Hunters and gatherers {hunter-gatherer}| were nomadic, with some horticulture. Hunter-gatherer was the only society type before -10000.
hunting
Wood spears began [-33000]. Later, people used spear throwers. Later, they used bows and arrows. In hunter society, sharing kills with community members was common. Sharing reduced future risks to individuals.
life
Birth and death rates were high. Average life span was 20, but people lived to 35 to 40 years old if they lived past first year. Abortion and infanticide were common. Ill and old died when community moved.
tribes
Common language, culture, and name caused hunter-society informal associations. Tribes resulted from social fission.
villages
Hunters and gatherers had 40 people in villages.
classes
Hunting societies did not have a strong class system. Rulers had little power. Hunter societies had one headman, who was the best hunter, one shaman, and artisans. These positions were part time. Office of headman was hereditary in more than half of groups. Shamans healed, blessed hunts, protected against evil spirits, and punished enemies. War was rare.
law
Laws were few, with little private property. In hunter society, if people suffered injury, they and/or relatives took blood revenge. Punishment by community included loss of respect, ostracism, and banishment for serious offense. If people violated rituals, communities relied on supernatural to punish offender.
slaves
Hunters rarely had slaves.
kinship
Economic organization depended on nuclear and extended families, unless hunting and gathering were communal. Kinship patterns were important. Extended families helped people in hard times. Headman had two or three wives. People could divorce. Kinship was through males: brothers or father and his married sons. Exogamy with neighboring tribes opened more territory for migration and so increased food.
gender
Hunting, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities. Hunter societies had respect for old people, people with supernatural powers, people with skill in war, people with skill in hunting, kindness, generosity, good temper, and speaking ability. Only males received respect.
games
Hunters probably had few games.
religion
Hunters did not have one God but did have a main god. Religions were myths about world and man creation. Religion, magic, aesthetic reasons, and entertainment inspired art.
Tribes and farms {familistic society} depend on kinship.
Tribes {tribe, society}| have different evolution rates, customs, and change rates. Folk customs depend on ancient traditions.
Communities can have rigid hereditary classes {caste system} with different statuses. Classes {caste}| have roles. Social interactions are typically traditional and regular. Stable environments can form caste societies. If environments change, specialized caste societies continue.
Societies {maritime society}, typically on islands, emphasized trade and commerce. Maritime societies fished and had many boats. Maritime societies began -2000. Maritime societies were usually small republics. Merchants were more work oriented than other ruling groups, and they started more innovations.
Societies {fishing society} fished, were nomadic, and had simple horticulture. Fishing societies began 12000 years ago. They had no metal, no metal-working, small wood boats, few houses, no weaving, no pottery, and no leather.
villages
Fishers had 60 people in villages.
classes
Fishing societies did not have a strong class system. Rulers had little power, and wars were few.
slaves
Fishing societies often had slaves.
law
Private property was minimal. Laws were few.
gender
Fishing, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities.
games
Fishers probably had few games.
religion
Fishers did not have one God but had a main god.
Societies {herding society} tended sheep, ox, or goats. Advanced herding societies had horses or camels. Herding societies began 10,000 years ago. Advanced herding societies appeared 3500 years ago. Herding societies worked metal, worked leather, wove, had no pottery, had no boats, had no houses, and changed into conquerors.
villages
Herders had 60 people in communities and up to 2000 in villages.
classes
Herding societies did not have a strong class system. Rulers had some power. War was intermittent.
law
Private property and laws existed.
slaves
Herders often had slaves.
gender
Herding, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities.
games
Herders had games of physical skill.
religion
Herding societies usually believed in one active God.
Societies {horticultural society} cultivated plants. Simple ones used no plow and no iron and had no metallurgy. Horticultural societies began 9000 years ago. In simple horticultural societies, root crops grew around village. Villages did not link families or businesses, but they had trade and crafts.
Metal use began 6000 years ago. Horticultural societies usually did leather work and pottery, used seals, knew glazing, knew fermentation, and started orchards. Starting in late Neolithic times, horticultural societies had cattle, pigs, and ornaments.
villages
Villages had 100 to 300 people in communities and up to 6000 in villages. At first, villages had no defenses or walls, because wars were few.
classes
Positions were headman, chief, or shaman. Status depended on position, military skill, age, speaking ability, kin, and wealth. Strong class system was in advanced horticultural societies. Rulers had some power. War was intermittent. Advanced horticultural societies developed feudalism with two classes. One had warriors, priests, and nobles.
Warriors ruled society. Central authority developed, with administration and judges. Leaders favored their extended family and retained men with no family to serve them. King's brothers often revolted.
Priests controlled planting and harvest times. Only priests were literate and kept records.
Nobility was typically hereditary. The largest families became more powerful, as they accumulated wealth by taking most agricultural surplus, grew in number of men and retainers, had more children through polygyny, allied with or conquered lesser families, and learned ways to avoid revolts, feuds, and revenge.
law
Laws and private property existed.
war
Land became scarcer as groups grew and impinged on each other. War increased and led to war trophies, war poets, war singers, warrior cults, and ceremonial cannibalism. Confederations for defense began.
slaves
Simple horticulturists rarely had slaves. Advanced horticulturists often had slaves.
kinship
Kinship patterns were often through mother's relatives, because women cultivated. Kinship protected people from enemies, provided power for revenge, and organized economy.
gender
Men took several wives. Men had little to do, because women performed cultivation. Making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities.
games
Horticulturists had games of physical skill.
religion
Simple horticulturists did not have one God but had a main god. Advanced horticulturists usually believed in one god, who was not active in human life.
