The Great Transition

This lecture covered the nature of Great Transition and the consequences of the Great Transition. What was the Great Transition and why did it occur - the materialist versus cultural factors. Also, the distinctively new forms of social organization as well as fundamental changes in the nature of power, as seen through the division of labour and patriarchy.

12,000 - 8,000 years ago, there were two fundamental aspects of the Great Transition: Horticulture /agriculture and the Domestication of animals. The related developments of this were:

• Groups of people settled and began living in villages
• The manufacture and use of pottery
• The use of polished stone tools and weapons
• The use of copper and bronze to manufacture implements and weapons

Nomadic pastoralism was a distinctive response to the particular environments of those large areas of Eurasia that were not suitable for agriculture.

Reasons for the Great Transition that have been suggested include:

1. Population increase
2. Over-kill
3. Environmental accident
4. Primacy of cultural factors

Permanent settlement seems to have become widespread between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago, well before development of horticulture and agriculture.

The Consequences of the Great Transition were Power and Social Organisation in Urban Centres:

Division of Labour:

• Commodity production with a high degree of specialisation and organised trade over distant regions. Specialized producers, craftsmen, and traders emerge
• The emergence of property classes and social hierarchies
• The emergence and consolidation of military elites, the emergence of a ruling class and a clerisy of scribes and priests. In most cases, agrarian society is dominated either by its warriors or its clerisy, or by both of them jointly.

Writing:

• The development of literacy, followed by the emergence of codified, scriptural belief and legitimating systems and increased power to those who controlled these things

Political Centralisation:

• State formation centred on dynasties and kingship
• The institutionalisation of slavery
• The transition from kin dominance to patriarchal families as the chief mode of distributing goods and power.

Patriarchy:

• Female subordination within the family becomes institutionalised and codified in law.
• Prostitution becomes established and regulated.
• Women are gradually excluded from certain occupations and professions.