danube attracted cattle farmers. Milk residues, though not at such high levels, were found on pottery from a site of c. 5,500 BC on the Romanian bank.^{6R.P. Evershed et al., Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and southeastern Europe linked to cattle herding, Nature, vol. 455 (25 September 2008), pp. 528-31 (531).} At around the same time there was a rise in the ratio of domesticated cattle to sheep and goats in the region.^{7W. A. Parkinson, Late Neolithic/Copper Age Southeastern Europe, in P. Bogucki and PJ. Crabtree (eds.), Ancient Europe 8000 BC–AD 1000: Encyclopaedia of the Barbarian World, Vol. I The Mesolithic to Copper Age (c. 8000-2000 B.C.) (2004).}

Continuing up the Danube, dairy products played a part in the Lengyel culture (c. 5000–3400 BC), to judge by the preference for cattle and their late age at slaughter.^{8K. Szostek et al., The diet and social paleostratigraphy of Neolithic agricultural population of the Lengyel culture from Osłonki (Poland), Przegląd Antropologiczny – Anthropological Review, vol. 68 (2005), pp. 29-41.} Lengyel has much in common with the Rössen culture (c. 4500-4000 BC) of Central Europe, notably their trapezoid houses, like a cross between the LBK longhouse and the shorter trapezoid shape of the houses at Lepenski Vir in the Iron Gates Gorge of the Danube. The shape seems to be echoed in that of long barrows (houses of the dead?) that appeared in the Lengyel Culture; the concept was transmitted to Britain.^{9Ian Hodder, Theory and Practice in Archaeology (1992), pp. 50-62.}

At the southern edge of Rössen influence a lake village on the Bavarian side of Lake Constance shows every evidence of specialised dairy farming. Almost all potsherds from the lake shore settlement of Hornstaad-Hörnle (3922–3902 BC) produced fat residues from lactating calves or lambs and ruminant milk. This is typical of sustained dairy farming.^{10J. E. Spangenberg, Direct evidence for the existence of dairying farms in prehistoric Central Europe (4th millennium BC), Isotopes in Environmental and Health Studies, vol. 44, no. 2 (June 2008), pp. 189-200.} Half a millennium later evidence of milking appears on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance at Arbon Bleiche.^{11J. Schibler, S. Jacomet and A. Choyke, Arbon Bleiche 3, in P. Bogucki and P.J. Crabtree (eds.), Ancient Europe 8000 BC–AD 1000: Encyclopaedia of the Barbarian World, Vol. I The Mesolithic to Copper Age (c. 8000-2000 B.C.) (2004); J. E. Spangenberg, S. Jacomet and J. Schibler, Chemical analyses of organic residues in archaeological pottery from Arbon Bleiche 3, Switzerland – evidence for dairying in the late Neolithic, Journal of Archaeological Science,vol. 33, no. 1 (January 2006), pp. 1-13.}

To the north the Funnel Beaker Culture (TRB) represented a move by farmers c. 4000 BC onto heavier clays soils, and they brought an advanced farming practice with them, including milking. Simultaneously farmers entered the British Isles. Residues on pottery reveal processed milk use among the earliest farmers in the British Isles. An early settlement (4100-3500BC) was discovered during the excavation to create Eton Boating Lake at Dorney. It produced an abundance of sherds containing predominantly dairy fats. 70% of the domesticated animals were cattle. This was a settled herd. By contrast cattle may have been brought from some distance for slaughter at the causewayed enclosures of Windmill Hill and Hambledon Hill. At both sites the cattle age and sex structure suggest dairy herds.^{12M. S. Copley et al., Direct chemical evidence for widespread dairying in prehistoric Britain, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 100 no. 4 (February 18, 2003), pp. 1524-1529.} Large numbers of cattle were killed or eaten in causewayed enclosures, though in their earliest manifestation people did not live there permanently. So they may have been places to hold festivals or livestock markets.

How had dairy farmers reached Britain? Directly across the Channel dairy farming had not taken hold to any notable extent. The Chassey (or Chasséen) Culture had reached northern France from the south and seems derived from the early Mediterranean farmers. The Michelsberg Culture appeared beside the Rhine, partly on former Rössen territory. There is little evidence of dairy farming in either. Admittedly few bone assemblages have been examined, but those that have show a pattern of early slaughter.^{13C.C. Bakels, The Western European Loess Belt: Agrarian History, 5300 BC - AD 1000 (2009), p. 76. For a contrary view, see D. Helmer and J-D. Vigne, Was milk a “secondary product” in the Old World Neolithisation process? Its role in the domestication of cattle, sheep and goats, Anthropozoologica, vol. 42, no. 2 (2007), pp. 9-40.}