Societies {agrarian society} {agricultural society} cultivated plants, had metallurgy, and used plows. Agrarian societies had houses, pottery, leather, and weaving. Simple agricultural societies began 5000 years ago. Advanced agrarian societies appeared 3000 years ago.
grains
Agrarian societies grew cereal grains and typically had agricultural surpluses. Food increase allowed more people to live and allowed some people not to have to farm.
exchange
Agrarian societies first developed means of exchange. Wheat in Egypt and barley in Mesopotamia were the first means of exchange, because grains are preservable. Later, exchange used metal bars and coins. Means of exchange led to merchant class.
writing
Writing developed to keep economic records. Cuneiform writing used 600 to 1000 characters. Only nobles and rich learned how to write.
cities
Cities formed. Communities and villages had 3000 to 10000 people. Some cities had over 100,000 people by 2500 years ago.
classes
Advanced agrarian societies developed classes, from dichotomies between peasants and rulers, people in cities and villages, and literate and illiterate people. Urban people, literate people, and rulers merged into a superior class, with respect for war, skill, and information but contempt for physical labor. Rulers had strong power.
army
Advanced agrarian societies developed professional armies, with up to 5000 men, starting 4500 years ago. Military caste began. Armies sometimes used mercenaries. Kings controlled armies, who also acted as police. War was common.
bureaucracy
In advanced agrarian societies, king's household and retained officials and scribes formed a bureaucracy. Formal legal systems developed. There were many laws. Private property was a major concept.
slaves
Agrarian societies often had slaves.
games
Agrarian societies had games of chance, and later, games of strategy.
gender
Getting money, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities. In agrarian societies, men cultivated because they had the physical strength needed to plow. After harvest, men waged war.
kinship
In agrarian societies, kinship was through males.
religion
Religion was central to agrarian societies. Agrarian peoples believed in active gods. Gods created people to serve them, so they could have leisure to perform their activities. Humans were to supply gods with food, drink, and shelter. Priests mediated with gods, whom people can anger and who can cause ruin. In Egypt, pharaoh was god, but, in Mesopotamia, king was under god. Thus, religion motivated people to have and set aside surpluses, and governments imposed taxes to take part. Religion helped rulers get more surplus goods, to build things and to make war. Magic was part of religion.
Personal commitments {fealty}| between leader and follower, such as barons and vassals, can be bases for social organization. Medieval feudalism and fiefdoms depended on fealty.
Hereditary king and ruling class, 2% of people, controlled half or more total wealth and income {medieval society}|.
economy
Economies depended on ruler desires, in a command economy. Power and government helped gain wealth. People bought and sold government and religious offices. Kings were private owners of whole state {proprietary theory of state}.
politics
Rules of succession to kingship were clear, but frequent internal struggles happened.
church
Catholic Church owned 30% of European land. Clergy was a separate class, usually literate and well off.
cities
Cities were mostly political, religious, or commercial centers, not industrial centers. 1% to 10% of people lived in cities. In cities, trade and industry were 5% of ruler incomes.
Merchants mixed with ruling class and supplied them luxury goods. Merchants became wealthy. Families owned businesses. Artisans, 3% to 5% of people, had shops of 4 to 10 people that lived and worked there. Guilds began, but merchants, not artisans, controlled them.
Cities contained many servants. Thieves, beggars, prostitutes, injured, and unemployed were also in cities.
life
Sanitation was poor. Life expectancy was 20 to 25 years. Prevalent attitudes among people were fatalism and belief in magic.
primogeniture
Family wealth passed to first-born son at father's death. Primogeniture was necessary to keep family wealth and land large and powerful.
peasants
Peasants and people in cities were often too poor to marry. More than half of peasant production went to rulers, mainly through taxes, but also from rents, interest, tithes, and profits. Peasants typically had house, cooking utensils, no beds, stools, table, and chest. Peasants ate bread, cheese, and soup. Peasants had high birth rate, causing surplus labor. Plague, crop failure, war, and famine happened often and reduced number of peasants. Peasants received cruel treatment from rulers. Ruling family owned land and ruled peasants.
change: exploration
Exploration brought gold to Europe and caused inflation. Inflation favored merchant class and reduced hereditary-holding value. Inflation also caused agricultural revolution, as technology and money changed farming. In England, enclosure acts between 1750 and 1800 encouraged large farms.
change: Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation emphasized individualism, work, frugalness, honesty, and rationalism, as opposed to magic or traditionalism. It legitimized profit. City, merchant, artisan, and economy growth influenced Reformation.
Kingdoms {hereditary kingdom} inherit through family line and depend on status.
Industrializing societies {industrializing society} began when agriculture still dominated industry but used new energy sources besides wood, horses, people, water, and wind.
Industrial societies {industrial society} began before 1800.
life
In industrialized countries, productivity rose faster than birth rate. Birth rate typically declined compared to agrarian societies. Death rate decreased faster than birth rate decreased.
Children had different treatment. Education was good. Attitudes were more egalitarian.
cities
By 1800, 50 cities had populations over 100,000. Industrialized countries established communication systems. Cooperatives, labor unions, and professional associations formed. Managers, administrators, and specialists began. Local subcultures were typically submerged. Social-change rate increased. Industrialized countries often retained agrarian values.
cities: corporations
Industrialized countries had corporations. Corporations developed from joint stock companies in England [1550]. In England, corporations got limited liability [1800].
politics
Industrialized countries had large political parties, based on pragmatic goals, ideology, ethnic group, religion, or nationalistic aspirations. Industrialized countries had political conflicts, especially between classes. Political stability is greater if industry level is higher, government controls military, many associations exist, people have vested interests, and middle class is large. Governments tended to be large.
Democracy was the ideal. Some groups favored innovation, and some groups favored tradition.
war
War depended on new technology.
kinship
Kinship was not important.
religion
Religion became less important.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225