3.4.1 Invisible Transitions? The Neolithic

 Unfortunately, at this point, before the invention of writing, we run out of close-range data. We can see clearly, however, that we only have one half of our pattern. We now see the significance of what we call the birth of civilization, which is classifiable as one of our ‘relative transformations’ in what we suspect is a series going backward into the Neolithic. Look at the medieval period leading to the sudden rise of the modern. Now look at the antecedents to the sudden crossing of a threshold in Egypt and Sumer. The resemblance is exact.

Let us extrapolate backwards to create a ‘retro-diction’, and leave the issue open to future research. We do that by applying our model of ‘transitions, equally spaced’, to the whole period starting before the Neolithic, with an interval of about 2400 years. This generalization is not yet confirmed, but illustrates the meaning of the data we do have very well indeed. This extension will in fact keep our statements honest, because we might forget that our data is incomplete. We are dealing with a fragment. In a fuzzy way the fit is good, to say the least. We can almost spot two prior transition zones and interval.

Our model is highly artificial but works so unreasonably well in the range provided that we are hot on the scent of a more general pattern.

Transition 1  ?Mesolithic transitions
Transition 2  ?Proximate start of Neolithic  ca. –8000
Transition 3  ?The Middle Neolithic interval  ca. –5400
Transition 4:  The birth of civilization, interval before –3000
Transition 5:  The ‘Axial’ period, interval before –600
Transition 6:  The early modern, interval before 1800

We are already suspicious of the period in the sixth millennium, and there is an already filling gap in our knowledge in the area to the north of Sumer in the Fertile Crescent. A highlands culture zone to the north of Sumer seems to flow outward into the Mesopotamian area, in a frontier effect, prior to the historical period. We nearly have a four beat sequence.

There is an obvious catch to this argument, which is that the rise of civilization might be simply a new phase of long term evolution, and that there is nothing much to find in the earlier period of man, save possibly at the period of the first appearance of homo sapiens sapiens. That is, our later sequence could itself be an overall ‘interrupt’ of evolutionary acceleration. That, however, is doubtful, since the unseen stages and primordial beginnings are as much in need of the driving factor as the more advanced. In many ways the rationalization of culture as Civilization begins with farming, it is all of a piece. From hunter-gatherer is a big step, almost an ‘industrial revolution’. Since our model requires only regions and innovative individuals it would be more than able to handle generalizations prior to state formation. There is a uniformity to the entire era beginning with the Neolithic. We must find a region for which later Sumer was once the frontier. Consider by this reasoning the period ca 5700 to 5400 somewhere to the North of Sumer. We can almost see a transition here. We can calculate this might be a candidate for a transitional culture. But we can’t be sure because we don’t have enough data. First we need data, then maybe we can find the secondary data of relative transforms in the exact periodization, a tough requirement. Transition 3 in our list begins to look promising, as we will see in Chapter 5.

Now consider the history of Israel. This was a novel breakthrough area armed for the first time with the new technology of writing, and they actually recorded a phase period, and the onset of a new religion. This earlier era didn’t have writing, so we don’t know. And without that closely tracked data we default back to the ‘slow evolution’ mode of explanation, something the Judaic data would not let us do. Now proceed backwards still further into the Paleolithic. We are in the midst of full-blown ‘slow evolution’ theories, assuming that fast transitions do not occur. Yet by incremental steps backward we could suspect that religious and cultural transitions might be occurring in more primitive fashion at these earlier times.

We must forever be vigilant about jumping to conclusions about historical evolution. Proponents of flat history consider themselves ‘non-speculative’ but they may prove the worst offenders. As we complete our tour we can see that ‘flat history’ is a species of religious faith in a myth of continuity.

Apply this reasoning to the earlier speculations on the Great Explosion, and we see at once the dangers of assuming anything.