Archaeologists deduce that a first group of Chassey farmers set sail from Western France to south-west Ireland (4300 BC), followed by a second from Brittany to Wales and the west coast of Scotland 4200-3900 BC, for they took their pottery with them. Another Chassey group seems to have moved to south-west England from Basse-Normany or the Channel Isles, to judge by the similarity of their tombs. Yet another group of farmers from closer to the Rhineland, perhaps the Nord-Pas-de-Calais or Picardy area, brought carinated bowls with them. Carinated bowls appear over much of Britain and Ireland. They are associated with the astonishingly early (4000-3800 BC) causewayed enclosure at Magheraboy on the outskirts of Sligo in Ireland. Causewayed enclosures generally appear in the British Isles a few centuries after the first farmers.^{14A. Sheridan, From Picardie to Pickering and Pencraig Hill? New information on the Carinated Bowl Neolithic in northern Britain, in A. Whittle and V. Cummings (eds.), Going Over: The Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in North-West Europe, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 144 (2007), pp. 441-491; E. Danaher, Monumental Beginnings: the archeology of the N4 Sligo Inner Relief Road, NRA Scheme Monograph 1 (2007).} It is the carinated bowl culture that seems most likely to have brought with it dairy farming, since its origins seem to lie closest to the Rössen Culture.

Meanwhile from about 5200-5000 BC pastoralism was adopted from their Balkan neighbours by former foragers on the steppe north of the Black Sea. Linguists deduce that they had developed the Proto-Indo-European language by about 4000 BC. Thanks to its scholarly reconstruction, we know that they were familiar with milk, yoghurt and cheese. The first cattle on the steppe were apparently acquired from the adjacent Cris Culture, derived from early farmers in Greece. Low levels of dairy residues have been reported at two Cris-Koros sites in the Danube basin, but cattle dominated at neither site, so this fits the early Neolithic pattern of occasional milking.^{15O. E.Craig et al., Did the first farmers of central and eastern Europe produce dairy foods?Antiquity, vol.79 (2005), pp. 882–894.} A later culture of mixed origin had more impact. The Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture had adopted ideas from Hamangia people of the lower Danube valley and Black Sea coast.^{16D.W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (2007), chapter 9 and p. 303.} Cattle dominated the domestic breeds reared in the Hamangia Culture. At one site (Cheia) cattle show the most signs of dairy use, though at another (Techirghiol) slaughter ages reveal that cattle were bred for both meat and milk, whereas goats and sheep were bred only for secondary products.^{17A. Balasescu, Consideraţii cuprivire la exploatarea mamiferelor în aşezarea Hamangia III de la Cheia (Considerations on the mammals management at Cheia (Hamangia Culture), Revista Pontica, vol. 41 (2008), pp. 49-56; S. Haimovici and A. Bălăşescu, Zooarchaeological study of the faunal remains from Techirghiol (Hamangia Culture, Dobrogea, Romania), Cercetări arheologice, vol. 13 (2006), pp. 371-391.} The Hamangia Culture seems to represent new ideas from Anatolia.^{18M. Nica, Unitate şi diversitate în culturile neolitice de la dunărea de jos = Unity and diversity of Neolithic cultures along the lower Danube, Revista Pontica, vol. 30 (1997), pp. 105-116.} So Cucuteni-Tripolye, developing in the zone between Hamangia and the steppe, is the most likely channel of intensive dairy practice to Yamnaya people on the steppe. Their great herds of cattle were kept for meat, milk and perhaps as draft animals too.^{19P.L. Kohl, The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia (2007), p.45.}

The Indo-Europeans helped to spread milking both east and west. Branches of Indo-European-speakers seem to have followed much the same trails across Central Europe into Scandinavia and the British Isles as earlier cattle-herders.

One clue to the importance of the Danube route for dairy farming lies in the genes of modern European breeds of dairy cattle. All have their origins in cattle first domesticated in the Near East. The parent haplogroup Y has been found in ancient DNA there. Yet there is a genetic distinction between northern and southern European cattle. The present breeds are the result of considerable movement in historic times, yet even with that in mind, a more ancient pattern can be detected. Two Y-DNA signatures predominate. Y2 seems to be the earlier haplogroup to arrive in Europe, presumably with the first farmers from the Levant. It is found in cattle bred for mixed use and dominates the European Mediterranean region. Y1 appears to be a later arrival, dominating the pied and red dairy breeds of the North Sea and Baltic coasts. We can picture Y1 among cattle bred for milk along the Danube and moving northwards in the Late Neolithic, reinforced by later waves from the same direction. Interestingly, both Y1 and Y2 are found in the British Isles and in Iberia.^{20C. J. Edwards, Dual origins of dairy cattle farming – evidence from a comprehensive survey of European Y-chromosomal variation, PLoS ONE, vol. 6, no. 1 (January 2011): e15922}

Wool

Wool sheds rainwater and takes dyes better than any plant-fibre textile, but it was a comparatively late addition to the options available. All surviving remnants of cloth older than the Copper Age are from flax. The earliest remains of woollen textile so far discovered are from the Maikop culture (3700–3200 cal BC) of the North Caucasus.^{21N.I. Shishlina, O.V. Orfinskaya and V.P. Golikov, Bronze Age Textiles from the North Caucasus: New Evidence of Fourth Millennium BC Fibres and Fabrics, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, vol. 22, no. 4 (November 2003), pp. 331–344.}

