* From: Gar Lipow
For a slightly different view I highly recommend Barbara Ehrenreich's "Blood Rites". It was extremely dissed on this list and on Pen-l for overuse of the "Meme" meme, and for excessive eliding of "war" as in a few dozen men going after each other with spears compared to humanitarian bombing. But the thing is , subtract that and her thesis still stands. The following is like all such discussion a story - no more or less speculative than the other stories that have been offered. Her points are the following: 1) While you are right to reject 'hunter-gatherers", what precede this was not "gatherer" but "forager". [the last my terminology, but her meaning]. Humans were not vegetarians, but opportunists. We would eat fresh carrion, infants of other species when we could find them, insects, and a variety of other animal protein source. ^^^^ CB: I'm not clear if you mean that I in particular are rejecting "hunters and gatherers", but I am not rejecting it. Foragers is ok. I was taught that humans are omnivores. Sort of similar to your "opportunists". Humans are carnivores and herbivores, both. Plus, probably eat a wider range of both plants and animals than other species, including more than close species such as apes and chimps. ^^^^^^^ 2) Up until the invention of the bow predation was a major cause of death among humans. Yes we have spears, but spears are too great against giant cats. The Masai were (rightly) considered enormously brave for going after lions one on one with spears. But you will notice that no-one goes one on one against Jaguars or Tigers or Leopards with spears, at least not voluntarily. ^^^^ CB: Sorry to interrupt here , but key point. Not-"one-on-one" is _the_ human species characteristic. I'd even change the species name from _homo sapiens_ to _homo socio_ or _homo communis_. It is social labor that marks humans out from all the rest, and defense against predators is included in early labor. So, it would be groups with spears, including with maneuvers, traps, tactics, strategies, illusions, tricks, augmented by language and symbol use, significant whistles, baiting and trapping, all that. ^^^^^ And the cats that were around at the time of prehistoric humankind were much nastier mothers than anything around today - sabertooths for example. Other species too - dire wolves (which survived way past prehistoric times) some of the bear species and so on. We weren't prey animals exactly; there weren't enough of us to be a staple of anything's diet. But we were snack food an desert for a whole lot of creatures. ^^^^^ CB; Also, don't forget that close primate species and our missing links had been dealing with these predators for millions of years. We were like super-apes. ^^^^^^^ 3) So, though not classic prey creatures, we probably had to follow to some extent the classic herd strategy in the face of predators. If worst came to worst males were probably more dispensable, since if you lose a male you don't really lose reproductive ability as long as some males remain, where each female lost is reproductive ability lost. I will speculate (and this is me, not Barbara) that loss of males to predators was seen as roughly equalizing the sacifice and danger females faced in childbirth). ^^^^^^ CB: Interesting. Yes, I think what you say is an underpinning for there being Mother Right for the first 190,000 years, Matrilineality and all that. Children were the Prize. Children are born of woman. ^^^^^ 4) Then the bow was invented. That changes the balance of power. We had fire and spears, before, but the bow gives the chance to kill predators at a much greater distance. We aren't snack food any more - a great liberation. Bt the predators are still dangerous. As late as the Vietnam war there were villages in Vietnam that lost people to tigers. Don't know if it is still the case today. So the great slaughter begins. Humans start killing off the great predators. And the great herds too - too many ruminants around and the predators will feed on them and stay around to be a danger to humans. Kill off the great herds, hunt in deliberately wasteful ways, and you cut off their food source, starve them out. And it is not as though these herds are a vital food source to humans; in spite of opportunism, plants remain our main food source, though as long as you are wiping out herds you will feast on them too. ^^^^^^ CB: I'd say the big leap is in social hunting or defending. The bow hunting still has to be social , and that is its most potent characteristic. Lets see what you say. ^^^^^^^ 5) S long as there are still massive amounts of predators to wipe out this does not change your social structure. The death rate between men and women is no longer equal, since women still die in childbirth, whereas hunting is now comparatively safe. But once the major predators in an area are wiped out you have a bunch of unemployed men with weapons. The hunters probably are men. (Once it becomes safe there is no reason women should not take part. But if the social role of men was orginially as the ones to take the brunt of animal attacks, then once hunting became practical it probably did end up as a mans role.) ^^^^^^ CB: There's hunting, where the human is the predator, and there's defending against predators , where the human is the potential prey, but on the other hand, the humans are so tough, it's kind of a tossup, the big cat might lose ( for one thing because they aren't doing it socially; imagine fighting talking big cats). Anyway, in the above, I'm not sure how you are using humans as predator and humans as prey. You seem to think that the main activity of the men before was only as prey defending themselves. I'd think they were predators just as much as prey defending. So, if some group wiped out its predators ... they weapons could still be used as hunting, i.e. as a predator. Also, if it became so handy to kill big cats and other former threatening predators, why wipe them out ? Why not cull them and eat them gradually as another category of prey, food.? Afterall, we are omnivores. Also, the men could gather. I'd think that the men gathered nuts, berries, herbs, the whole nine yards the whole time. While you are out hunting , you snack on bushes and bulbs. All along, women probably killed small game that came around them while thy were in the "hearth". ^^^^^^^^ OK unemployed men with weapons - that is a problem. So what do the men do? Well in some social unts they probably were reasonable and started doing their share in the gathering and crafting and childcare and whatever. But at least some social units found an exciting new game - war, where they attacked other tribes, took religious objects, kidnapped women, drove the other social unit of their territory, maybe took slaves. (Some Native American tribes had slaves without agriculture. It is apparently possible in a non-agricultural society.) If the women of the tribe object - well the men have the weapons. ^^^^ CB: The "unemployed" men idea, originally cute , is now really messing up the theory. There was plenty of other stuff besides defending against predators that the men did all along. In instances wear predators were beaten back and at bay, under control, the men could star gaze, tell stories, gather nuts and berries even more than before, but also, hunt. You know, hunters and gatherers. The weapons are used as predators gathering food, meat, not just to defend against big cat and bear, big mammal, predators. "Slave" in Indigenous America does not mean slave in European sense. Qualitative difference. ^^^^^^^^ Basically it is Engels theory, but before the invention of agriculture. The change in the means of production is the invention of the bow. ^^^ CB: I see. I'll look up origin of the bow. ^^^^^ The surplus is the labor the used to spent on protecting against animals, plus the protein from hunting - which is very inefficient compared to foraging, but is still a surplus compared to the old diet where the men contributed even less. ^^^^^ CB: I'd guess here are some factual problems. ^^^^^^ And you get genderoppression, class oppression and national oppression of sorts all at once. Men have the weapons and reduce women to an oppressed class - even more so if they steal women from another tribe . Women are opressed both as a gender and as a class. But in addition, you have the opression of the other tribe/social unit driven out. So national opression. Also, if you take men slaves, or if there are men in the tribe who do useful work instead of becoming warriors - you have some men who are oppressed on a class rather than geneder basis, possibly even on a "national" basis. So you have at least three opressions occurring at once gender, race/nation/ class or caste. And the invention of war. ^^^^^^^ CB: Yes, interesting theory. Could be a precursor period that really goes further with surpluses of agriculture. ^^^^^^ How true is it? As I said, it is pure speculation and story telling; don't think it is possible to come up with valid hypothesis that far back, let along theories. But unless you can come up with known facts it contradicts, I don't think it is any worse than any other such speculations. ^^^^ CB: It's not all specualation, because archaeology can do things like tell the timing of the origin of the bow. Then the locations have or don't have other signs of gender and class oppression before or after the time the bow arises. It is not as completely speculative as one might think. Possibilities can be eliminated , even if affirmative statements can't be made. Thanks for your discussion.
