The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Friedrich Engels
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and the use of fire. Both these things belong together, because fish becomes thoroughly palatable by the help of fire only. With this new kind of food, human beings became completely independent of climate and locality. Following the course of rivers and coastlines, they could spread over the greater part of the earth even in the savage state. The so-called palaeolithic implements of the early stone age, made of rough, unsharpened stones, belong almost entirely to this period. Their wide distribution over all the continents testifies to the extent of these wanderings. The unceasing bent for discovery, together with the possession of fire gained by friction, created new products in the lately occupied regions. Such were farinaceous roots and tubers, baked in hot ashes or in baking pits (ground ovens). When the first weapons, club and spear, were invented, venison was occasionally added to the bill of fare. Nations subsisting exclusively by hunting, such as we sometimes find mentioned in books, have never existed; for the proceeds of hunting are too uncertain. In consequence of continued precariousness of the sources of sustenance, cannibalism seems to arise at this stage. It continues in force for a long while. Even in our day, Australians and Polynesians still remain in this middle stage of savagery.
3. Higher Stage: Coming with the invention of bow and arrow, this stage makes venison a regular part of daily fare and hunting a normal occupation. Bow, arrow and cord represent a rather complicated instrument, the invention of which presupposes a long and accumulated experience and increased mental ability; incidentally they are conditioned on the acquaintance with a number of other inventions.
In comparing the nations that are familiar with the use of bow and arrow, but not yet with the art of pottery (from which Morgan dates the transition to barbarism), we find among them the beginnings of village settlements, a control of food production, wooden vessels and utensils, weaving of bast fibre by hand (without a loom), baskets made of bast or reeds, and sharpened (neolithic) stone implements. Generally fire and the stone ax have also furnished the dugout and, here and there, timbers and boards for house-building. All these improvements are found, e.g., among the American Indians of the Northwest, who use bow and arrows, but know nothing as yet about pottery. Bow and arrows were for the stage of savagery what the iron sword was for barbarism and the fire-arm for civilization; the weapon of supremacy.
II. BARBARISM.
1. Lower Stage. Dates from the introduction of the art of pottery. The latter is traceable in many cases, and probably attributable in all cases, to the custom of covering wooden or plaited vessels with clay in order to render them fire-proof. It did not take long to find out that moulded clay served the same purpose without a lining of other material.
Hitherto we could consider the course of evolution as being equally characteristic, in a general way, for all the nations of a certain period, without reference to locality. But with the beginning of barbarism, we reach a stage where the difference in the natural resources of the two great bodies of land makes itself felt. The salient features of this stage of barbarism is the taming and raising of animals and the cultivation of plants. Now the eastern body of land, the so-called old world, contained nearly all the tamable animals and all the cultivable species of grain but one; while the western continent, America, possessed only one tamable mammal, the llama (even this only in a certain part of the South), and only one, although the best, species of grain: the corn. From now on, these different conditions of nature lead the population of each hemisphere along divergent roads, and the landmarks on the boundaries of the various stages differ in both cases.
2. Middle Stage. Commencing in the East with the domestication of animals, in the West with the cultivation and irrigation of foodplants; also with the use of adobes (bricks baked in the sun) and stones for buildings.
We begin in the West, because there this stage was never outgrown up to the time of the conquest by Europeans.
At the time of their discovery, the Indians in the lower stage of barbarism (all those living east of the Mississippi) carried on cultivation on a small scale in gardens. Corn, and perhaps also pumpkins, melons and other garden truck were raised. A very essential part of their sustenance was produced in this manner. They lived in wooden houses, in fortified villages. The tribes of the Northwest, especially those of the region along the Columbia river, were still in the higher stage of savagery, ignorant of pottery and of any cultivation of plants whatever. But the so-called Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, the Mexicans, Central-Americans and Peruvians, were in the middle-stage of barbarism. They lived in fortlike houses of adobe or stone, cultivated corn and other plants suitable to various conditions of localities and climate in artificially irrigated gardens that represented the main source of nourishment, and even kept a few tamed animals—the Mexicans the turkey and other birds, the Peruvians the llama. Furthermore they were familiar with the use of metals—iron excepted, and for this reason they could not get along yet without stone weapons and stone implements. The conquest by the Spaniards cut short all further independent development.
In the East, the middle stage of barbarism began with the taming of milk and meat producing animals, while the cultivation of plants seems to have remained unknown far into this period. It appears that the taming and raising of animals and the formation of large herds gave rise to the separation of Aryans and Semites from the rest of the barbarians. Names of animals are still common to the languages of European and Asian Aryans, while this is almost never the case with the names of cultivated plants.
In suitable localities, the formation of herds led to a nomadic life, as with the Semites in the grassy plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, the Aryans in the plains of India, of the Oxus, Jaxartes, Don and Dnieper. Along the borders of such pasture lands, the taming of animals must have been accomplished first. But later generations conceived the mistaken idea that the nomadic tribes had their origin in regions supposed to be the cradle of humanity, while in reality their savage ancestors and even people in the lower stage of barbarism would have found these regions almost unfit for habitation. On the other hand, once these barbarians of the middle stage were accustomed to nomadic life, nothing could have induced them to return voluntarily from the grassy river plains to the forests that had been the home of their ancestors. Even when Semites and Aryans were forced further to the North and West, it was impossible for them to occupy the forest regions of Western Asia and Europe, until they were enabled by agriculture to feed their animals on this less favorable soil and especially to maintain them during the winter. It is more than probable that the cultivation of grain was due primarily to the demand for stock feed, and became an important factor of human sustenance at a later period.
The superior development of Aryans and Semites is, perhaps, attributable to the copious meat and milk diet of both races, more especially to the favorable influence of such food on the growth of children. As a matter of fact, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico who live on an almost purely vegetarian diet, have a smaller brain than the Indians in the lower stage of barbarism who eat more meat and fish. At any rate, cannibalism gradually disappears at this stage and is maintained only as a religious observance or, what is here nearly identical, as a magic remedy.[6]
3. Higher Stage. Beginning with the melting of iron ore and merging into civilization by the invention of letter script and its utilization for writing records. This stage which is passed independently only on the Eastern Hemisphere, is richer in improvements of production than all preceding stages together. It is the stage of the Greek heroes, the Italian tribes shortly before the foundation of Rome, the Germans of Tacitus, the Norsemen of the Viking age.
We are here confronted for the first time with the iron ploughshare drawn by animals, rendering possible agriculture on a large scale, in fields, and hence a practically unlimited increase in the production of food for the time being. The next consequence is the clearing of forests and their transformation into arable land and meadows—which process, however, could not be continued on a larger scale without the help of the iron ax and the iron spade. Naturally, these improvements brought a more rapid increase of population and a concentration of numbers into a small area. Before the time of field cultivation a combination of half a million of people under one central management could have been possible