QUESTIONS ABOUT CAUSE
We do not yet know how and why this great revolution took place. We are only just beginning to put the questions properly. I suspect the answers will concern some delicate and subtle interplay between man and nature. Clearly, both the level of culture and the natural condition of the environment must have been ready for the great change, before the change itself could come about.
It is going to take years of co-operative field work by both archeologists and the natural scientists who are most helpful to them before the how and why answers begin to appear. Anthropologically trained archeologists are fascinated with the cultures of men in times of great change. About ten or twelve thousand years ago, the general level of culture in many parts of the world seems to have been ready for change. In northwestern Europe, we saw that cultures “changed just enough so that they would not have to change.” We linked this to environmental changes with the coming of post-glacial times.
In western Asia, we archeologists can prove that the food-producing revolution actually took place. We can see the important consequence of effective domestication of plants and animals in the appearance of the settled village-farming community. And within the village-farming community was the seed of civilization. The way in which effective domestication of plants and animals came about, however, must also be linked closely with the natural environment. Thus the archeologists will not solve the how and why questions alone—they will need the help of interested natural scientists in the field itself.