Wild sheep did not have a woollen fleece, but a coat of long, coarse hair, similar to that of a goat. Beneath it was an insulating undercoat of tiny, curly fibres, which moulted each Spring. Once sheep were domesticated, this shed wild wool could have formed a crude felt mat in their pens, as they slept on the shedding. Perhaps that gave people the idea of plucking the wool before it shed, to create the first man-made felt. The next step would be selective breeding for longer wool fibres that could be spun into thread. It was a lengthy process. The first woollen fibre was comparatively coarse. Really fine wool fleeces did not appear before the first century AD. However woolly sheep are depicted on the Uruk trough (pictured) of c. 3000 BC and mentioned in texts from Uruk of around the same date. It seems from earlier animal figurines that they were unknown before 5000 BC. So the first spinable wool probably appeared in the Copper Age.^{22H.J. Greenfield, The Secondary Products Revolution: the past, the present and the future, World Archaeology, vol. 42, no 1 (March 2010), pp. 29-54.}

Genetic studies suggest that the breeding of long-wool sheep began in Southwest Asia and then spread widely east and west. Earlier types of domesticated sheep had spread into Europe with the first farmers. Relicts of those first migrations include the Mouflon.^{23B. Chessa et al., Revealing the history of sheep domestication using retrovirus integrations, Science, vol. 324 (24 April 2009), pp. 532-536.} By contrast sheep seem to be a late addition to Chinese farming, appearing around 2500 BC.^{24Y. Jing and R. Campbell, Recent archaeometric research on 'the origins of Chinese civilisation', Antiquity, vol. 83, no. 319 (March 2009), pp. 96–109.} Dawei Cai and his colleagues investigated sheep DNA from four Bronze Age archaeological sites in Northern China. All but one of their samples carried mtDNA A, the most common today in all Chinese sheep and most Mongolian sheep.^{25D. Cai et al., Early history of Chinese domestic sheep indicated by ancient DNA analysis of Bronze Age individuals, Journal of Archaeological Science, , vol. 38, no. 4 (April 2011), pp. 896-902.} So it would seem that sheep arrived in the Far East in the Bronze Age via the nomads of the Eurasian steppe. Wool was to become a staple of nomadic life. Mongol nomads still live in yurts made of felt.

The plough

The earliest farmers used sticks as simple dibbers and hoes. Once the idea occurred to use animals for traction, the ox-pulled plough appeared. The earliest type - known as an ard or scratch plough - was made of wood, as shown in the Egyptian painting right. It could do no more than scratch the surface of the soil, creating a shallow furrow for planting seed. There is no sign of the ard in use by early farmers in Europe. It has been argued that parallel furrows under certain Neolithic long barrows in northern Europe were made by ploughing. But they are now seen as more likely to be the result of site preparation for burials. Which leaves the Copper Age as the time when clear-cut ard marks appear in Europe. ^{26H.J. Greenfield, The Secondary Products Revolution: the past, the present and the future, World Archaeology, vol. 42, no 1 (March 2010), pp. 29-54.} The ard functioned so well that little change was made to the design for millennia. Indeed the ard is still in use in places on light soils. The plough share could be reinforced with metal for greater durability, but this did not become common until the Iron Age. Since the ard does not turn the soil over, fields were often cross-ploughed for greater effectiveness, which tended to make for square-shaped fields.

Heavy soils really needed a heavier plough, which could turn the soil over. Weeds and stubble would then be ploughed back into the soil, maintaining its fertility. Such a plough had a mouldboard beside the share to turn over the soil and a metal knife known as a coulter ahead of the share to make the first cut into the soil. This type of plough left a ridge and furrow pattern in the soil, which can be detected in Belgium, the Netherlands and northern Germany from the first century BC. Mouldboard ploughs enabled the heavy soils of the North Sea coast to be cultivated.^{27H. Hamerow, Early Medieval Settlements (2002), pp. 142-3.} The heavy plough needed a team of at least four oxen to pull it, though wheels could be attached to help carry its weight. The wheeled plough was known as a carruca. The technology probably reached Germania from the Roman Empire. Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century AD, described several types of plough, including one which seems to be a mouldboard plough. He remarks that the addition of wheels was a recent invention in what is now Switzerland.^{28Pliny, Natural History, book 18, chapter 171.}

The carruca is depicted here in a late Anglo-Saxon calendar. It was hard to turn and most effectively used in large open fields, ploughed in strips by a plough team shared among villagers. That type of open field system appeared in England in the Mid-Saxon period. Great was the delight when a 7th-century coulter was found in Kent in 2010. It is the first solid evidence of the heavy plough in use at the time that some of the great landowners were reorganising agricultural production on their lands.^{29M. Pitts, Kent plough find challenges farming history, British Archaeology, no. 118 (May/June 2011), p.7.}

Notes

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• First Mediterraneans
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• Near Eastern Neolithic
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